Building Surfaces in AP Studio Art
Building Surfaces
Building surfaces essentially means that there is layering involved in your artwork. It means placing, painting, drawing atop each other, layering media, and experimenting. Something interesting about AP Studio is how much it values thinking outside of the box, and this is the first step to encouraging AP students to do just that.
When we encourage them to build surfaces, what we are doing is saying, “I encourage you to experiment, make mistakes, and use untraditional media. Get out the magazines, old. books, and broken down cardboard, and let’s get crazy!”
This can be liberating for some students, and daunting for others. For those for whom it may be daunting, breaking it down is really important.
Materials
Nontraditional surfaces on which students can paint, layer, and draw. Examples include cardboard, recycled paper, magazines, newspapers, vintage maps, collaged receipts…
Different kinds of paint (typically tempera, acrylic, and watercolor)
Assortment of pens and pencils
Slides Presentation
Slide 1. Image by Ed Fairburn
Slide 2 - Photo from student examples on AP Central
(1) Graphite on Wood Self-portrait, (2) Conway High School Art Project
