I signed up to this course to further develop my skills and confidence within the digital arts. Having taught Photography and some elements of photoshop for several years, i have not felt particularly confident to experiment outside of skills or techniques i had learnt from more experienced colleagues. I wanted to continue to develop my skills and knowledge of how to use various Adobe software, and to gain confidence in adapting and developing digital images.
ASSIGNMENT 1: ALL ABOUT ME
Experiment and playing with various tools
Final Piece
I found this digital collage really easy to construct once i had organised how i wanted certain elements to be presented on the page. As I am particularly confident with digital collage already, i spent alot of time playing with the Select> Subject action - as my school only has access to CS6 we have not got access to this tool, but can see how this would be a beneficial tool as my students often struggle with neat refined edges when cutting elements from an image.
Copying layers and merging them together was also a simple technique, but i can see how this would save time when creating multiple of the same object.
Reflection
I am really pleased with this final outcome, the tools and skills are simple enough as often it is repetition of the same tools to select, cut, move an image before playing with filters and final outcomes. Students could very easily use this skill and i can include some of the shortcuts/top tips to my lessons to make the experience of photo editing and collaging flow much smoother.
This task is ideal for Y9 students as it is a reasonably easy set of tools to remember to use, with plenty of opportunity for G&T students to push and stretch themselves - filters/ multiple images/more complex patterns etc, whereas i can see students that struggle with art or digital art could use this task to create more simplified images and still create a successful outcome about themselves.
Year 11 complete a project entitled Identity and this would be a great way to breate a visual digital mind map, rather than words they could use visuals blended together to bring the narrative of the piece back to themselves.
ASSIGNMENT 2: Digital Anachronism
This weeks assignment was to explore the use of masking, this is something I haven't used too often, usually found prolonged routes to create a similar outcome, this was a lot less complex than expected and I can see how this technique could be used to support less confident students.
I loved the humour of this edit, the addition of the roller skates seemed appropriate as the position of the figure always felt to me like he was skating across the canvas. After positioning the skates on the feet using the mask layer, i then altered the "fit" by using Edit>Transform>Warp
Development:
American Cyber-Gothic
I wanted to push this further, to keep practicing the mask layers and adding more complex additions to the piece
I am really pleased with this outcome and i can see this could be a simple skill and technique to use with the Year 8 Photoshop / Digital Arts class in their projects to help build up their confidence when using Photoshop and for refining their use of digital collage.
ASSIGNMENT 3: 4 Icon Challenge
The task this week was to explore Adobe Illustrator - this is the first time I have used Illustrator, and although some of the tools are similar to Photoshop, they can create very different results. This is going to take a little while to fully find my feet with this piece of software, having experimented during lockdown with teaching the very basics of vectors and flat designs with the Y8 Digital Arts course, this first task was something i was excited to play about with.
The first task was to use 4 images to depict a famous story - Film/TV/Book. The 4 images should be simplistic and help to identify key points in the story's narrative.
To create the complex shapes required to tell the story I would draw the initial shape required, in the above screen shots I am creating the axe Jack uses in the climactic final scene of the film. to remove parts of the grey circle to create the axe head I insert a second circle and then use a secondary shape and remove - clicking on "Minus Front"
Construction of the typewriter is much more complex, this had a larger number of shapes overlapping to build the various components
To add the text to the paper I used the "Line Segment" tool and clicking on Stroke adjusted the thickness of the line as well as converting it to a dashed line- this gives the simplified impression of text on the paper.
final piece
I am really happy with the final outcome, the images are clear to read and show key elements of the story - Hotel Room Key - The Twins - Jack's Typewriter - The Axe
reflection
This was a really fun task to complete, I can see this being a task that the Y8 Digital Arts classes could use as part of their investigation into vector and flat design. However I think that the Y8 students would struggle to use Illustrator, it is less intuitive than other websites or applications i have experimented with during lockdown. I will need to continue to explore and develop my skills using Illustrator before adapting and using this in the classroom.
This task would be great to introduce more cross-curricular activities - English/ History/ Science/ Drama would all be great to develop the links and I think the students will enjoy selecting a story and telling it in 4 images. This could also be a way to help the EAL students select important scenes from their English lessons as they can use the visual images they create to help with their development of language and comprehension of the story/themes.
This task also develops student's use of numeracy - specifically their understanding of simplified geometric shapes and how these shapes can overlap to develop more complex and detailed shapes, use of key words describing shapes and discussion of scale will help build confidence of shape and form.
Extension: Character Design
To create this simplified portrait of myself in the style of various Pop Art artists such as Julien Opie, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol took quite a while to get the outlines drawn out, each facial feature needed to be outlined and remembering to label each layer was really helpful as you can seen in the second photo i built up quite a complex list of layers.
I have tried to re-create a Julien Opie portrait previously using Photoshop, so I felt fairly confident in constructing this piece, this image is more refined than my Photoshop version, and adding the shadow to the edge of the face and neck has helped refine the final outcome. I could have continued to add and tweak the image; adding more creases to the lips and skin folds around the eyes, but I am really pleased with the simplicity.
Reflection
This would be a task i could use with My KS4 Art and Photography classes, it is simple enough for the KS3 students to complete, but it takes time to draw the outlines carefully and to generate curves with the pen tool, The lower school students would find this frustrating and have lost a fair amount of resilience due to the prolong Covid lockdowns. I think the 4 Icon Challenge would suit KS3 better.
I can imagine incorporating this task into the Identity project - exploring what visual information is essential to create a recognizable image of a person
I could run this task as a smaller Art/Comic Club where they convert themselves into a Manga/comic character. Photographing them posing in traditional action poses and then altering them digitally to fit with their comics.
ASSIGNMENT 4: MAKE IT MOVE
This weeks task was to explore the world of Adobe Animate, creating a frame by frame animation, and to "Take a line for a walk".
This is an area of the digital arts that I have very little knowledge or experience with and so my learning is much slower than with Photoshop or Illustrator. I want to develop this skill as students have expressed a keen interest in creating animations and so I will need to develop my base knowledge before teaching this as a lesson or as part of a club. I found Animate quite frustrating to use at times as I was unsure of what to click to achieve the results I wanted, watching the tutorials provided helped re-mind me of steps shown at the training session.
When taking my line for a walk i wanted to incorporate a photograph i had taken as i can see incorporating animation as part of the GCSE Photography course could be very exciting and engage students.
I chose this image i created through looking down a toilet roll tube, i then wanted the line to interact with the tube and the face, the line follows down the spiral, onto the face and up the eyes and nose before escaping off frame before a curtain of red "blood" drips down the screen to fill the screen.
REFLECTION
Overall i enjoyed creating this little animation, and with more time i could extend and develop this sequence, i wanted to add more lines in different colours for example.
I liked creating this animation and i can see how this would excite and engage many of my students, the repetitive nature of repeating the same steps over and over helps to lock the learning, but my concern would be how long this would mantain their attention, some students who are easilly disengaged with digital work will find this hard to maintain focus on, especially as it takes time to generate a longer sequence of images.
I would like to try this with my Y10 Photographers, Art club and the Y8 digital arts group, perhaps getting them to create a quick paper flip book that they then digitally draw into Animate.