Albright Knox Field Trip and Post Visit Art-Making Experiences

The experiences the students have outside the classroom are just as important as those they have inside the classroom.  That is why I try to get my students to galleries and workshops on field trips as often as possible.  As you can see in the photographs, one of the most beneficial experiences the students have had this year was a field trip to the Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo. The preparation activities as well as the post visit art making experiences the students engaged in were more valuable than any PowerPoint presentation or website visit ever could be.  

Attached you will see the pre-visit activity given to the students and two post visit projects as well.  Also shown are samples of the artwork created by the students in the Advanced Drawing and AP courses.  They were asked to further research an artist they found interested from their visit and create an artwork that served as a "visual dialogue" (demonstrates their personal reaction to the artwork in a visual way).  The artwork was incredibly diverse and exciting.  Through their research about the artist and their personal art making, they developed their own responses to and opinions of the work and engaged in art making on a whole new level.  

Images of their visit to the gallery and their personal post visit artwork can be seen here.  Also below you will see links to the documents and assignment sheets used for this unit.