Area Schools

For last year’s Regional Schools exhibit, I focused on one image. This year, I decided to focus on one image from each school. Each school would get their own poster. (You get a poster! You get a poster! And you get a poster! … Yeah, it’s much better when Oprah does it.) It really goes against my belief that not everyone needs a participation medal, but when it comes to increasing foot traffic for and drawing attention to the arts, one must be flexible. It’s not up for debate.

The fun part of this is the hangers were inundated with art and I got the images at the last minute. However, since I had planned on following last year’s format, the foundation was set; I just needed to drop in the image. Unfortunately, the sender had tech issues, and the image quality prevented me from doing individual posters. I couldn’t enlarge the image without compromising it. So I made mosaic of images you see on the right. Best laid plans involve having a Plan B.

We did tickets for last year’s reception, same for this year, and although I had to drop a poster for each school concept, they did get their own ticket. This is also a neat way to see how many come from each school district.

I think my favorite is the dog. If I’m not mistaken, it’s a scratch technique. Your canvas is black and you scratch out the image. I know I would not have the patience to carry out something like that. At first, I didn’t know what to think of the paper sculpture (bottom right). The way I cropped it leaves an abstract face or mask. And the dragon in the center square is a whistle! (I want one.)

Now not to distract too much from the kids’ art, but keeping in mind that we are trying to push an exhibit, I did try to create some visual interest with the year and the exhibit title. I put the year in the background in a light grey, relegating it to kind of a watermark. The amount of white space below the mosaic is a nice contrast and your eye is drawn to the pertinent information.

A quick lesson about white space. Sometimes, you do not need to fill every crevice. Early drafts of this poster had each image in rounded rectangles or circles. I tried to create visual interest by staggering those blocks and circles, giving each their own personal space, and all that did was eat up the real estate I needed for the who, what, when, and where of it all.

Plus, the images by themselves are interesting; you don’t need to discombobulate things by trying to “artistically” arrange them, though I did place them alphabetically by student. Bottom line, I forgot to KISS … Keep It Simple Stupid.

Next week … I may have a final draft ready for William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead (a true and accurate account of the 1599 zombie invasion at the Globe Theatre).