Art IV

IB HL/SL

AP

Washington-Lee High School

Instructor: Kristen Ruble

Email: rublekl@vcu.edu

[Assignments]

[Student Online Sketchbooks]

[Current Exhibitions]

[Useful Links]

[Email]

Welcome to Our Online Classroom!

I'm looking forward to a new year with all of you, and I anticipate that it will go well! I'm excited to see and share in the artwork you are making. I hope that this will be an enjoyable time for all, where you can work amongst your peers, share ideas, critique each other's work, and help push each other to produce successful artwork and to achieve higher standards.

Although the IB and AP classes are independent study, that doesn't mean you should be an island unto yourself! Each class will be interactive. This website is designed to reinforce communication between all of you and myself, as well as to give you a chance to look at more art and to consider various aspects of it that you may not have pondered. The links to local exhibitions will be updated regularly, as will each of your online sketchbooks, allowing all of you the chance to become informed about area artists - even those in your own class.

Learning to communicate about your own art and that of others is extremely important, not only if you are considering a career in the arts, but to all of you. I am asking you to write about and discuss your art because it will help your communication and analysis skills, and it will help you to formulate your own ideas and be able to articulate the goals that you are pursuing with your art (this is especially emphasized in the IB Curriculum.)

Don't worry! I'm not demanding volumes from you, either in your artwork or in your writing. I know this is not your only class and that you have a lot to work on. This load should not be too much, so long as you work on it as you go and do not wait until the last minute to try and complete it! These classes are designed by each program to be sequential; you are intended to begin with one idea and to develop it, build on it, and expand that idea. You may wind up with something completely different than you began with - that happens a lot. You shouldn't necessarily be able to anticipate where you will be at the end of the year, but you should be able to follow a logical progression in your work. Others should be able to follow you through this journey as well. I will be doing that, and giving you feedback along the way. (The IB Examiner will try to do that in a day, when he looks at all of your work at once. He should be able to see a progression in your work over time. Also, learning how to discuss your work will help you immensely in this final examination.)