AP Concentration Ideas: 

 

Keep in mind-these are ideas from all art APs (Art, 2D & Sculpture). The best concentration is one that you feel strongly about and are interested in.  Look on the internet for visual ideas and themes. What speaks to you? I find that it doesn't matter how complicated or simple your concentration is...what matters is how well it is executed. Quality matters. 

 

Some Successful concentrations ideas used in AP Studio Art by students throughout the country in the past:

 

Abandonment of both places and people. Student works at a nursing home and some were of abandoned places.

 

Evolution of Illness: Student' s grandma had Parkinson's disease and so she

illustrated through photographic collage, stitching and writing the process of that illness on her grandma's memory, physical ability. Each image (portrait of

grandma) had a poem she'd written about the grandma interspersed. She printed images on silk organza and layered them with drawings that depicted anatomical body parts effected by the disease. The portrait became blurrier and blurrier with each image. (2D Design mixed media)

 

Identity: Hiding behind masks and other roles that we play, specifically women.  The student started out photographing people wearing masks, but eventually moved away from this and developed a broader interpretation of how we hide behind our roles as women "masking" who we are.

 

Illustrating a field trip to a historical farm emphasizing the antiques, tools, etc of the historical period. Painting friends in different historical time periods through costumes and settings. Each friend was illustrated in an era and costume that was their current passion like dance, acting, etc.

 

Series of work based on places a student visited that her deceased father had visited. She used mixed media...photography, collage, painting for a drawing portfolio.

 

Illustrating a story using an artistic style like fauvism.

 

Portraying events of short duration.

 

Painted abstractions derived from microscopic cellular structures.

 

Works inspired by a story about the first flower blooming on the site of the Cambodian "killing fields".

 

Life in celebrity culture: Voyeurism into other people’s humiliation, pain, weakness, and betrayal.

 

Society based on most efficiency: Explore the most efficient system for: living, food, education, birth, transportation, etc.

 

Oil pastel drawings of plant material juxtaposed with manmade objects.Abstractions derived from still lives of household objects.

 

Ink drawings based on photographic portraits.

 

The body as landscape.

 

Ugly (wasn’t so ugly at all – lots of mixed media and inspiration from Banksy)

 

Hands and feet

 

The skeleton/bones put into before and after situations

 

Unusual environments

 

Masks (interpreted – how do we hide?)

 

War (inspired by a Viet Nam Vet, but grew to all conflicts)

 

Large close‐ups of insects that evolved into very graphic interpretations

 

Light ‐‐‐what is light?

 

Wings – how do we fly?

 

Water theme. Water as metaphor

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Documentary style works of local veterans who fought in Afghanistan‐‐2D Design.

 

Fruits – from their growth on trees through picking, processing, selling and consumption by people

 

Self Portraiture in action (at play) from early childhood to later childhood with a focus on color and texture

 

Kitchen objects set up to represent cellular structures (in biology) with dramatic lighting and usage of color

 

Focus on Vermeer, setting up friends and relatives in the positions of famous paintings and drawings by the artist and then emulating the set ups in the students’ own work (dramatic natural light, models involved in daily routines)

 

Fauvist style landscapes of places that have meaning for you

 

Favorite book or poem illustrated in a specific style (exaggerated perspective)

 

Trip overseas for 2D design, creating posters, flyers, magazine covers to advertise the country (using photos that you have taken yourself)

 

Human influences on the environment, using photos the student took of aesthetically unpleasing human made structures (oil rigs, factories, etc.) Student then developed the photos and used them to do hand coloring, collage and experimental mixed media techniques, finding the beauty within the uglieness

 

Close Ups of machines – engine parts, factory machines, etc. combined with exaggerated 3D effects and specific usage of color (i.e. warm/cool, analogous, etc.)

 

Choose a particular artist/or style and emulate it, setting up your own people/objects/landscapes or abstractions

 

Animal shelter drawings

 

Self‐portraits with grid overlays/ variations within each grid.

 

Hands in various positions and media

 

Reflections on a variety of surfaces

 

Insects with a colorful and humorous viewpoint

 

Expressive landscapes painted using specific color schemes

 

Flowers, from realistic evolving to abstract

 

Flight shown in extremely technical drawings and paintings which included sinking helicopters in the jungle as well as birds on a wire, UFO’s over the southwest.

 

Winged Creatures‐ drawn in high detail‐moths , bats, bees

 

Landscapes from my route home from school.

 

Cultural costumes.

 

Children as consumers and advertising.

 

Effects on the American children (age 8 to 18) spending 7.5 hrs. per day using electronic devices.

 

Cultural heritage as a resource for exploitation. Instead of producing new works, past works are picked over, recycles, remixed regurgitated or repurposed.

 

Subject dealing with fake corporate and commercial meaning in our lives.The journey of fruit as it travels thousands of miles by plane and truck and emites 12 lbs. of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

 

Childhood overconsumption of “anything”

 

Altered books based on love gone sour, or other unique themes

 

Cultures ‐ began with ethnic cultures expanded to include tourists, homeless, etc.

 

Feathers

 

loneliness/estrangement

 

interpretations of famous Fairy Tales

 

micro views ‐ which become abstractions

 

body language

 

loss of father ‐ the missing person at seminal events

 

environmental consciousness

 

fabric textures

 

A cross country meet

 

Construction, based on photos of sites

 

Rear view mirrors

 

Glamorized 1940s jewelry

 

Barriers

 

members of my family through portraits of their feet

 

porches in my neighborhood

 

Seven deadly sins with the addition of her own 5

 

bareness (both literal and metaphorical)vegetables, or food in general

 

the dramatic figure (figures with theatrical lighting)

 

dance movements from different cultures

 

Idiosyncrasies (portraits revealing this in her friends)

 

smaller than normal size

 

an examination of what is real or mirage using faces and masks

 

illustration of a story about a girl building a sailboat, losing it, and buying it back

 

freedom of expression: what it looks like

 

portraits of the everyday moods of my dog

 

overcoming depression

 

trophy as empty compared to the fulfillment of running and playing soccer

 

resistance

 

Synthetic environment rivals nature as a driving force in our lives

 

Breakdown of community

 

Insecurity of social roles

 

Stresses of modernity and globalization

 

Chemicals in the air, water and food affecting our brains in unknown ways.

 

Digital rewiring of our brains in unhealthy ways

 

Noise used to be rain, wind and people talking, now it is roar of traffic, drone of fridge, buzz of monitor….and it is constantly being cranked up.

 

Stimulation addiction, or constant brain buzz (jog with earphones, sleep with iPhone, work with music, etc.) and its effect

 

Corporate advertising as large psychological experiment on human race: The average American receives 3,000 marketing messages per day. What is its impact?

 

Erosion of empathy, due to overexposure to violence, pseudo‐sex, rape, torture, genocide, etc. on prime‐time TV

 

Alice in Wonderland theme comparing parts of the story to a teenagers life;

 

Roller coasters and their structure turning it into abstract design;

 

The jungle versus concrete jungle‐starting with the jungle and inserting elements of the city life taking over the jungle.

 

Consequences of cultural homogenization or lack of diversity, e.g. same hairstyles, catchphrases, action‐hero antics, etc.

 

Experience of information overload, drowning in an endless stream of connectivity, or experiencing digital daze: Inability to concentrate, feeling foggy, anxious, and fatigued.

 

Compare one person’s worldly possessions throughout history or in different parts of the world (e.g. the shoes of Gandhi vs. the shoes of Imelda Marcos)

 

However, many 5's have also been achieved by addressing simple topics:

Bottles, Groups of Friends, Telephone Poles, etc.

 

Unsuccessful concentrations ideas used in AP Studio Art

* portraits of emotions

* people who shape me

* nature in general

* memories in general

* shocking viewers with the bizarre

* surrealism

* faces

* flowers

* eyes

* family and friends

* reflective surfaces

* illustration of inner thoughts

* moments I was happy

* self portraits

* music

* everyday life objects

* goddess/myth

* "different cultures"

* guitars

* reflections

* "ideas of beauty"

* dance