Welcome to the Art Room of Justin Kramer
North Lakes State College, Queensland, Australia
"There is no must in art because art is free." ~ Wassily Kandinsky
Exciting news!
Justin has moved to North Lakes State College, a P-12 school. He
teaches grades 6 and up.
Justin moved on to North Lakes State College in 2005 - it was
the first year that it opened its doors to middle school. Last
year was very successful in that they won two regional art
competitions with a huge prize pool that has supported an on
going artist-in-residence program. Students also walked away
with first prize awards. They were also successful in a $15000
grant for an artist in residence program to build a sculpture
with electronics in it out front of the school. Students are
also having their first public exhibition in a regional
gallery this year (2006). An artist contacted Justin last year and has
worked with students for an exhibition that goes for the whole
month of June (2006). Below are new works from North Lakes
College.
Hair Drawings - Year 8
Justin came across this lesson "Hair
Today" by Sandra Campbell at UIC Spiral Education. He
modified the lesson to use oil pastel and lead pencil instead of
the scratch board. The students had the back of their heads
photographed and developed their drawings using these as a
reference image. Students then developed a background for them
to be looking at. For the most part students selected
landscapes. Students enjoyed this lesson and it was successful
to reinforce observational drawing and avoid using symbols
systems, i.e. concentrating on the strands of hair, their length
and direction. Students were instructed to select a colour
scheme that communicates and informs the environment that they
drew them selves in.
This unit focuses on examining the elderly
face and representing it as a linoleum print. Students worked
with the elder portrait and simplified to a lino-cut design.
Students researched different lino cutting styles when
developing their own images. One of the student even entered her
preliminary sketch into a competition and won second prize in a
open division competing against much older students. The prize
was $150 plus art materials. She even then went on to sell it
for $300. This was brilliant for a Year 9 student. (Award
winning drawing was done for print top row - far right). This is
an end of year unit for Justin. He finds that it focuses
students during a very hectic time of year.
