Post AP Art: Hand Paintings

Currently hanging on the first floor of the Hess Center for Arts is the Post-AP Studio Art class 's most recent art project entitled, “Hand Paintings.” Spanning the course of several weeks, students engaged in a thoughtful process of learning how to transfer the intricacies of the human hand onto paper. The “Hand Paintings” centers around the illustration of the human hand, aiming to represent a variety of themes such as time, broken promises, or friendships. As the second major fall-term assignment in the Fall Term for the Post-AP class, this project allowed students to begin working from direct observation and later expand upon them with their own ideas. Visual and Performing Arts Teacher Mercedes Taylor, who assigned the project, emphasized that her main goal was to teach the students the importance of process in creating art. “When you see a "nished piece, you know, it’s hard to see all the work that has gone behind, from beginning to think of an idea and having a conceptual layer," she said. Starting from lessons of simply observing one’s palms, Mrs. Taylor directed students to focus on the various shapes and contours that make up the human hand, challenging them to synthesize the way they see the composition of space. Later on, students expanded their range of inspiration as they started to engage with works of di$erent artists such as Käthe Kollwitz and Charles Wright, analyzing the way these artists use hands to express emotions, implementing these techniques to works of their own. When starting the drawing phase, Mrs. Taylor urged her students to focus on the question: “What do you want your hands to express?” Stemming from this inquiry, they developed their sketches into pieces of art that aligned with their creative ideas. Students in the class experimented with ideas ranging from familial relationships to the portrayal of time, sometimes combining the two. Allegra Sandell ’27, a student in the class, described her piece as a coming of age story. “#ere is a mother’s hand holding on to the hand of a baby in the bottom of the painting, and then an adolescent hand reaching for a stopwatch that is being held onto by an older hand.” Although these paintings focus primarily on the use of charcoal and pencil graphite, Mrs. Taylor hopes that students can still wrestle with artistic choices within this drawing medium. “Once they go through the lessons of drawing hands, seeing the works of other artists, and then practicing," said Mrs. Taylor. "You are driving the ideas and the composition. You are deciding which materials to use.” She further explained that “students are now independent and also feel they own their work.” Coming from the precursory AP studio art class, these students are very experienced with how to use graphite and charcoal, especially on smaller pieces. Upon re%ection, Sandell shared that the most technically challenging aspect of this project was technical – capturing the nuanced details of the human hand was demanding, saying, “it was challenging to draw all the little details on a hand because there are so many small pieces. Speci"cally shading and making the wrinkles on the hand look as realistic as possible.” Mrs. Taylor hopes that the students walk away from the project with a&rmation that they can "nish anything they set their mind to. Upon starting this project, students were stepping into new territory, challenging themselves beyond their comfort zone. “#ey have some ideas, they have the tools, but they don’t know exactly from where they start and where exactly they are going to "nish,” said Mrs. Taylor. #rough this assigm,, students had to learn how to manage these uncertainties and how to stick with their ideas every step of the process. Upon completion, these hand paintings became an addition to students' art portfolio. Mrs. Taylor expressed her hope that students will carry this mentality in future art projects, and re%ected on the purpose of building art portfolios. She said, “#roughout the years, we build art portfolios so that they can go back to those portfolios and say, 'I did it once, I can do it again," said Mrs. Taylor, who hopes students carry thi smentality in future art projects.