Abstraction of Reality Lesson Plan

Teacher: Yadira Toledo
Age: 16-17 Grade Level: 11th
Title: Abstraction of Reality
Brief History:
· Abstraction is the process of reducing the information content of a concept, typically in order to retain only information which is relevant for a particular purpose. For example, abstracting a leather soccer ball to a ball retains only the information on general ball attributes and behavior. Similarly, abstracting an emotional state to happiness reduces the amount of information conveyed about the emotional state.
· Abstract Expressionism is a type of art in which the artist expresses himself purely through the use of form and color. It non-representational, or non-objective, art, which means that there are no actual objects represented. example of an abstract painting.

On White 2, 1924, by Kandinsky

Goals: Students will be able to
1.Dissect from an image and produce a big piece from that
2.Take risk and deal with their decision.
3.Scan original image and use Photoshop.
4.Take something simple and make it complex
5. Produce crisp and detailed images

Teacher’s Prep Materials
*Slides show of painting
*Books on abstraction
*Teacher’s work
*Computer lab and Photoshop

Teaching:
Introduce the concept of using Abstraction in their photographs. Discuss the ways we can do this on the computer with Photoshop. Demonstrate how to cut a piece of chosen and image and building from just that square. Introduce new vocabulary words and go over the ways of changing filters.


Directions:
1. Scan in image that will be used for assignment
2. Using the crop tool pick the part of the image that will be used as abstraction.
3. Begin to experiment with shapes colors and filters.
4. When satisfy with image save as a jpeg to your hard drive
5. Print out finish piece.
6. Begin to write the steps taken to get the finish product in journal.
Extensions:
Produce another piece.

Closure:
Save everything on hard drive and in the class folder on computer. Put paper in portfolios.
Time Budget: 3o minutes a class for a week
Assessments: At the end of the class there will be a critique and everyone will project their image in the computer lab. All students will should original piece and transformed piece.

Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/abstract-expressionism.html
http://www.reviewpainting.com/Basil-Blackshaw.htm
http://www.pigment-digital.net/
http://www.photo.net/

Student reaction to assignment.