Art I Pre-AP. A class widely dominated by freshman students, especially freshman girls. All day long students take art classes to try and better their knowledge of art. To start off the year we have been assigned many different projects to give everyone in the class a base knowledge of art. We have begun with many different drawing exercises such as learning to shade a number of different objects with very different shapes. In order to be able to shade more complex items like faces and hands we started just by shading simple geometric forms.

Just like any other class, the projects and activities vary between classes. All of the different teachers have their students doing different things.

Freshman Caroline Keogh has had two major projects so far. “One project was a study on modified contours where we had the choice of drawing a still life, or a single object from five different angles. I drew a retro Coca-Cola bottle from five different angles. The next project was a self-portrait to help us learn all the elements of art, we had to draw our self-portrait six times, each time representing a different element of art, we are about to start a sculpting project and we are currently working on value scales,” Keogh said. In my class our projects have been a little different. We did the same self portrait book but instead of drawing an object from different viewpoints we have drew single object manipulated in several different ways. Right now we are working on contour line drawings of random objects, hands, and flowers.

One thing about the class really sticks out to me. What is the difference between regular Art I and Art I Pre-AP? Is there even a difference?

Freshman Suzanne Stevens thinks there is definitely a difference. “In Pre-AP art I think we move a lot faster though projects than regular art classes. I also think that the projects we do are more difficult and time consuming,” Stevens said.

High school art class is very different from middle school art. A lot of freshmen signed up for the class expecting a blow off class and a GPA boost. Those students surely had a rude awakening when they started the class.

“The main difference between high school art and middle school art for me is the detail. In middle school we could get good grades just for doing the assignments, but now they have to be very detailed and actually good art. Usually if you are productive during the class, you won’t have homework. Sometimes whenever we are working on a major project there is just no way to finish it all in class. If you listen and really try, the class itself isn’t that difficult,” Stevens said.