Ballard High School
AP Drawing Summer Assignment

Ballard HS AP Drawing Teacher
Contact: Mr. Harkleroad msharkleroad@seattleschools.org
Students! You can also pick up an AP Drawing Packet in the BHS Main Office during the summer hours.
Note: Students are not assured a place in an AP class until they receive their schedule in September.

Elements & Principle Deck –
Summer Assignment 2024-25

This assignment should be completed for the first day of class in September. You will receive a grade for your summer work. AP Studio Art requires a significant amount of time outside of class to meet the requirements of the AP program. Be prepared to spend 2-5 hours a week during the summer and 6-8 hours a week during the school year.

Below is the list of the elements and principles of design that the College Board will hold you responsible for showing mastery of in your portfolios. Note that some of the elements and principles are slightly different than what you may have studied with me or in other classes. 

Summer Assignment: Illustrate 7 Elements of Design Through 8 Principles

For your summer assignment, you will illustrate how each of the 7 elements of design might be expressed through each of the 8 principles of design, for a total of 56 illustrations.

Examples

• How will you use the element line to express the principles contrast or movement?
• How is the principle of proportion expressed differently using the elements of color or space?

Please, in some way, label each illustration.

Your project can take the form of a deck of cards. If you prefer, you may create a small book or use another format. However, I suggest keeping them small.

You may use any media or materials that you would like. Craftsmanship and creativity count! 

Be creative! But be succinct!  Let your knowledge, understanding and personal artistic voice come through in your project.

Included on the following page is a thumb-nail chart that you can use for planning and brainstorming. It is not intended to be used in your final project.

You can use the thumb-nail chart below to plan and brainstorm your illustrations.

Principles/ Elements	Contst	Prop	Emph	Bal	Unity	Variety	Rep	Move
Line
Shape
Value
Color
Space
Form
Texture

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Lab Fees (10 Points) Due Friday, Sept. 27, 2024

Please return this sheet read and signed by a parent/guardian to receive these points.

Dear Parents and Guardians,

According to new school regulations, we are no longer allowed to “charge” a lab fee for students taking AP Drawing. However, there is still no funding allocated to run a AP Drawing program. For this reason, I am strongly encouraging all students taking AP Drawing to consider making a “donation” of $30/ semester or $60 for the entire year to the Art Department. Over the past few years, the cost of many of the supplies that we use for AP Drawing has gone way up and there is simply no way that we can run a AP Drawing without your donations.

Also, if it is at all possible, I am asking families who are financially able to consider sending more than the minimum $60 donation. Your donations will not only go towards the purchase of supplies, but will enhance your child’s learning experience in AP Drawing, and afford us the ability to continue our program.

You may pay your donations by check (made payable to Ballard High School) or it is now possible to Pay Online! Visit the district’s Parent school portal, the Source and select the SchoolPay link (available mid-August 2024.)

Return Signed Form and Donation By Sept. 27

Return this page with your lab donation ($30/semester or $60 for the entire year) by: Friday, September 27, 2024.

Student Name:

I (name of student):
On month, day 2024, have read and understand the rules, policies, and information contained within this document.

Parent/Guardian Name:

I (name of parent/guardian):
On month, day 2024 have read and understand the rules, policies and information contained within this document.

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AP Drawing Syllabus

Advanced Placement Drawing

AP Drawing offers students a college level studio experience while still enrolled in high school.  Students will spend the school year compiling a portfolio of work through class and homework assignments that explore various aspects of drawing and may be submitted to The College Board in early May next year.

Materials for AP Drawing

Students will have access to a full range of media and materials in the classroom. The teacher makes frequent shopping runs to the art store and hardware shop and invites students to make requests for materials that might be outside what is normally stocked, in order to provide the widest opportunity for experimentation and experience. Monthly class trips to the school library to research and procure images and information will be conducted to help students maintain creative momentum and a rich source of inspiration. Cell phone cameras and digital cameras are also available for documentation and creation of artwork. Students also may use personal or District provided computer software to edit their images, access research, upload electronic portfolios (web pages), conduct critiques (Schoology Discussions), and for support of their portfolio development. A Digital Classroom projector with a large screen will be used for demonstrations, critiques of artwork and to collaborate with peers in viewing and discussing works of art and design.

AP Drawing Assignments

Throughout the year, students will practice, experiment, and revise their artwork and submit it for critique.  This will demonstrate growth of drawing skills, eventually resulting in a portfolio. For each sustained investigation entry, students are required to identify, in writing, materials, processes, and ideas used to make works of art and design. Their writings will also include reflections on experimentation and/or practice techniques, concepts, materials, artists and/or art movements that might pertain to and provide insight into their sustained investigations. This takes place in their sketchbooks which act as documentation of their artistic progress. Assignments will be due every other week. The most successful artworks will be used for critiques, demonstrating effective choices in elements of art and principles of design and production of created works. Critiques with peers in large and small groups will explore describing, interpreting and studying ideas and processes. Students should be prepared to explain how each assignment addresses research and development toward their particular focus of inquiry in drawing both verbally and in writing.

Concepts That Will Be Explored

• In depth exploration of the elements and principles of design and how the relate to each other
• Exploration of abstract composition in which composition is primary and subject matter is secondary
• Academic still life in which the student’s ability to portray light and shadow in a convincing way is evidenced
• 3-4 layer, large scale blind contour drawings in which students are challenged to let go of preconceptions of what should happen, connect strongly with what they see and “dance” with outcomes in order to create a finished work of art
• Exploration of non-traditional art materials to create a finished work in which the technical and compositional quality of the image is not compromised
• 10 media of students choice, 7 traditional and 3 non-traditional, in which the students explore issues of coverage, value scale, history and meaning, in writing, materials, processes, and ideas used to make works of art and design.

The Sketchbook

The sketchbook is an important and required part of AP Drawing. Students will include written art statements using proper art vocabulary to communicate their ideas through story boarding, sketches, and/or writing. In the sketchbook, students will document sources of inspiration, or work made by others, that have informed their own thinking and creating. They will also record thoughts and experiences, as well as notes of teacher, peer and group critiques, as a means of reporting their process in research and investigation. This will demonstrate an understanding of integrity and what constitutes plagiarism through showing a conscious development of their own work to move it beyond duplication of the referenced work. In the sketchbook, the student will describe, in writing, how their sustained investigation of art and design shows evidence of research/inspiration, practice, experimentation, and revision led by guiding questions. A major portion of their work must be related as a sustained investigation into an identified topic/question.

Grading

Selected final works will be graded.  All selected final images must be in digital format to be graded.  Students will include dimensions and titles for each work, as this is information needed for submission to the College Board. Evidence of inspiration, development, and originality, as noted in the sketchbook, will also be a component of grading.

Critiques

Critiques are an essential part of the class; they will be scheduled twice a month as part of the AP Drawing course. 

Critiques will begin the Friday before the Monday critique with students writing in response to the following prompts:

1. 1. Briefly describe your sustained investigation. What is/are your guiding question(s)?
2. For this artwork, what artistic choices are you making to support you SI? Please go beyond simply describing the image. Talk about how things like color scheme, mark making, choice of materials, composition, etc. are working to support your SI.
3. Please describe specifically what is going well so far.
4. Please describe what you’re struggling with. Come up with 2-3 questions to help guide the feedback that you receive from your peers.

These written thought organizers will help student get clearer about communicating their intentions, allowing for deeper feedback and interactions. Conversations with peers discussing thoughts and ideas, while describing, interpreting, and investigating materials and processes is an important part of students’ growth. Students participate by showing their work in class and discussing ideas and process.  The critique should be approached as a positive means of discussing art and help the student become a more professional artist while also generating possibilities for investigation in their work.

Each critique session will end with students writing notes into their sketchbooks based on the feedback that they received and heard during the critique of other student-artists. Students will then reflect and write a brief revision plan, outlining how their intentions have or haven’t change and how they will proceed based on the feedback that they received. Students will have daily discussions and demonstrations of artmaking with their peers and instructor. Students will practice the use of art vocabulary applying the Elements of Art and Principles of Design to communicate their ideas.

Artistic Integrity, Plagiarism, and Copyright

The College Board statement is read to students and required in their journals:

“Any work that makes use of (appropriates) photographs, published images, and/or the work of someone else must show substantial and significant development beyond duplication. This is demonstrated through manipulation of the materials, processes, and/or ideas of the source. The student’s individual vision should be clearly evident. It is unethical, constitutes plagiarism, and often violates copyright law simply to copy someone else’s work or imagery (even in another medium) and represent it as one’s own.”  

Understanding of these concepts will be in the documentation evidenced in each student’s journal. The understanding of plagiarism is practiced throughout the class, and visited in all produced photographs, discussions, research, and investigations. Students are shown examples of appropriation used well and not well. This is discussed with examples of past violations. Plagiarism is not tolerated.The relevance of 21st Century Skill: “The Arts Reveal Who We Are” is emphasized in the class as an important part of expressing the student’s personal vision. Students are encouraged to work from their own life experiences, their personal study of the world around them and to express their vision in an independent and creative way.

Sustained Investigation/Selected Works

This Sustained Investigation section of the AP Drawing Portfolio offers students the opportunity to make and present works of art and design based on an in-depth investigation of materials, processes, and ideas done over time. Students should understand that creativity and quality mean risk-taking. Sustained Investigation is work united by a single guiding inquiry. It involves practice, experimentation, and revision using materials, processes, and ideas. The work process must be documented, usually in sketchbooks. The Sustained Investigation section is expected to demonstrate skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas over the course of 15 works.

Works from the Sustained Investigation section may also be submitted in the Selected Works section, but they don’t have to be. For Selected Works, five works are chosen by the student as exemplars of the student’s ability to show mastery of drawing.

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School Year 2024-25 Assignments / Timeline

September – November 2024

September-November: expanding boundaries and comfort zones in preparation for sustained investigation.

• Abstract composition
• 3-4 layer large scale blind contour drawing
• Academic still life
• Non-traditional media
• Minimalism
• At this time students will reflect upon and identify, in writing, questions that will guide a sustained investigation through art and design, committing to a topic/starting point, establishing overarching question, and develop further into several sub-questions.

November – April 2024-25

November- April: the “deep dive”, ongoing research, exploration and development of the sustained investigation portfolio, with the following flexible routine/structure:

• Sketchbook: research, reflect, write, sketch, collect, experiment, practice
  • to specifically include student chosen artist and art movement
• Begin developing artwork
• Submit artwork/work-in-progress for critiques on Schoology/whole class critiques/ small group critiques
• Take feedback, reflect and revise where appropriate
• Complete artwork
• Repeat
• Occasionally stepping back to re-evaluate the trajectory of the sustained investigation and making alterations/ revisions, where appropriate
• Students are expected to complete their entire sustained investigation by the end of April to ensure time to properly curate and submit their portfolios in May.

May – June 2024-25

• Digital submission/ completion of portfolio
• Memory Project
• Possible field trip, tba
• End of year AP show