Layers Magazine

Layers Magazine is a nicely designed magazine for Adobe Creative Suite products (Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Flash, Dreamweaver as well as digital photography.) What I like about it is that the purpose of the magazine content is education, not enticing you to buy more stuff. They also provide many tutorials online.

Illustrator Portrait Project

This lesson teaches drawing skills with Adobe Illustrator as well as the value tone scale and how to see in black and white. It also teaches patience and the importance of focusing and slowing down to improve craftsmanship. Ideally, a tablet is best, but I only own 2, so this guy drew his with his mouse. (Using LiveTrace is cheating! When you are done, you can have them try LiveTrace on the photo to see the difference between letting the computer make all the decisions and the artist doing it.) If you went to art school before computers, you probably remember doing a project like this with first drawing the portrait then using Color Aid paper, tracing paper, xacto knife, and rubber cement for the final.

1. Import a color photo.
2. Lock that layer and make a new layer.
3. On the new layer, make 1 small black square with no outline and copy it 7 times. Now, using the color palette changed to Grayscale, fill each square with gradually lighter grays until the last square is almost white.
4. Tracing the photo, draw a black shape where you see the darkest value tone. Use the eyedropper to choose the black square. Continue with the progressively lighter shapes.
5. Turn off the eye on the photo layer to see all the white spaces left.
6. Use the anchors to stretch the shapes to touch.
7. Add a border or fill the background with a gray. Delete the value tone scale you made in step 3, or if you want to see it for grading purposes, move it to outside of the print area.

Option: Make a copy of the finished file. Now select the highlight areas and change them to warm colors and the shadow areas to cool colors. Now you have a sort of expressionist portrait and you don't have to redraw the shapes.

Another Option: Now go into a studio room, transfer the image to poster board using the grid method and paint with acrylics. Now, they've learned to mix paint as well.

If you want a copy of my actual handout for the students, or have questions, just email me.

Yet Another Reality Show?!

This one is about photographers. One of my students watched it and told me about it. I think I'll offer extra credit for whomever watches it because in between the emotional ups and downs, there might be some useful information about shooting people, which is something we will do in the spring. (Maybe I should come up with a different phrase for 'shooting people'. "Don't forget to shoot your friends this weekend," or "Next week we're going to start shooting people, " might get me in trouble.)

It's called The Shot and is on VH1 on Sundays at 10 EST.

Scholastic Art Competition

This is just a reminder that the Scholastic Art competition is a lot earlier this year (or at least for the region I am in-SW Virginia). If you planned on entering student work, but haven't received any information yet, you should look into it.

Here is the link the general info. You will have to contact your regional sponsor to get the specifics for your regional competition.

If you can't remember why the this competition is worth the effort, check out this list of scholarships available (and there are even more than are listed). We've been very lucky to have two students win at the national level and they received a ton of scholarship money. And one even had his work on display at the Corcoran for a summer, along with the special workshops in NYC they provided.

Graphic Design Lesson Ideas

I've discovered a wonderful website by an art teacher in California who used to teach high school Graphic Design and Web Design but now teaches at the college level. Her old website is very well organized and I asked her permission to tell you that we can "steal" her lessons. You can link to her lessons from her calendar under either class, or from the menu to the right. http://www.nhsdesigns.com/ She also has a blog called "Dawn's Brain: The adventures of a high school web and graphic design teacher." And she's started a forum for Art Teachers http://www.artteacherforum.com/  Her new college website is urlnextdoor.com Thank you, Dawn.

By the way, on her blog, the lesson "Cut Paper Illustrations" is based on a book that I love, Picture This by Molly Bang. It explains composition very well and my students have always been mesmerized by the slide show I've made from it, even though her illlustrations are very simple. You could very easily do this lesson using Adobe Illustrator if you don't have room for studio projects like me. You can order the book from Amazon using my bookstore link.

If you have children, or love children's books, you probably already know who Molly Bang is. My favorite is The Paper Crane. I still enjoy looking at it even though my boys are in high school and college.

Future Innovator?

We finished the classic graphics lesson, students dreaming up a business for themselves, making the logo, creating the ad. I thought you would get a kick out of this young lady's business idea. Perhaps I didn't remind them enough that they can't promote violence, but, other than a few very minor problems, she did a good job with the design and problem-solving. I required Visual Hierarchy: make it clear what you want the viewer to see first, second and third.

Nothing digital here

Ok, so this art is not digital, but you've got to see this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=495538&in_page_id=1811