hi modern art class this short video is
going to introduce your project
assignments that you'll have a few times
during the semester after every three
lessons in this class you'll have a week
where you take an exam that covers those
three lessons and you'll also do a
project you have options for your
projects your first option is always to
do a research essay you're also going to
have the option to do a visual project
and you're also going to have the option
to do a creative writing project no
matter which option you choose it will
relate in some way to the artists that
you just learned about in the lessons
that we studied the research essay
option is kind of what it sounds like I
asked you to do research on one of the
artists that we studied in the three
lessons before you do the project so if
it is project one you would be choosing
an artist that we studied any time
before project one the idea with the
research essay is that you research
artworks that we haven't studied yet so
let's say we were studying Picasso but
we only looked at five Picasso paintings
you would find two Picasso paintings
that we didn't look at and give some
extra information about those research
them using scholarly sources but also
involve your own interpretations and
opinions I have specific instructions
for this in writing of course but
essentially that's what you do you just
do a little bit of research and analysis
of a few artworks that we didn't study
in class but that are by one of the
artists that we did study it's a good
opportunity for you to learn more about
a favorite that you found the second
option that you'll always have is a
visual project the visual project is
kind of the same idea where you use it
to learn more about one of the styles or
the artists that we studied but for the
visual project I give you a list of
styles for example Impressionism cubism
Post Impressionism whatever styles we
learned during those lessons and then your assignment is to do your own version of
one of them so let's say we've been
studying Impressionism you could make
something inspired by Impressionism let
me show you an example here's um a piece
by a student in class and this is from
the Impressionism unit so we were
studying Impressionism and she wasn't
like an expert or anything like that but
she had some crayons and markers and
things in her house and she decided to
try doing the kind of
Impressionist brushstroke on so you see look
in the cloud here you see that
particular kind of brushstroke that
relates to what we were learning about
when we studied Impressionism during
that lesson and you make your artwork
and you don't have to be an expert in
any way it's fine if you're a beginner
and then you turn it in with the two
paragraph explanation that defines the
style that you're imitating and that
explains how you imitated it so even if
this came out terrible and it didn't you
know this came out really well but let's
say it was a complete disaster this
student would still be able to explain
to me what Impressionism was how she was
trying to imitate it so even if it
didn't come out I could still give her
credit for it because I could tell from
her explanation that she tried so uhm
it's definitely something that is designed
for beginners people who are just
willing to experiment with art here's
another example this was from the
surrealism unit this is a different
student and she did her own surrealist
drawing and in her explanation she
explained what the crow meant and what the
eyeball meant and why she did it but she
also defined surrealism and showed that
she understood it and showed that this
artwork related to it so just like the
research essay the visual project asks
you to learn more about something we've
been studying and then interpret it in
your own way so really the research
essay and the visual project you kind of
have to do the same things it's just a
different way of doing it the last
option is the creative writing option
for this one what you do is again do
research about the particular time
period or artist or style but then you
invent a kind of story so you'll
basically be writing a short story from
the perspective of either the best
friend of the artist like let's say
you're studying Van Gogh
so you could make up a story based on
Van Gogh is best friend and it doesn't
have to be a real person you could
invent it but you would do enough
research that Van Gogh's best friend
would be able to tell us a story about
Van Gogh that was historically accurate
and tell us what things would have been
like for him and explain who he was
another option is if you don't want to
do the best friend you can do a model in
a painting so let's say if a Picasso
painting has a particular woman in it
you could pretend you're that woman and
tell the story of that painting from her
perspective
so for the Creative Writing example it's
a short story you know you're making it
up but you're going to involve specific
facts that show that you understand the
time period and the artist I have
particular parameters for it which are
written down you can read them but it's
essentially um that you use ten
historically specific facts from
research and then you build your story
around that so for all of these options
option 1 2 & 3 research paper visual
project or creative project
oh sorry creative writing project you've
got specific instructions that you can
read in your blackboard class if
you look on the left-hand navigation
menu there's a section that says
projects just click on that and then
read the instructions even though you're
watching this video now you still need
to read the instructions because I have
specific requirements like how long it
should be what kind of sources to cite
how you should cite them and you have to
make sure to do all those things exactly
right so um you know once you've decided what to do be sure you also read the
written instructions did I say that
enough times read the written
instructions and that's it so good luck
on your project I'm looking forward to
seeing what you guys come up with
