Solarizing Digital Photos

This is one of the easiest projects to do. I throw it in between a couple very difficult projects to give my students a breather. There always a few that say, "Of all the projects we've done this one is my favorite!" And then I think something like, "But, I put a lot more work into some of the other projects." You could also do it near the beginning of the year, but you might be glad to have something easy and fun to do in the middle of the winter blahs.

These examples were done by two of my students. I included two versions of the eye so you can see the differences determined by what blending mode you choose. The top eye photo started with normal, natural colors, but this process shifted the colors and added interesting textures in the shadow areas.

Its so easy I can tell you how to do it right here:
1. Choose a well-composed color digital photo and open it in Photoshop.
2. Copy the layer and name the top layer "Solarize" (On the Layers palette, drag your layer over the little icon to the left of the little trash can.)
3. Filter>Stylize>Solarize (make sure the fill and opacity are at 100%)
4. Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and play with the sliders to get interesting effects.
5. Now play with the Blending Mode choices (on the Layers palette) to blend the two layers together in interesting ways. It's ok if you think "normal" is actually the best one.

Have your students do it to two different photos so that they remember the steps.

If you were not at my workshop and would like the handout with all the visuals (example and screenshots), email me.

Doodle 4 Google

Have you heard about Google's K-12 student art competition? Here's my favorite part: "The National Winner will win a $10,000 college scholarship to be used at the school of their choice, a trip to the Googleplex, a laptop computer, and a t-shirt printed with their doodle. We'll also award the winner's school a $25,000 grant towards the establishment/improvement of a computer lab."

More Creative Advertising

Thanks, Suzanne, for sending us this link.

Good Examples for Video Projects

It's frustrating to start a video editing project and search YouTube for well-done, creative examples that don't have sex, drugs, violence, nudity or foul language. I recently spent many hours during weekends and snowdays trying to find some. I'll share them with you and would love for you to share your favorites for the classroom as well.

For storytelling style: "Silent Beats", http://youtube.com/watch?v=76BboyrEl48
This wonderful video not only shows us how easily it is to lean on stereotypes, but it is so easy to teach creative camera work, editing and visual storytelling with it. It has no dialog, but we get what it is trying to tell us. When you show it a second time, explaining why the camera is here, why the editor did this, etc. you find even more clues to the story. It is so clear and well-done. It is also a wonderful example for character education.

Stop motion is always fun. Here are some of my favorites, although the first one has a mild violence in it:
"Tony vs. Paul", http://youtube.com/watch?v=AJzU3NjDikY
This one is all about drawing: "Minilogue/hitchhikers choice", http://youtube.com/watch?v=u46eaeAfeqw
"Retro Games in Stop Motion", http://youtube.com/watch?v=nhbt9z4fkWo
"Erbert & Gerbert's: Human Flipbook", http://youtube.com/watch?v=HClNcAvD1AY
and to go with it, the making of it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=AulVwjcnJhI&feature=related

Documenting a performance or other interesting event:
"Parkour Generations:City Gents": http://youtube.com/watch?v=SmVsa1SFgfU
(Notice all the interesting camera angles.)

Not Cheesy

Last week, one of my students was looking through one of the many Photoshop wow-'em books I have in the classroom. We have actually done some of the projects. The student said, "You know Mrs. Pfeiffer, a lot of these examples are really cheesy. They actually aren't very good." She wasn't trying to make herself look superior, she was just giving me her honest opinion. I wanted to say, "Yea, sometimes I think you don't need much actual art training to publish a book on making art on the computer, these days." But, I just said something like, "Yea, I bet you can do better than him..."

So, today I went into Barnes and Noble and just as I was about to give up finding a truly inspiring book, I found this: Creative Photoshop: Digital Illustration and Art Techniques, by Derek Lea. I would say as a whole, it is for advanced students who have taken 2D art classes as well, but you can teach parts of his involved projects to beginners. I find it very inspiring and I suspect it is very appealing to hip young visual culturally literate teens and college students. My 14-year-old has already spied it and said "OH COOL!" and is actually sitting down and really studying it. I haven't shown it to my 20-year-old who is majoring in Communications Design in college. I think he'll say the same thing...or maybe "Awesome". Three-quarters of the book is more appropriate for a computer graphics, or advanced 2D class than for digital photography, because it is mostly illustration, but some of it does involve photography.

Derek Lea is a popular illustrator, not just a computer nerd who likes Photoshop, so this is real eye candy. Here's a link to the book in the Amazon-run bookstore I arranged for us:

Photo Contests

Outdoor Photographer magazine's Winter Photo Contest is for anyone 18 and older and is free (unless I missed something in small print...) The deadline is February 20th.

Their Magical Adventures contest deadline is January 4th.

Eliot Porter and Robert Ketchum

If you haven't opened up your January 2008 issue of Art Education yet, you'll be happy to see that the instructional resource center pullout is: Eliot Porter and Robert Glenn Ketchum: A Conversation on Color, Composition, and Environmental Conservation. Although recommended for grades 5-7, it is certainly a great idea for higher grades.

In addition, there is a nice interactive site designed for student learning from the Amon Carter Museum (in Fort Worth, Texas) : http://www.cartermuseum.org/edu_guides/porter/

A discussion of the two photographers on outdoorphotography.com http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/content/2006/dec/form_function.shtml

Robert Glenn Ketchum's website: http://www.robertglennketchum.com

And the book: Regarding the Land: Robert Glenn Ketchum and the Legacy of Eliot Porter

Layers Project

This is always a favorite project with my students because there are always surprises and many creative possibilities.

In Photoshop, the student copies the layer and then applies a different filter to each layer. Then he uses the blending modes to find the best blend. He adds a new empty layer for some Photoshop brushes (I suggest a new layer for each brush). I require that the students do the project twice (with two different images, of course) so that they really explore the possibilities. Also, when learning Photoshop, I've found that doing a project twice makes the process stick in your long-term memory better and, of course, pushes the level of quality up, since during the second attempt they are more fluent and fluid.

If you are on my email list, I will be sending you the handout for this.

Don't know where these came from

They were passed on from email to email. These are just a couple of the creative graphics sent to me.

Short and Sweet Photography Tips

This idigitalphoto blog page has a wonderful list of tips to share with your students. It's called "Improve Your Photos 60 Seconds at a Time" (referring to how long it takes to read each category).

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.