Freshmen artists, inspired creators and communicators, challenge themselves in honors class
Foundations in Art is a full-year honors level studio art course for incoming Warwick Valley High School freshmen who have expressed a high interest in the arts. The project-based course offers a wide-ranging curriculum that teaches students about fundamental techniques, art application, traditional art practice, theory, and the elements and principles of design. The class helps students develop their own unique style, and how to take a thematic approach to their work.
“Even as a freshman course, students can earn honors credit for the class, which is amazing,” said Foundations in Art teacher Nicole Sisco. “But being an honors level course, we also really push these students.”
The specialized and rigorous nature of the Foundations class tends to attract particularly invested and dedicated art students. In fact, many of them have already begun considering post-high school pathways in arts related fields.
“First of all, these students need to have a recommendation from their eighth-grade art teacher to even enroll,” said Ms. Sisco. “And then, this is an elective, so these are students who really choose to be here!”
From day one and throughout the year, Ms. Sisco helps the Foundations students reflect on important considerations for artists, such as what they are trying to do or say with their artwork, and how to best apply their skills of observation. This is one way in which the class aligns closely with our district’s Portrait of a Graduate, specifically the valuable traits of being a “creator” that it outlines. Creators use their imaginations to investigate answers to their own questions; to meet challenges with solutions that further their own learning. They are open to information from varied sources, and they share their ideas and feelings with others by interpreting and representing it in new ways.
“We think about things like perspective, about depth, about shadowing, highlights, and values. It’s all about building upon those basic, fundamental concepts of art,” Ms. Sisco said. “But we take a very thematically based approach. We work on solving problems creatively, and about how they can see art in the world, and then build upon what they’re seeing and what it’s in their own minds.”
While Foundations has a primary focus on drawing and painting skills, Ms. Sisco has tailored the class so that the students get to “try a little bit of everything” when it comes to experimenting in different media.
“The first drawing we did this year was a pencil drawing, and that was based on the Surrealist movement. We’ll also do a big canvas painting during the year; they’ll work in clay,” she said. “But for this project, we’re building on those drawing skills. They’re using pens, Sharpies, Micron pens, and learning how to create values with a tool that’s quite unforgiving. With pencil, you can go back and erase, not so much with ink.”
The current lesson has challenged students to create a triptych depicting a new realm born of their inner thoughts and imaginations. The guidelines call for panel one of the triptych to be an illustration of a key; panel two, the keyhole that provides a peek into the world; panel three, an open door into their new realm. The project calls on students to think conceptually, while also applying their skills in realistic drawing.
“It’s an exercise in working out how to draw from both real-world observation and from imagination combined,” said Ms. Sisco. As the project began, she shared this famous Rod Serling quote with the students for inspiration:
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas…”
“I also refer to the project as kind of an Alice in Wonderland situation, like the students going down a rabbit hole into this whole new world of their imagination,” she said. “It’s all about, ‘How can you make your imagination come to life?’ And, again, there must be a theme that goes all the way through, where you can clearly tell that this is the key to this new realm, opening that lock.”
In creating their imagined worlds, the Foundations students have addressed a wide range of subjects, including mortality and religion, two historically popular topics with artists. This gets to another area where the project aligns with the Portrait of a Graduate, and that is being a communicator. Communicators can connect with people who are both like and unlike them. They are open learners who can not only grasp broad ideas, but also distill and make them relatable to others. Like creators, many communicators often operate in the visual arts world.
“I think art is a big form of visual communication, and [the students] are creating things and sharing things and putting themselves out there in ways that can be pretty risky and daring,” said Ms. Sisco. “I think these pieces really communicate a lot about them. They’re expressing themselves and revealing a little part of what’s important to them.”
Valentina Prestigiacomo drew inspiration for her new realm project from her admiration of architecture, specifically old churches. She also enjoyed playing with the idea of cemeteries being places of mourning, while also appreciating their aesthetics. Valentina actually drew the final panel of her triptych first, an old brick church set behind rows of gravestones.
“First I drew the graveyard, then I added detail to the church in the back,” said Valentina. “I’ve always liked architecture, so I really enjoyed drawing the details in the gate and the bricks in the wall of the graveyard. [Graveyards] can be a sad thing, but they can also sometimes be cool in an artistic way.”
From there, she worked backward to draw the other two panels, which were inspired by a skull-adorned key she’d seen once. The first panel was the skeleton key, and the second was a skull-shaped keyhole. Altogether, the triptych is intended to evoke thoughts of mortality and the afterlife.
Aaden Ladka has been making art for as long as he can remember. He was delighted at the opportunity to hit the ground running with his high school art studies in the Foundations class.
“I just love art. Like… you feel free because you can do whatever you want,” Aaden shared. “You can draw whatever you want and, really, put your emotions into drawing.”
Aaden’s triptych was inspired by Halloween, and lurking within its scary and spooky elements is a larger story about people and the masks they wear every day.
“I was just trying to make it scary at first, but then I thought about how people don’t always show their true colors. You know, some people are different, or maybe they feel different from what they actually show,” Aaden explained. He pointed out the value and shading work he used to depict two shadowy characters amidst a crowd. “So, I tried to encompass in my artwork that these two people have pasts and dark stories that they try not to share with everyone else.”
Aaden and Valentina both know the inspiration and intentions behind their art, and also appreciate that interpretation is open to the consumer.
“I know, at first glance, people can take different themes from [my art], different than what I intended,” said Aaden, “but that’s the point! There’s perspective, and everyone’s perspective is different.”
The triptych project has also required the artists to do a lot of written reflection. At the end of each lesson, they look back on what approaches and techniques were successful and which ones were unsuccessful. It’s a way for them to process outcomes, journal their progress, and build upon what they’ve learned for subsequent lessons.
“The written reflections are very meaningful,” said Ms. Sisco. “We do them in their sketchbooks, and the students will often add little illustrations, small sketches, next to their entries. So they really become these great artist’s journals.”
Foundations in Art is one of nearly two dozen classes offered in Warwick Valley High School’s robust art curriculum. There are also extracurricular clubs and activities geared toward artists who want to dive even deeper into their artistic pursuits. Many of the students in Ms. Sisco’s Foundations class already say that they are looking ahead with excitement to their junior years, when they will be able to take the second art honors course, Portfolio & Art Careers, with Ms. Spano. You can read more about that class here!
We encourage you to keep an eye on our district announcements for opportunities this year to see our artists’ work at events both here at our schools and in the community.