Brief

Select your least favorite collage from the last assignment and destroy 80% of it. You may tear it, paint over it, burn it (but be careful), sand it down, or deface it in any way. You can destroy it piece-by-piece or with one grand gesture. Don’t worry about making it look good at this point. Just focus on eradicating things. Then you will go back into it and build it back up into a new composition—responding to what is left and adding to it. You may transfer it to a new piece of paper, make the work three-dimensional, or leave it on the original paper. You may use whatever mediums you want when you build up the new composition.

You have leeway in the colors and the type of composition you utilize. This is where you have some freedom to employ the appropriate tools (literal and figurative) you have.

Materials

• Whatever it takes

Deliverable

Upload your image of your completed composition to the Google Slides template (see link at top of the page) for this assignment under your name.

Grading

Assignment grades will be based on the following:

Aesthetic Principles (40%)

Student demonstrates evidence that they understand and inventively integrate aesthetic principles.

• Excellent: Student employs the aesthetic principles addressed in class to create work that is individual and engaging.
• Average: Student is able to rotely employ the principles addressed in class to create a standard project, but not make it their own.
• Below Average: Student struggles to demonstrate a grasp of the principles and shows no facility in internalizing the ideas.

Labor and Technique (40%)

Student works fastidiously to apply appropriate techniques to the project and shows a growing facility with those techniques. The student’s labor is evident and ample given the allotted time.

• Excellent: Student understands demonstrated techniques and nimbly employs them in their work.
• Average: Student makes some stylistic and technical mistakes by ignoring provided guidance.
• Below Average: Student repeatedly makes the same mistakes and ignores instructor input and suggestions.

Following Instructions (10%)

The student adheres to the guidelines provided for the course and the assignment. If the project has a particular framework, the student adheres to that framework. If an assignment is to be submitted on a Google Slide, the student does not email the instructor a JPG.

• Excellent: A detail-oriented student who takes instruction and fastidiously executes it within their work.
• Average: A student who misses some details because they didn’t read instructions thoroughly or take proper notes when instructions were given.
• Below Average: Student ignores basic instructions and guidance given for assignments.

Reflection (10%)

Student notes on critiques along with personal reflection on their projects show a growing sense of awareness of how their work can be received and understood.

• Excellent: Student diligently takes notes during critiques, noting the core concerns of the critics, and expresses their own views thoughtful and honest self assessment.
• Average: Student’s critique notes address only surface concerns and/or their own self reflection writing is hurried and vague.
• Below Average: Student does not take good notes and their self assessment is incomplete or dishonest.

On-time Submission

Work that is not present for a synchronous critique, or is too late for an asynchronous critique will lose points under the Reflection category for not having notes from the critique.

Why?

Rigid assignments can be easy because they eliminate decisions. It can be difficult to make choices and decide how to proceed when you have more free reign. It can also be hard to let go of a project that represents your hard work. This project is designed to help you grow as an autonomous artist, and break free of just being a student.

Learning Outcomes Addressed

Spatial Skills

Students will be able to generate, organize and communicate ideas in two-dimensional space using basic principles of color and composition.

Technical Skills

Students will be able to employ various digital and analog techniques to realize and evaluate aesthetic compositions.

Aesthetic Sensibilities

Students will be able to create two-dimensional compositions of varying sensibilities and articulate their appreciation of others’ art.