Landscapes (Part 2) - Grey blocking

 We did part one, so students are starting to feel the "I can do this" vibe, so let's bring in composition and original ideas. 

Our second mini-lesson is one I started my Traditional drawing class with as well. This is a great sketchbook practice project that gets kids thinking originally without overthinking composition.  We build on the foreground middle ground background we started with in part one, we also apply the idea of aerial perspective, but now we're starting to think more about overlay, and proportion. 

Start with a piece of paper or a digital project 8x10 in 300 dpi. (this is a practice project so it does not need to be very large.) Split it into at least 4 parts. In my traditional drawing classes I often encourage more squares, and to fill as many as they can in a time decided time frame. 

Start with the foreground and make it black, then move into the middle ground and have it be dark grey, then do the background in light grey. The first iteration of this will make something very basic, but as students keep making them they realize they can add whatever they want and the black dark grey light grey becomes the color-blocking backdrop for more details. 

The result is a very satisfying sketchbook page and I have often had a student just clip one out of the project and use it as the sketch for their final assignment. 

Here are a few examples of what this looks like in the professional digital drawing space. 

Here is a video of instructions for the physical version of this thumbnail composition landscape exercise. 

Teaching font (My Mini Assignment)

 Teaching font can be an incredibly frustrating subject in design because it is tedious, and there are so many factors. Students need to practice intentionality, a skill most teenagers try very hard to avoid. 

So to get them ready for the "big" font assignment I start with two mini lessons that help Let them practice these things in Formative assessments. 

A couple videos I like for getting the message across. 

Mini assignment 1: Words on Pictures (dumb name bear with me)

This assignment has a very fast critique at the end of the assignment, I just read through all the images and decided if they were successful or not matching the text to the quote and the image. Some of them are pretty funny, but they soon realize that many of them didn't quite meet the requirements, so as a group we talk about the common problems we see and what we could do to fix them. 

These are not student examples but they are examples I showed the students before we started. The kids then make their own versions. 

Requirements:

1. Choose a quote 

2. Choose an image

3. Choose a font from a website (cannot be one that is just available on Photoshop) 

4. Put them together with the correct color and size to fit the image the best they can. 

Mini Assignment 2: The calligraphr lesson (Not spelled incorrectly) 

Calligraphr is one of my favorite tools I found on the internet as of late and it beautifully and immediately shows students the anatomy of font. you can choose your template and what letters you want included you print your template and then you have the students make their very own font. It can be decorative or I also just let them make a font of their own handwriting. 

 Cralligraphr Website

 template example

Then I take their worksheet run them through the scanner, and share the google doc. they then find their font and we use the Calligraphr website to turn that final image into and actual text you can download and type with. 

These two lessons are quick and easy, keep them busy, and show instant results when preparing them for the final font design. They create a new font with a clear purpose and then use it in a scenario. 

Hard Editing Vs. Soft Editing

When I started the first photo assignment I noticed students struggled with knowing when the editing went too far. There is a time and place for both styles, but I did require all photos to be at least soft edited. 

So in this assignment, practice finding that line and when and where is the time to cross it my more intense edits for your pictures. 

We start will a lesson where we talk about the "looks" soft editing VS. Har editing. As a general rule I say soft editing a person should think, "Wow look at that great picture." in Hard editing a person look at the image and say, "Wow, look at the editing in the picture." In hard edits Photo shopping become the star of the show. 

Assignment:

2 different photos of still life top shots 
2 Different photos of Controlled light 
2 different photos of foreground disrupted photos 
2 Black and White Photos (both just in black and white no hard editing required)

Expectations:
all photos must be edited
all photos must be original
all photos must be take for this project (do not turn in a old photo you like from a year ago)
all photos must be exported as jpgs (no screenshots or photos of your screen)
all photos must show intentionality and purpose

Examples of student work from this year.

Soft Edits:

Hard Edits:

My recent AP Hack

As you may or may not know AP made some big changes to the Portfolio requirements before the pandemic. I went to the AP training and with respect to the lovely instructors, it was not informative. 

Their Goal: Make the portfolio more inquiry-based. Make the student focus on an essential question, that culminates in a themed portfolio. They want to focus on the synthesis of materials, revision, research, and experimentation. 

With that being said one of the big things they wanted to see was evidence of research and sketches. As a digital art teacher, My students are not usually making large amounts of sketches. So what I have been doing for research and revision is using Canva. 

Canva for research:

 

Students can share their inspiration, state a color palette, show sketches, show past work and demonstrate revisions. it creates a really easy and aesthetically pleasing way of doing research.

This also will work for tradition art classes. Students can upload work in progress inspiration and revision. I found last year that the students that added revision and sketches in a collage format did better on their portfolio by an entire score level. 

Elements of Design and Teaching Photoshop to beginners.

 At the beginning of Digital Design, I try to get my students into Photoshop while also building a portfolio. So I do the elements unit. I created 4 easy elements designs while also teaching basic techniques essential in PhotoShop and then we ended with an illustrator lesson. 

Here is my PowerPoint that I slowly go through before each new Element:

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFs1QSn0rw/RM_DqW8WxmEmHEymd7DaMA/view?utm_content=DAFs1QSn0rw&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=editor

We created each of these over a few weeks, we did not critique them individually, but instead once everything was finished we used these projects to act as the building blocks for their portfolio website. (Spoilers we using blogging websites to let them document their work and progress)

I hope you enjoy our lessons.

Photoshop tutorial for Color:

Student Example: 

Pixlr Tutorial For Shape and Space: It is not in Photoshop but the concept is the same. Also, I do like to diversify the program students are getting everyone in a while, so they have other alternatives if they are sick or we have to distance learning. 

Student examples:

Illustrator tutorial for Form:

Student Examples:

Photoshop Tutorial for Line:

Student examples for line:

The student did a great job and I was super impressed with the results of their very first project. 

How I teach digital drawing landscapes (Part 1)

  Landscapes are a huge lesson, and you can literally spend your entire career as an artist focusing on landscapes, in fact, there are entire art periods just focused on Landscapes... So how do you teach a group of new artists to draw a giant art style while also learning how to use digital drawing for the first time?

Well, I don't have the perfect answer but after teaching this class for 6 years, I have finally found a formula that has garnered the most successful results. 

We start with a mini-lesson. Here is the video of the tutorial. This minimalist landscape project is nice for two reasons: it gets kids to think in terms of aerial and 1-point perspective, while also completing an "easy win" project. If the student follows those directions, the project looks great. And that gives them a confidence boost to want to take on the next steps. 

This video is for pixlr which is a browser-based program so your students can even do this on a Chromebook.

Here are a few examples of student work.

Low Poly digital Mosaic project

Every year my lessons change drastically. I actually have joked that in my 8 years of teaching, I have never taught that same intro project to my second semester twice. But that is not the case for the Low poly project. 

This project is my own spin on a popular design trend. I treat my lesson more like a digital mosaic, so students can choose their own shapes and styles with their designs. 

This is some of the featured work from this year.