AP Art History Final Project

Today is the last day that my new AP Art History class will meet......and I am MISSING it!  Lydia got sick on Saturday night and then spiked a high fever last night, too late to call for reinforcements, so I am spending another day on the couch watching kids cartoons with her.  Today is the day we normally clean up the art room, and missing it means my stuff is definitely not getting really really clean, and I fear that the kids will create a bigger mess to be dealt with by me later.  Ugh!

It also means I am not able to show the AP kids the 11 minute video I made from their final project.  So dissapointing.  At least I did get it on You Tube last night, but the music was left off for copywrite issues, so it just isn't the same.  I wanted to bring in pop corn and celebrate one last time with this great group of kids.  Oh well.  I will just brag about them on the blog instead, I guess.

The AP test was a few weeks ago, so after that I needed something for the kids to do until school ended.  We divided them into small groups and had them each choose an artwork to re-create (alla Gilmore Girls and the Living Paintings Episode).  I had them make a title card and take a group picture first.  Then most groups had to paint the background, choose actors, and plan costumes and props.  American Gothic was put together by Krystal, Lenny, and Serena, with Claire stepping in to pose as the old lady.

While they worked I took lots of still photos so that the video has a stop motion feel to it, where you see the painting coming out of the background.  While that is hapening, I selected a song to play behind the images.  The American Gothic painting had "Little Pink Houses" by John Meloncamp as the song.

This was my largest group.  Alex, Will, Christian, Ashley, and Brandee, actually needed one more actor, Josiah, to re-create Jaques Louise David's Oath of the Horatti.  It is a French Revolution, Neoclassical paintin all about taking uparms to fight for your cause.  The song I found for it was called Blood Brothers, by Bruce Springstein, and it just fit the mood of the painting.  Too bad You Tube won't play it!

This all girl group re-created a bloody painting by one of the few famous Baroque women artists, Artemsia Gentileschi's Judith Beheading Holofernes.  Alesha, Emma, Megan, and Michah even added the details of the extreme high contrast shadows and brought in Max to be their murder victim.  In the video, there should be the Eurythmics, Sisters are doing it for themselves playing in the background.

Sija and Cora tackled the Pieta by Michelangelo.  Re-creating marble proved difficult and their grey paint got a little too dark.  Unfortunately we weren't able to determine that until it was too late, but they were good sports about it.  I can't seem to find my picture of the Pieta, but you get the idea.  There music wa some song by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

My other large group, Josiah, Riley, Emmy, Clair, and Hannah took on a famous mosaic from Revenna showing Emperess Theodora and followers.  Talk about a challenge! They even used small squares of paper to get a mosaic feel.  because it is a religious work hanging in a church,I used Billy Joel's Keepin' the Faith in the background.

So that was my class and this is their project.   am attching the you tube clip below, but bear in mind it should have awesome music that has been perfectly timed to coordinate playing in the background!

Oh, one last painting, the kids started saying that I should do a painting and had LOTS of suggestions for images that could feature Lydia.  Unfortunately, I did not have 2 weeks of class time and an entire group to work on it.  So I took the easy way out with a Mary Cassatt portrait of a girl who kind of looks like Lydia.  I had enough trouble getting her to put her head into the picture without knocking it down that I think I earned my place in the video.

Speaking of the video....