The Carrot Revolution: A Blog About Art Education... and Vegetables.

Hmmm.... Pinteresting...

2011-12-14T22:51:00.000-08:00

Although I found Pinterest a while ago, I've really only started using it more significantly in helping organize some ideas and images. If you're not familiar, basically Pinterest allows you to organize your favorite images by 'pinning' them to different boards that you create. Not only is this a great way to organize images for your classes, but its a great bookmarking tool for us visual learners as well. I've found a number of different uses. Specifically, if you scroll down some of the boards that I've created, you'll find a few that are relevant to my classes. For example, I've created boards to inspire my IB Art students to imagine new ways of approaching their Independent Workbooks, and even a base to start to seek out their own project ideas. You'll also notice quite a few boards dedicated to the Operational Techniques for Transformation that I suggest using for the Surrealistic Me project (still time to sign up, by the way).

Once you've gotten your invitation (although it is free, you have to request membership to the site), you'll want to also follow other art teachers who are pinning. The Pinterest Group on Art Ed 2.0 is a great place to start!

Art in Edublogs: Official Nominations

2011-12-04T23:41:00.001-08:00

Its time to cast your votes once again for some of the best edublogs out there, and there are once again plenty to choose from in the art categories. I'm thrilled once again to see so many of the sites that have meant so much to my own teaching. SO if you're looking for a quick primer on which art blogs have been shortlisted, I'm glad you asked:

Best Group Blog: The Teaching Palette
Best Teacher Blog: Art is Messy
Best New Blog: Ameria
Best Class Blog: Art of Apex High School
Best Resource Sharing Blog: The Art Teacher's Guide to the Internet
Best Use of Audio / Video / Podcast: Dryden Art
Best Wiki: Art Online Studio
Best Educational use of A social Network: Art Ed 2.0

If there are any I've missed, please drop a comment. Otherwise, happy voting and don't forget to vote early and vote often (you may vote once per day).

Art in the Edublogs

2011-11-30T19:04:00.001-08:00

Last year we had a stupendous showing of art blogs nominated for edublog awards, and even a few finalists! Art did indeed rock the edublogs, and this year its time to crack the winner's circle wide open. I've found some amazing resources in the work of my colleagues from around the world, but more than anything else, there is one site that deserves recognition:

Best educational use of a social network: Art Education 2.0

Art Ed 2.0 has been in existence for about 5 years and has grown to 10,000 members. It is used by thousands of art teachers on a daily basis, and is not just an amazing resource in itself, but a critical starting point for many art teachers who have begun to integrate technology into their classroom. In my humble opinion, there is no better example of a collaborative website that has transformed so many classrooms from without.

Moving on, I am renominating some of the sites I had nominated last year, not just because these are some of my favorite sites, but because they have grown and developed in such interesting ways. For example, Tricia Fuglestad's Fugleflicks has developed and grown in its new home at Dryden Art. Kim Sajan's (bias admitted) Art is Messy has developed from a resource sharing / elementary art blog into a resource sharing / high school blog with great exemplar lessons that Kim uses with her Graphic Design, Art II, and Yearbook classes.

I'm also nominating some new ones, like ameria [blog] a jaw-droppingly amazing guide to creating great A-Level Art (which is the New Zealand curriculum, but practical to IB or AP students as well, and inspirational to just about anyone).

Best Individual Blog: The Art Teacher's Guide to the Internet
Best group blog: The Teaching Palette
Best new blog: ameria [blog]: A Level Art
Best class blog: ISB IB Fine Arts
Best resource sharing blog: Learning IT
Best teacher blog: Art is Messy
Best librarian / library blog: Tech Library Classroom
Best educational tech support blog: The Thinking Stick
Best educational use of video / audio / podcast: Dryden Art
Best educational wiki: Ib Art Online Studio
Best educational use of a social network: Art Education 2.0

The Brainstormers Guide to Transformation

2011-11-29T17:00:00.001-08:00

A few years ago, my colleague Ellen introduced me to the book Art Synectics by Nicholas Roukes. The section on Operational Techniques for Transformation has become a mainstay in my classroom when discussing surrealist techniques, but the more I've used them, the more I've become convinced that these techniques are brilliant brainstorming strategies for almost any project. Once the students have a basic idea or subject, they can use these techniques to challenge themselves to look at their idea in a wide variety of ways. Techniques can even be combined to create more unusual and unique approaches.

Of course, this is indeed a perfect exercise for any surrealist project, and since we're working on a certain international collaborative surrealist project, I've converted the list of techniques into a slideshow.

Transformation: Operational Techniques

View more presentations from dsgran

These techniques have helped my students develop a wide range of imaginative responses in my IB Art class, and so I've also turned this into a handy booklet. Feel free to print it out and use it with the Surrealistic Me project... or anything else that your students are working on. In order to print it out properly, change the properties in your printer settings under 'layout'. You'll see a place to select 'two sided printing'. Under that drop down tab, choose 'short edge binding'. Print, fold, viola!

Register Your Classes for Great Projects!

2011-11-28T19:53:00.001-08:00

If you're planning on participating in the Rotoball 2012 and/or Surrealistic Me international collaborative projects, please take a moment to register your classes at these survey sites. It just helps us keep our information better organized and it makes getting back in touch with you easier as well. Thanks!

Surrealistic Me Registration

Rotoball 2012 Registration

Dispatches from the Revolution 11/23/2011

2011-11-22T16:30:00.001-08:00

Flavorwire » Inside the Sketchbooks of Famous Artists

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Surrealistic Me & Rotoball 2012

2011-11-21T23:09:00.001-08:00

Surrealistic Me by Ying Ying

This post is your one-stop shop for international collaborative projects that your students can start now! The Student Creative is back with challenges both old and new. If you're teaching photography or digital media, check out our Surrealistic Me project. Heck, if you're teaching any traditional media, check out our Surrealistic Me project.

Let's face it, you're probably teaching surrealism anyway.

Maybe you're already approaching it in the form of a self portrait. If you are, great! Submit! Its free and we'd love to include your students work. If not, Why not adapt your project and make it work in our book? Students will submit surrealistic self portraits, the end result of which will be a cross section of surreal students from around the world. Similar to our earlier projects, the final selected images will be published in book form, the profits of which will again benefit the Jacaranda Foundation for AIDS orphans in Malawi. Those books, by the way, are still available.

No? Teaching film, video... animation? Something along the moving-image lines? We got you covered. The Rotoball Project is back for 2012- our fifth year as an international collaborative project!

Join us, won't you? These big international collaborative projects give students the opportunity to see how other students in other parts of the world respond to similar creative challenges and connects students through a love of art-making.

Dispatches from the Revolution 11/22/2011

2011-11-21T16:31:00.001-08:00

Marcel Duchamp’s Étant Donnés
What was Marcel Duchamp doing for the 20 years after he had 'given up' making art...? This was one of my earliest revelations about the mysteries of art. Growing up in Philadelphia, I passed these doors many times before I realized there was more to them than meets the eye. That was due, in part, that for many of those years I wasn't tall enough to see through the peepholes. I probably didn't even realize they were there.

tags: philadelphia art Reference
- Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A New Perspective

2011-11-15T23:50:00.001-08:00

We're back at our Perspective Towers project in our Foundations Art class, and just for fun, I showed the class Dick Termes' great explanation of 1 though 6 point perspective. Until now, I've taught 1-3, and for fun I showed them how to do 4 this year. To be honest, I'd never given 5 or 6 point perspective much thought, but one of my ninth graders, Esther, got really into the idea of pushing this project further and figured out 5 point perspective on her own. In order to demonstrate it to the class, she found this fantastic video -which we'll watch tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Esther's on to figuring out 6 point perspective (which apparently involves drawing on a sphere). I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it, but she's determined...

The Shrine Down the Hall

2011-10-25T21:03:00.000-07:00

My good friend and NBCT mentor, Kris Fontes, has posted a fantastic lesson on the Adobe Education Exchange that has gathered a lot of attention for the 2011 Educators' Choice Awards. Based on the work of Ashley Gilbertson, whose photographic series documents the empty childhood bedrooms of fallen soldiers, Kris' lesson asks students to document the impression that is left by their own rooms. I think this would make another great collaborative project... perhaps we'll have more on that soon!

Check out all the great entries and vote here.

Dali in Singapore

2011-10-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of catching up to do, so I'm going to refrain for the time being from my common reflections and musings on a given topic (you're welcome) and simply let the pictures speak for themselves. Just a little while ago, Kim, Amaya and I spent an amazing week visiting friends and family (or more accurately, friends who are like family to us) in Singapore. However, we also got to do a little sightseeing (as much as the attention span of a toddler will allow), and we checked out a fantastic exhibit of Dali's work at the Art and Science Museum on the Singapore Esplanade (the building itself merits a second entire post on its own when I have a little more time to do so).

Here are some photos (including some of Amaya having some fun in the museum- couldn't resist):

Also, I spied this interesting juxtaposition of signs in a mall just above the subway station:

Or is that just honesty in advertising?

The New SAS Art Wing

2011-09-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

As mentioned before, this is a year of major change for our art department. One of our most significant changes is the addition of a fourth art teacher who just happens to be an amazing educator, author of the Edublog Award Nominated Art is Messy blog, and my wife, Kim. After many years of planning, debate, and discussion, the new Shanghai American School art wing is fully operational.

Join me, won't you as I give you a demonstration of its awesome power! Be sure to click on the 'expand' button at the bottom, and then the 'Show Info' button for detailed descriptions.

Dispatches from the Revolution 09/24/2011

2011-09-23T17:30:00.001-07:00

DSLR Simulator

This is a great resource for your digital photography classes - it doesn't beat actually taking the camera out and experimenting with it- but its a fantastic demonstration tool.

tags: photography digital Reference

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Tape Sculpture Project

2011-09-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

Our students just finished up our first project in foundations art- this is traditionally a class that uses traditional art making materials. However, we've been wanting to shake things up for a while here at SAS, and with our new facilities and new spaces, this seemed like just as good a time as ever. This project was based on some of the work of Mark Jenkins (warning: creepy baby alert), and executed with instruction from his helpful tape sculpture website.

After experimenting with creating forms in packing tape, the students were asked to create a hybrid form combining parts formed from their bodies with other forms that they'd find and create. Finally, they wrote a myth explaining the origin or significance of their transformed figure.

This ended up being a great introductory project to our class- it had the student collaborating on large scale projects in which they were up and actively moving around the room. After the bodies of the sculptures were finished, we added some LED lights for a night installation exhibition. This was inspired by some of the other projects we'd seen online (as well as some other projects that we've worked on in the past).

The addition of the lights created a beautiful courtyard constellation depicting the epic heroes of our students' imaginations.

Process:

Product:

Our Latest Challenge!

2011-09-21T23:15:00.000-07:00

Surrealistic Me: The New Challenge from The Student Creative.

I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams... Man... is above all the plaything of his memory.

-Andre Breton

The new project from the student creative will challenge students to reveal themselves through surrealist self portrait. Start paying attention to your dreams. They are trying to tell you something.

Dispatches from the Revolution 09/17/2011

2011-09-16T17:30:00.001-07:00

Dream Worlds

Beautiful paintings of dream landscapes

tags: Surrealism
45 Epic Blender Tutorials

We're going to begin to explore Blender later this year in Digital Video class, here are some great looking tutorials for different levels.

tags: digital video

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Dispatches from the Revolution 09/15/2011

2011-09-14T17:30:00.001-07:00

Sketchbook Secrets: 50 Beautiful Sketchbook Scans

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Learning 2.011 Reflections

2011-09-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

Image Credit: ToGa Wanderings

The final Shanghai installment of the Learning 2.0 conference has finally come to a close. After five years and four conferences, I have to say that I'm proud of the event as it grew and transformed into one of the most unique PD experiences that I've had.

Over the past five years, the conference has shifted from a more traditional model to one that involves learning cohorts, un-conference sessions, and mini-keynotes. The learning cohorts gave subject area teachers the opportunity to come together and look at how technology has transformed their curriculum. Our Fine Arts cohort, led by Kevin Honeycutt of Art Snacks fame provided an amazing opportunity to have an open exchange with other art educators. For example, I was excited by all the amazing stuff that Nick Coulter is doing both on and offline in his classes at the Australian International School in Singapore. His photography students are doing some amazing things with simple objects (like fruit), and I'll link to them when he posts them online. He's got some second life activities going, great HDR photography, and he's got an installation project based on the Australian Satin Bowerbird's nest- which it makes out of any blue objects it can find*.

The short inspirational TED-like keynotes were a perfect way to accommodate the large numbers of accomplished speakers who were in attendance. Most memorable to me, was when a student got up to talk about how her experience making a video about her brother who has autism had transformed her school life. It was a video that we had been proud to feature at the Shanghai Student Film Festival two years ago.

Its been a great honor to be a part of the Learning 2.0 conference planning team for the past five years, and although I'll miss working with the great people involved, I'm thrilled to see it grow further and evolve. Next Year in Beijing!

*Discovering the existence of this bird is, I think, the most interesting thing I've learned all year.

Art Workfrence in Shangahi!

2011-08-29T22:17:00.000-07:00

I was just having a discussion with my colleague Joan about whether or not the upcoming Transform: Shanghai event is a conference or a workshop. Joan is one of the founders of the event when it was started in Beijing four years ago. Since then it has moved to Shanghai, and I'm proud to be helping out on the organizing committee. I assumed we were calling it a conference because it contains multiple workshops, talks, and excursions, but Joan said it was conceived a a workshop because its a place for people to get together to learn new skills and approaches. Since she is a founder of the event, I deferred to her categorization; however, we then agreed that it was actually somewhere in between. Sort of a Confshop, or Workfrence.

Either way, if you're reading this from your art room anywhere in Asia, what are you waiting for? We got great presenters, great art detours in the city, and great company. Register!

On another note entirely, I thought that this was an insightful and humorous look at merit pay.

Psychic.

2011-08-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

One of my first class icebreaker games is "Two Truths and a Lie". Students have to come up with two interesting facts about themselves, and one fact that is a total, utter, not-even-close to reality lie. This was the conversation that I had with one of the students who was presenting his "facts (or lie)".

Joe: I'm a little bit psychic.
Me: Really?
Joe: Yes.
Me: What am I thinking?
Joe: That I'm not a little bit psychic.
Me: Wow!

That ended up being one of his 'truths'. Nice!

Happy New Year! Happy, New Room!

2011-08-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

Although today isn't marked by any notably arbitrary position of the earth around the sun, it is a new year for us here at SAS, marked by the first day of school. Its notable here for us in the art department, because we have a great new space- dedicated art areas, and an amazing new fourth teacher (who also happens to be my wife). I'll post some pictures of our great new space shortly.

I have to say that I'm particularly proud of my IB Film class who is moving into their second year. Many of them did their own independent work over the summer, and two brought in some pretty fantastic videos, which I'll share with you here.

Gabe and his friends organized a mini 24 hour film challenge for themselves- two groups going toe to toe in an epic film battle - here is his team's entry:

Every year our school sends a number of students to work at the Jacaranda School for AIDS orphans in Malawi. My friend and colleague Robert Burke has done an amazing job over the years raising money and organizing trips to benefit this school. This year, Melissa took a camera and made this beautiful wordless video about her experience there:

We're looking forward to a great year, and I wish all of you great school years as well.

Dispatches from the Revolution 08/13/2011

2011-08-12T17:30:00.001-07:00

Best Film Editing Sequences

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Happy Birthday, Mr. McLuhan

2011-07-21T05:57:00.000-07:00

There is a world of difference between the modern home environment of integrated electric information and the classroom. Today’s… child is attuned to up-to-the-minute “adult” news… and is bewildered when he enters the nineteenth century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules. It is naturally an environment much like any factory set-up with its inventories and assembly lines.
Marshal McLuhan wrote those words... in 1967. I wonder if he ever imagined that his words would be still sadly relevant had he lived to be 100. He would have reached that landmark today.

Happy Birthday, Mr. McLuhan.

Final Cut Pro X

2011-06-28T06:27:00.000-07:00

I was pretty excited to get my hands on the new version of Apple's FCP... until the reviews started coming in. Why they'd make their professional editing program anything less than... professional, is beyond me. I get that they want something that is more comprehensive than iMovie but still accessible. Maybe that's this program, but its not the professional software with all the possibilities that I want my students to learn.

Luckily, there's always Adobe Premiere.

Brainstorming!

2011-06-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

I used to be a big fan of Special Projects' Idea Generator for stumped students or brainstorming quick story ideas for film, but I think I might be converted over to The Brainstormer - a similar little flash application that has many more combinations and possibilities.

...it also has a few less controversial suggestions- not that it was a big deal with the Idea Generator, but this will also save a few awkward moments when a really inappropriate idea is generated.

Thrift Store Art

2011-06-12T23:59:00.000-07:00

I stumble across this idea every once in a while, and always mean to post about it. Here are a series of twice-made paintings- thrift store art that has been revived and re-imagined. I love the idea of transforming an existing work of art into something new, and were there any thrift stores here in China, I might be tempted to try it... maybe it would work with some of the cheap scroll paintings that the tourists love?

FLOAT is ON

2011-06-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

The latest collection of student work from The Student Creative is now available!

FLOAT asked students to respond to this challenge: Create a moment of magical realism using high speed photography. Inspired by the work of Philippe Halsman's Jumpology series and fast shutter speed artists from around the world, students froze in time a moment that seems impossible.

FLOAT! by The Student Creative | Make Your Own Book

All profits from FLOAT benefit the Jacaranda School for AIDS orphans in Malawi.

Dispatches from the Revolution 06/04/2011

2011-06-03T17:31:00.001-07:00

sketchbook Ideas

Hey students, don't know what to draw? Roll a 149 sided dice or just choose from this list!

tags: sketchbook creativity

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Dispatches from the Revolution 06/03/2011

2011-06-02T17:31:00.001-07:00

Minimalist Movie Posters II

tags: video Film IB
Film as a Mirror

Excellent essay on 2001 & Inception.

tags: IB Film Video

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Dispatches from the Revolution 06/02/2011

2011-06-01T17:31:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Creative Process Videos

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Rotoball 2011 is Here!

2011-05-31T22:04:00.000-07:00

The wait is over (and it was an unfortunately long wait this year, I apologize for that), ladies and gentlemen, the fourth installment of the international collaborative animation project:

This year in addition to a number of different media, we also had a number of different themes. Here you'll see the ball take an extended trip through a museum and through some notable moments in film history. Thanks to all the students, teachers and participating schools. We hope to see you back for Rotoball 2012!

Dispatches from the Revolution 06/01/2011

2011-05-31T17:31:00.001-07:00

Oritsunagumono

Beautiful Origami of Animal Skeletons, Beautiful Origami of Animal Skeletons

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Yoda Said it Best

2011-05-17T21:56:00.000-07:00

Do. Or do not. There is no Try.

However, Sol Le Witt said it funnier, and articulated the idea for artists a little further. Just a warning, this animation contains 5 not-approved-for prime time words, and 4 hastily drawn silly depictions of naughty bits and therefore is so offensive that it may not be appropriate for all (read: most US K-12) classes.

Vik Munez

2011-05-11T23:22:00.000-07:00

I snuck into into Kate's classroom yesterday after hearing the beginning of this TED Talk she was showing to her class, given by artist Vik Munez. More than anything, this video illustrates how Munez' vision is guided by his sense of humor and joie de vivre. I could tell that it was inspiring her students to approach their artwork in the same way.

I'll show it next week!

Thanks, Kate!

Shanghai Student Film Fest 2011

2011-04-28T00:22:00.000-07:00

Another Film Festival has come and gone, and this year was absolutely spectacular. One of the greatest things about watching our festival grow every year, is that the students are constantly outdoing themselves, pushing to improve over the previous years entries. This year was no exception, and I wonder if films that won awards in our first year would even be considered in our fourth. Its getting to the point where I wonder how much better these films can get before we have to charge Hollywood producers admission. Speaking of which, if you're a producer looking for young talent - come to Shanghai, I've got some films to show you.

This year was also special for a number of reasons. We premiered the inaugural EARCOS Asia Film Festival, inviting special guests from Beijing, Seoul, and Hangzhou. With our new friends from across the region, we expanded the festival into two days. On the first day, the students participated in an 8 hour film challenge. In randomly assigned groups with students from other schools, they conceived, shot, and edited their short films all within 8 hours in a trip downtown to People's Park.

That evening, we watched Touching Home and had a great question and answer session with the director/producer/writer/actor team behind the film, Logan and Noah Miller. Following that, the students talked to Hammond Peek, the sound mixer on Lord of the Rings and King Kong, and our festival's first Academy Award winning guest (above is a picture of my students with Hammond and his friend, Oscar). We then screened the 8 hour challenge films and had student and faculty led film making workshops throughout the afternoon.

Here are some more images from throughout the day. Note that any images of kids or teachers with black eyes, exposed bones, and gaping wounds are products of our terrific 'film make-up' workshop, and not documentation of a zombie attack.

The evening was dedicated to celebrating the amazing student work. I'll post more over the next few days, but will start with a personal favorite. Last year, my student Hearin knocked everyone's socks off with her film, The Box. This year, her film Cookies demonstrated her amazing talents through a very different genre:

COOKIE from Hea Rin Ko on Vimeo.

More films to come next week!

Adobe Story

2011-04-04T18:50:00.000-07:00

INT. CLASSROOM.DAY

A teacher who is busy preparing his IB Art art students for their final exhibition stops for a few rushed minutes to sit down at his computer and type. For some reason he says all of this out loud:

TEACHER

I don't fall in love with software often, and when I do, its rarely at first sight. However, I have to admit that I'm just a little giddy about Adobe Story. Not only is it an intuitively constructed scriptwriting program, but it allows you to easily shift scenes and ideas around with a simple drag and drop! As you type, a dialogue box appears to ask what your next line will be - this is actually a lot less intrusive than it sounds - in script writing, you're constantly switching from lines of dialogue, character names, and scene names. And the constant formatting back and fourth can be a pain. You can also share your story with co-editors, commenters, or readers. You can even tag your script so that when, say, the costume department gets a hold of it, they can easily jump to the parts of the script that is relevant to them. This is really a gem if you're teaching an IB Film class.

I kinda want to scrap what we're doing in class tomorrow and jump into some writing.

The teacher slams down his laptop lid and runs off to check student work.

Hello.

2011-03-30T18:30:00.001-07:00

We haven't gone anywhere.

We're just in the middle of our busiest time of year, and will be returning to our regular programming shortly.

We still have a lot of revolution to cover.

In the meantime, revolutionaries, Jeff Koons Must Die.

The game is set in a large museum during a Jeff Koons retrospective. The viewer is given a rocket launcher and the choice to destroy any of the work displayed in the gallery. If nothing is destroyed the player is allowed to look around for a couple of minutes and then the game ends. However, if one or more pieces are destroyed, an animated model of Jeff Koons walks out and chastises the viewer for annihilating his art. He then sends guards to kill the player. If the player survives this round then he or she is afforded the ability to enter a room where waves of curators, lawyers, assistants, and guards spawn until the player is dead. In the end, the game is unwinnable, and acts as a comment on the fine art studio system, museum culture, art and commerce, hierarchical power structures, and the destructive tendencies of gallery goers, to name a few.

Loving Color Even More

2011-03-07T00:31:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before how much I love the ever cool Colour Lovers site for discovering and exploring color palates (and so has Rey Rey). I've just discovered that you can love their colors even more through creating your own patterns. Using shapes, shades and layers, you can create a pattern to which you can add any color palette, and allow others to as well. Above is one of my first attempts at a pattern. You can name the pattern (Carrot Revolution), and the colored pattern as well (Cezanne Green). If you've stumbled upon a color that hasn't found its own name on Color Lovers, you can name that too. What is even cooler about this though, is that you can then purchase the pattern as a print or on fabric! Hey fashion teachers & club advisors, hey soft sculpture enthusiasts- I'm talking to you!

Me? I'm thinking new sheets & pillows for the baby's room!

Comic Artists Do Perspective Better!

2011-02-26T18:16:00.000-08:00

Tagging onto David's great perspective towers project... here is a great resource for teaching perspective. Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics From the Ground Up by Jason Cheeseman-Meyer breaks perspective principles down into clear, concise steps, walking through one-point, two-point, and three-point perspective techniques, including complex forms and figures in each. My absolute favorite - and the one that is sure to wow your students - is the four and five-point curvilinear perspective techniques, which create a wide angle view like the one on the book's cover.

Goodbye, old, boring perspective manual. ...Perspective drawing just got a lot funner!

Now We Don't Even Need to Go Outside!

2011-02-18T21:39:00.000-08:00

Now, thanks to Street Art View, you can not only see museums from your classroom or living room, but street art from around the world! I'm pretty sure that someday soon Google will insure that I never need to step outside my home again. Hello Google Classroom View!

No More Field Trips!

2011-02-17T20:50:00.000-08:00

Why would you ever want to leave your art classroom again?

If you're an art teacher, an artist, an art student, or have any remote interest in art, you probably already know about Google Art Project. If you don't, maybe you're like me and this content is blocked by the country in which you live... or you're unlike me and missed this because you're better at managing your online/offline time...

Either way, GAP (nice acronym, Google) has some really amazing features. Starting with a few key museums around the world, including The Met, The Uffizi, The Hermitage and many others, you can now bring their art to your classroom. GAP includes these following amazing features:

1. You can take a virtual walk through some of their galleries.

2. You can zoom in on the work. Really close. Above is a close up of the eye of Botticelli's Venus (she's showing her age, those wrinkles look pretty deep this close up).

3. You can click on the big >>i on the right hand side of the screen to get more information about the gallery you are in, or the specific painting. This often brings up useful links, text, maps, and videos.

4. You can create your own collection, for easy retrieval.

So I'm canceling all future field trips. Who wants to go to your local museum or gallery when you can go all over the world without leaving your room?*

*I'm totally kidding. Keep your hate mail to yourself.

Where I Come From the Birds Sing a Pretty Song

2011-02-15T18:18:00.000-08:00

...and there is always music in the air.

I can't believe that its been 20 years since Twin Peaks debuted, but there it is. In celebration, the In the Trees art gallery is hosting a retrospective of Twin Peaks inspired artwork, including work by such notables as Tim Biskup and David Lynch himself. You can see the artwork here. It looks like most of it has sold already, but maybe a gallery book is in the works?

Now I just have to think of a good TV show to inspire a variety of student artistic responses. Somehow I think that whatever is on today might not inspire a similar response... American Idol inspired paintings...? Erm... sigh.

The Ring

2011-02-13T21:48:00.000-08:00

No, you don't have one week to live, we've got a cool new material! For one of her independent projects in IB Art, Tin Tin decided that she wanted to make her own jewelry out of silver clay. This material works like polymer clay, but when you fire it (or torch it like we did) the clay body burns off and the infused metal particles left behind bind together. She ordered the material and read up on the process, and today we whipped out a mini torch and fired it. This was the first time we've used this material, and it was amazing to see it go from a dull beige to bright orange, and then for the silver to slowly materialize.

The metal clay is expensive, it runs about a dollar a gram, but I could see this being a great project, especially if students practiced their techniques with a different polymer clay first. Way to go Tin Tin!

Cool animation of Ken Robinson's speech

2011-02-07T17:01:00.000-08:00

Ken Robinson, RSA Animation.

Been a while since I've posted. Hail to David for keeping up this blog!!!

-Rey Rey

Ed Note: Thanks to you for posting, Rey Rey! Here's an embedded version of your link.

Towers Part II: Podcasts

2011-01-27T19:45:00.000-08:00

This year, as part of my professional development I'm looking into assessment in art education as a research project. I've been modifying various approaches to self assessment over the past year, but have been struggling to find a method that I'm truly happy with- one that recognizes the growth of the individual student by their own progress and clearly demonstrates their learning.

I've been having students turn in written reflections for a while, but Kate (see this post about the project) suggested that we have the students create podcasts about their towers. I was blown away by how much more thought and detail the students were willing to put in the podcast than they had done in the past on paper.

For their assessment, students explained their sources for inspiration for the project and how it their creations were representations and reflections of themselves. They also talked about their aesthetic an creative choices in creating their work. Here are just a few samples:

Not an Ordinary Perspective Project

2011-01-23T22:56:00.000-08:00

Just before the winter holidays, our Foundations Art students completed their (not ordinary, but extraordinary) two and three point perspective towers. My (not ordinary, but extraordinary) new colleague Kate Wentworth and I collaborated on developing this idea from Ken Veith's fantastic book... (wait for it) From Ordinary to Extraordinary. This book was given to me, by the way, by the (you get it- not ordinary, but extraordinary) Kendra Farrell at ISB Beijing.

Veith's lesson involves having students design 3 Pt. Perspective museums. Our elaboration of his idea focused on the students creating buildings that were secret puzzles about themselves. After designing their structures, the students had to incorporate something about themselves into the towers using three of the following elements:

A Meaningful Object
An Animal
A Pattern
Text
An Image of Themselves
An Architectural Style

Each one of those elements had to be 'above', 'below', 'on', or 'inside' the tower. Here are the results:

Pearltrees

2011-01-19T16:54:00.000-08:00

I'm really digging Pearltrees, a great way to visualize internet resources in hierarchical organization. You can start with a main idea and then split off into branches of deeper categorization. You can even collaborate with others- this would be a great activity for students who are researching an idea to share resources and then visualize how the ideas they are investigating are related. I've been experimenting with this site through creating a Pearl Tree for IB Film. If you're teaching an IB Film class as well, feel free to help grow the tree!

Floating Paint

2011-01-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

Working on the F L O A T project?*

Here's some inspiration.
Warning: This could get messy.

*You should be. Whatsamatta you?

Adult Sense

2011-01-11T21:35:00.001-08:00

Scene: A student is explaining the inspiration of her artwork during a class critique.

Student: The idea of the horse comes from 'Catcher in the Rye'. Falling off of a horse is a symbol of a transition from childhood to adultsense.

Me: Adolescence?

Student: Yeah.

Me: I'm not sure, but my guess is that those are pretty different things.

Subtitled Analysis

2011-01-03T12:27:00.000-08:00

I'm really digging some of the entries on Film Salon- while some of them are simply entertaining and fun to read- some are also excellent examples of scene analysis. This makes for some excellent resource material for film teachers- especially IB Film teachers who are working on building skills toward the scene analysis assessment. In these examples, author Matt Zoller Seitz rates his top ten scenes for 2010, and includes subtitles that explain what is going on cinematically as you watch the scene.

I haven't seen Let Me In, the American adaptation of the Sweedish Vampire film Let the Right One In (which is an interesting film and certainly worth a rental). However, Seitz includes this excellent analysis for one scene which explains why he thinks its the best scene of 2010:

His second favorite scene is from Toy Story 3, and I have to agree. It is a pretty powerful scene and I'm not above admitting that I shed a few tears at this pixar film (and apparently I'm not the only one). In this clip - he explains what makes the climactic scene so powerful (but beware, this contains spoilers).

Each of his top ten films receive their own post, you can read about them and see the clips here.

1. Let Me In
2. Toy Story 3
3. Winter's Bone
4. Dogtooth
5. The Social Network
6. Ne Change Rien
7. Shutter Island
8. Somewhere
9. The Ghost Writer
10. Solitary Man

What I find is really successful about his analysis is how he connects his personal experiential reactions to film with the cinematographic techniques and stylistic choices made by the directors.

For the Rotoscopers

2010-12-31T07:27:00.000-08:00

If you're working on the rotoball project -or even if you're not - here's a beautiful piece of rotoscoping.

Dispatches from the Revolution 12/31/2010

2010-12-30T16:31:00.001-08:00

Beautiful Remakes of Star Wars Posters

tags: Star Wars Graphic Graphic Design Design

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

This Post Will Make You More Creative

2010-12-26T19:51:00.001-08:00

According to Scientific American, creativity is enhanced with increased interaction between the right and left brain. In a recent experiment, participants who followed a dot across a screen back and fourth from left to right (in order to increase communication between hemispheres) were more creative than those who did not.

30 Seconds to more creativity? I think I have a new 'do-now' at the beginning of each class. Follow the dot with your eyes.

Link via Fresh Creation

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-23T10:41:00.000-08:00

Hey fellow Mac Users! Here's a nice christmas gift for you - For the next 10 days, Hidden is free. This tracking software allows you to track your computer with google maps if it gets stolen. Enjoy!

Stop Motion Goodness

2010-12-21T19:42:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of great stop motion videos - both very different, in style and content. These would be excellent examples of how much variety you could get out of a lesson in stop motion animation.

This first one has a great website which includes a 'making of' video.

Train of Thought from Leo Bridle on Vimeo.

This next one is also very clever- Full disclosure: I have never been choked up by anything on a lite-brite screen before.

(links via Drawn!)

Post About Post Its

2010-12-21T17:04:00.000-08:00

Donn Kenn creates these amazing monster drawings on post it notes. Post it notes.

Post it notes!

Vimeo Pulls Ahead

2010-12-19T19:52:00.000-08:00

So I've got accounts on both Vimeo and YouTube, and have a slight feeling of dissatisfaction to have my videos spread out over two sites. I'm not sure why this is, since organization isn't exactly one of my defining characteristics, but I like having all of my stuff in one place. However, the more I use Vimeo, the more I like it. Aside from its classier feel, it can do just about everything that YouTube can.

However, with the introduction of their Video School, Vimeo has just pulled ahead. With lessons that are both from Team Vimeo as well as crowd-sourced, there are some excellent tutorials and explanations here for your video classes. The videos are also neatly categorized by topic. Here's one from their Video 101 Basics section:

Not Bad, Art. Not bad.

2010-12-18T19:29:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to The Teaching Palette and Fugleflicks, two art education sites that grabbed second runner up awards in their respective categories. This is a great showing for art compared to previous years. Congrats also to the other nine art related nominees as well! Next year its Art for the Win!

(pic via http://www.whosawesome.com/)

Recut Trailers

2010-12-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

Back when I started this blog almost six years ago, I came across this fantastic spoof trailer for The Shining, which I suggested would be a great lesson for talking about the power of editing. I finally used it as a project for my IB Film One class this year, and love the results!

A few of the students haven't uploaded their trailers yet, but here's the first few. If you're curious about what The Game would look like as a love story, or the horror film Amelie, have a look. You'll also see a trailer for a film about crazed obsession (Meshes of the Afternoon), Kurasawa's Horror Masterpiece, Stray Dogs, and the story of a man who takes a stand against cruelty to living-impared humans, Shaun of the Dead.

Here's a link to the playlist on youtube.

Art Is Rocking the Edublogs

2010-12-05T21:07:00.000-08:00

...and you can help!

I am so excited to see such a great showing of art blogs this year! I have to admit a little bit of special pride for all my friends (and family!) who have been nominated. Be sure to cast your vote for these wonderful art education blogs:

1. Best Group Blog: The Teaching Palette - Vote Here!

2. Best New Blog: New City Arts - Vote Here!

3. Best Class Blog: The Mac Lab - Vote Here!

4. Best Resource Blog: Art is Messy - Vote Here!*

5. Best Use of Video/Visual: Fugelflicks - Vote Here!

6. Best Use of a PLN: DATA Ning - Vote Here!

7. Best Educational Wiki: Matt Cauthron's The Student Creative and DATA Wikis have both been nominated. Matt has indicated that he'd prefer votes for his sites to go towards the DATA wiki (what a nice dilemma to be in though- having two sites nominated to be in competition with each other!).

8. Although not technically an art blog (or a blog at all for that matter), International Schools Island has great resources for all disciplines in Second Life, including art. Its up for Best use of a Virtual World, and anyway, ISI proprietor Chris Smith is a real swell guy. Vote here!

9. And since we're veering off the topic of art, you might want to check out my good friend Jeff's The Thinking Stick for best educational tech support blog. Vote here!

*Yes, that's my wife's blog! Congrats my dear!

RIP, Irvin Kirshner

2010-11-30T19:05:00.000-08:00

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

Irivn Kirshner

April 29, 1923 – November 27, 2010

The force will be with you, always.

Dispatches from the Revolution 12/01/2010

2010-11-30T16:30:00.001-08:00

40 Free Tutorials on Advanced Drawing Techniques

tags: tutorials drawing

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

2010-11-29T22:02:00.000-08:00

Image via Worth 1000.

Brainstorms and a Shower of Resources.

2010-11-28T16:55:00.000-08:00

Today I'm going to throw out a bunch of resources and links that I've found recently, or have dug up to use in my

One of my students sent me this terrific link of out of print instructional drawing books from Andrew Loomis. Great reference material for just about any HS art class.

My IB Film students are just starting to plan out their final narrative videos. We've been spending the last few days on writing prompts (except today, but that's another story). Most sites that I've found have some pretty lame writing prompts. However, I've found some pretty interesting ideas at Language is a virus and Plot Scenario Generator. Both can be hit or miss, but then I suppose that's going to be the case with prompts in general. Distractionbeast's BRAINSTORMER has a great interface - similar to The Idea Generator, but a little cleaner.

Although we've covered this before, Kurt Vonnegut has a great explanation of drama here. Teacher Rob McMinn has some fantastic powerpoint presentations up on slideshare that together constitute a goldmine for any IB Film teacher. I just showed the students his explanation of how to write a screenplay, but his shot-by-shot breakdowns of films are truly fantastic. For example, here's part one of his brilliant breakdown of Jaws:

Jaws Shot By Shot - Part 1

View more presentations from Rob McMinn.

Part II:

Jaws Shot By Shot - Part 2 - the Kintner boy

View more presentations from Rob McMinn.

...and there's more where that came from.

Let Art Rock the Edublogs!

2010-11-23T18:22:00.001-08:00

I'm a big fan of many of the deserving sites I've seen grab an edublog award in the past, but have been a bit disappointed in the lack of showing of art education sites. So this year I'm going to nominate some (can't nominate all) of my faves:

Best Individual Blog: The Art Teacher's Guide to the Internet
Best group blog: The Teaching Palette
Best new blog: Art Tech Education
Best class blog: The Mac Lab
Best resource sharing blog: Art is Messy
Best teacher blog: Learning IT
Best librarian / library blog: Tech Library Classroom
Best educational tech support blog: The Thinking Stick
Best educational use of video / visual: Fugleflicks
Best educational wiki: DATA
Best educational use of a social network: Digital Arts Education
Best educational use of a virtual world: International Schools Island
Best use of a PLN: Art Education 2.0

If you have an art blog or website, post your favorites! Let art rock the edublogs this year!

The Panda Cake Procedure

2010-11-21T21:26:00.000-08:00

A Long Explanation of a Short Idea That I Eventually Bring Back to Art Education

I can't believe that its been a year, but we've just celebrated Amaya's first birthday. Sometime over the course of the last year, I caught a few minutes of some cooking show in which they were making these ridiculously elaborate sculpted cakes. Ever since then, I'd been anxious to put together a special cake for a special girl on a special day.

The process itself was - let's say, a good learning experience. Cake isn't the easiest medium to work with, and being neither a sculptor nor a baker, this whole project was one narrowly averted disaster after another- and it was a heck of a lot of fun.

To begin, I found inspiration in the form of this Yoda Head Cake Instructable. I didn't seek out a Star Wars cake as inspiration, although you'd be forgiven for making that assumption. To be honest, the idea of cutting into Yoda's head is a bit disturbing- especially so since the artist used red velvet cake for the interior. This instructable doesn't provide a step-by-step process, but it does explain the basics of how to carve the basic shape and cover it with Fondant (which, if you're not a baker either, is a marshmellow 'skin' that goes over the cake). I found a great recipe for the fondant here. The fondant was messy, but in the end has a consistency similar to sculpy.

I decided to make her a panda bear cake, since we live in China and her nickname is "The Bear". I baked two round cakes and cut them in half, took the four halves and piled them on top of each other. I then froze the cake overnight and then carved out the basic shape of the bear. Then I rolled out the fondant and draped it over the cake- it shaped pretty easily to the basic shape. The fondant skin was pliable and I found I could heal it pretty well by rubbing it with some water where it tore a little bit. After I had the basic shape, I put on some black food coloring and had myself a little cake-panda! So far so good.

Then disaster struck.

Instead of leaving the cake out, I put it back in the freezer. I wouldn't know of my mistake until the day of the party.

With the Panda done, I had a bunch of Fondant left over. Since it seemed to work a bit like sculpy, I made these two little characters for the front of the cake by painting them with a little food coloring. The tiger and the rabbit are Kim and my Chinese zodiac symbols.

The night before the party I set out to finish the cake, and this is where things began to fall apart. For the base of the cake, I grabbed what I thought was a box of chocolate cake mix, and only after struggling to figure out why the cake was so 'bouncy' realized that I had two boxes of muffin mix instead. So I had a giant chocolate muffin. Under most circumstances that would be a good thing. Not this one. Luckily, I had a few boxes of brownie mix. I made two batches of brownies (three if you include the one that I mixed improperly thanks to trying to follow the directions on the leftover muffin box for the brownies) - and after the base was assembled... I realized that the Panda was too big! It wouldn't fit on the layer of cake I'd made as a base. Luckily, I'd saved the giant chocolate muffin (and really, what is a muffin other than 'breakfast cake'?), which I cut up and used to extend the second layer a bit.

Then the real disaster struck. I took the Panda from the freezer and placed it on its pedestal of chocolately goodness. As I was making the green icing, Kim asked me if the color on the cake was supposed to be 'running like that'. I looked over and my black and white Panda was quickly becoming a grey Koala. The black food coloring was running down all over. That's when I went back to the instructions and found out that you are not supposed to freeze fondanted-cakes. The condensation destroys them. So did the unthinkable- I ripped off all the Panda's skin and re-fondanted it about an hour before the party.

Finally the cake was finished. The birthday girl, as it turns out, didn't have much of a sweet tooth, but she smiled at the cake a lot. The dad was happy.

Here's what I learned and where I bring this back to the theme of this blog.

1. Always read the directions carefully, and when your students don't, remind them that not reading directions isn't exactly a shortcut. At the same time, remember that when they don't follow directions, its a forgivable offense.

2. The process is more important than the product. This is something that I talk about in my class a great deal- but this reminded me of something that often gets lost whenever IB and AP classes start their juggernaut roll towards exam time. I'm happy the cake turned out well (although I wouldn't give it a high score on my IB rubric) but I loved making it. That brings me to the next point -

3. Find your muse. I had a personally meaningful goal in mind, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning something new. If only every art class could capture that idea.

4. Find your own answers - and questions. This one I feel like I do quite often in class, but its worth reiterating. Its a great idea to have students find and bookmark a bunch of go-to websites that they prefer (like Instructables for how-to, or Drawn! for inspiration). Students have a lot of questions. I don't have all the answers, but I do have the google.

5. Marshmellow Sculpy. Hmmm.... I think I have a good idea for a final art project this year...

TGIF

2010-11-18T19:11:00.000-08:00

Conversation with my students today:

S: Mr. Gran, what are we learning next?

Me: Particle physics.

S: No, really.

A: Isn't that science?

Me: It can be.

S: You don't know anything about Physics unless they talked about it in Star Wars.

Me: Painting then?

Happy Friday everyone!

FLOATOBALL

2010-11-17T22:20:00.000-08:00

Update 11/19: The Rotoball link is down, I'll update again when its back up. The project however, goes on!

No, I'm not mixing projects, although I haven't been getting a lot of sleep and it does conjure some interesting ideas...

If you're working on F L O A T, or thinking about it, here is the ~~keynote~~ powerpoint presentation (.ppt file) that I used with my own students*. Since one of our objectives in this project is for each community and class to approach it in their own way, feel free to use, change, ignore, laugh at, pity, or alter this presentation in anyway that fits your own curricular needs. You can also watch the presentation here, although it doesn't make as much sense without the included presentation notes:

Float

Not that 'making sense' is one of my strong points, but there you go.

In other news, if you are now, have ever been, or would like to participate in the Rotoball Project, the site for 2011 is up! Be sure to check to make sure that your school is listed and get the students started! Remember that despite its name, any kind of animation would be welcomed! Now in its fourth year as a global collaboration, I'm even willing to be flexible on the parameters of the project itself. If you want to be really different, all I'm asking for this year is that the ball enter from the left and exit the right in about 15 seconds. What happens in that time is totally up to you.

Wow, I was nervous about putting that out there, but now that I have, it feels right.

*I converted to Powerpoint after a certain Mac Labber suggested that not everyone uses Keynote. I know, can you believe it? A Mac Labber!

Paint School Arts with Light

2010-11-07T21:12:00.000-08:00

If the cover of School Arts Magazine looks familiar this month, you might have recognized the splash page of the first challenge from The Student Creative, Paint the World with Light. You can read all about our project in my article in the current issue, or check it out online if you don't have a copy handy. Paint the World with Light is still available for purchase and all proceeds benefit the Jacaranda School in Malawi.

Finally, don't forget to check out our current challenge, FLOAT!

Sharkdog in Shanghai and a Watercolor Exhibition

2010-10-15T06:32:00.000-07:00

My parents are in town visiting ~~my daughter~~ our family this month, and last weekend we took a little trip out to Zhu Jia Jiao, a small water town just outside of Shanghai. Water towns are small villages based around a canal, or series of canals, and being quite scenic, they're popular with tourists. Amaya and I wore our cool new Shark Dog Swag, thanks to Tricia and her Dryden students. Did I mention that he's got laser paint eyes? Yes! We love our shirts.

We found that the small museum in the town was hosting their 'watercolor biennial', and we were shocked to see some huge names in Chinese art represented, as well as an amazing variety of water colors from around the world. Here you can see some of the work, including some details. Unfortunately, some of the work was behind glass and I couldn't get the best pictures, but there is just some amazing stuff here:

Learning 2.0 Reflections

2010-09-19T21:58:00.000-07:00

For some reason I couldn't blog or tweet at Learning 2.0 this year so here's my non-live-blogged reflection. One of the great strengths about Learning 2.0 is explained in its tagline, Connect, Create, Collaborate. The conference provides time to make connections and share ideas both through un-conference sessions and time to meet and talk to colleagues who share your job description and professional interests. When I arrived on Friday morning, I immediately ran into Breen O'Reilly, my good friend and IB Film guru. It was already a great conference before the first session. Breen shared some great film resources with me, including:

Rob Ager's Film Analysis Youtube Channel. He's got some really neat insights into The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not sure that I'm on board for all of his theories, but in some instances he makes some pretty interesting arguments- especially in his theory
Idea for a music in film project: Students choose a film, and analyze how the many ways that music can construct meaning - it can reflect the time period, give more layers of information through relevant lyrics, build tension, and advance the tone or theme.
Then there's The Wilderness Downtown- a fun way of incorporating video with some neat google tech.
Breen showed me a cool student film that involved two shots running next to each other on a white screen. I assumed that his students had used Final Cut to achieve the effect- but they'd used Keynote! They embedded two videos and exported the slide as a .mov file. It looked great!

I then ran into my good friend & film festival collaborator Michael Lambert who showed off his school's new video studio - complete with green room, control room, teleprompter, and Tricaster. Yes. I'm jealous.

This year, the conference introduced learning cohort sessions which accounted for about half the time in the conference. During these sessions, participants met to discuss education and pedagogy under common strands. I chose Digital Literacy, led by Wes Fryer. In this cohort session we discussed how to create and assess media projects. Although I felt like most of what was covered was familiar, it did give Breen and I a chance to talk about our own digital projects and challenge us to create our own Pecha-Kucha to present to the class. I'd already assigned my own students a Pecha-Kucha to explain their IB Film documentary project. Breen and I presented a segment about light in art- starting with illuminated manuscripts and ending with 21st century cinema. I'm going to go off on a tangent here for a second, but as a side note, in the process of putting together our project, I came across a great 360 panorama of the interior of one of my favorite installation pieces, Fireflies on the Water by Yayoi Kasuma. This artwork involves walking into a mirrored room lit by dangling colored lights. The mirrors on all sides make it feel like the room extends forever even though the entire enclosure is probably not more than 10 square feet. The panorama gives you a sense of what its like, but its best experienced first hand.

Back to the topic at hand- putting together the Pecha-Kucha was a challenging experience, and helped me determine reasonable parameters for the students presentations. The rest of the resources that were put together for the Digital Literacy cohort are compiled at the Talk with Media Wiki.
In one of the first un-conference sessions, I attended a discussion of iPads in education. Truth be told, as much of an apple geek as I am, I wasn't really interested in buying one (although if they added a camera I could have been easier to convince). However, I was just about converted when I found out that you could create a virtual textbook - with embedded pictures and video - in Pages, and then export your book as an .pub file and upload it to iTunes. You can then put that virtual text book on your iPhone, iTouch, or iPad. Its even does the whole flippy pages thing.

In another un-conference session, I had the chance to meet other techy art teachers and discuss some things that we're doing in our classes. Here we all are- and do notice one of the studios with a green room behind us. That's the back-up green room. Yowza. Back to our conversations - of course I promoted the F L O A T project, but rather than go through and explain each neat project, I'll simply provide the links that we recommended to each other.

Jane's website
Kelly's website
Animoto
Art Ed 2.0
Asia Region Art Educators
Zbrush (3 dimensional painting program)
One (of many) projectors for iphone/itouch
Online learning: eClass

One Million Bones: A collaborative project.

In also attended a great session about collaborative learning with Kim Cofino and Julie Lindsay. Both are doing amazing things with connecting classrooms around the world and I was most interested to hear about their online global education conference.

Finally, I attended a cool session on 3D virtual environments led by Bill Clark at the Nanjing International School. I'm so excited for the possibilities of collaborating globally in a virtual world- although I've been struggling with how to implement it. Bill seems to be developing some amazing opportunities along these lines. It was great to meet Bill -he and I have collaborated on the Rotoball Project- and his students have done amazing 3D work in Blender.
To me, the most fascinating thing about the Learning 2.0 conference is that it is constantly re-inventing itself. This is not a streamlined process and mistakes are made, but that's what happens when you take risks. Every year the conference is something a little different and it grows in new and unexpected ways- a critical method for creating new possibilities. In that way it mirrors what I love best about progressive education.

It was great to see old friends and meet new ones at Learning 2.010- I'm already looking forward to 2.011!

Where Was this Technology Last Year?

2010-09-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

Would have been great to get this fantastic use of the ipad into student hands for our Paint the World with Light project. Message to Dentsu: could you please please please make this an app?

Making Future Magic: iPad light painting from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

They've got a light painting book as well. What a great idea!

Stuff From my Students

2010-09-14T00:49:00.001-07:00

Today was one of those days when I felt like I got more out of my students than they got out of my class- but that's actually a nice feeling.

First Hearin, one of my IB Film Year 2 students and Film Club President, showed this great inspirational video. Even though its an ad for a school, it could be perfect for an IB Art class, or any class that emphasizes the use of a sketchbook, for that matter.

And from Gabe, in my IB Film Year One class, I took these shots of his laptop:

Very clever, Gabe. Very clever.

National Arts in Education Week

2010-09-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

September 12th marks the beginning of National Arts in Education Week; and although I'm blogging from outside the nation, I'm still happy to participate in a circle of blogs celebrating this event. Congress has signed resolution H.CON.RES.275.RFS which recognizes the importance of art in education and makes the following commitment to art education:
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress--
(1) supports the designation of Arts in Education Week;
(2) calls on governors, mayors, and other elected officials from across the United States to issue proclamations to raise awareness of the value and importance of arts in education; and
(3) encourages the President to issue a proclamation encouraging the people of the United States to observe such week with appropriate activities.
While I'm all for a good awareness raising, and fond indeed of appropriate activities, I thought I'd blog today about what my Arts Education Week Resolution would state:
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress--

(1) supports the arts through increased funding and through the hiring of highly qualified art teachers.
(2) recognizes that in order to keep America competitive in the 21st century, we need to educate students who can think both critically and creatively and imagine new possibilities.
(3) agrees that as art teaches us what it means to be human through the act of creation and the investigation into the experience of being human, and cannot therefore be relegated to an 'elective'.
(4) demands that arts education be made a right of all students.
Well, a guy can dream. While we're at it, lets make number (5) chocolate every friday. In the meantime, here is what some of my fellow art teaching bloggers are saying about National Arts in Education Week:

The Art Teacher's Guide to the Internet
The Teaching Palette
Wonder Brooks Extraordinaire
Mrs. Gillespie's Blog

Update: Lois Girbino has some great thoughts on Art in Education week over at More Art 24/7. Here's a great quote that just nails it on the head:
Wonderful teachers exist in all content areas, but creative thinking, the kind of thinking that happens every day in “the arts”, is where our innovators of the future develop the habits of mind today. Beyond the concrete proof of brain scans during creative exercises, isn’t the world a more refined and beautiful place when we have art?

Float On!

2010-09-06T06:55:00.000-07:00

After a successful run of our first book, Paint the World with Light, the Student Creative is proud to announce our second student challenge, FLOAT. Where Paint the World challenged students to create unique works of long exposure photography, Float asks students to use high speed photography. With a high shutter speed, students will capture a moment to fast to be seen with with the naked eye, and freeze time in such a way to create an image of magical realism.

Final images will be posted in online and selected images will be published in our second book when the project reaches its deadline on February 28th, 2011. As with our last project, the proceeds of this book will benefit the Jacaranda School for AIDS orphans in Malawi.

Alright don't worry even if things end up a bit too heavy.
We'll all float on.
- Modest Mouse

We All Shine On...

2010-09-05T09:06:00.001-07:00

For the last few years, I've kicked off my IB Year 2 Film classes with Stanley Kubrick's classic The Shining. In addition to all the thematic layers on which it can be analyzed, the amazing technical aspects, and how those elements intersect in such fascinating ways- its just an engaging film that (to my mind anyway) its still scary-as-all-get-out 30 years later.

Yes, but what is the shining? It's the question that is always asked and also helps dive into the textual analysis of the film. As we discussed it this time around, I threw out this tangential bit of trivia- Stephen King originally got the idea for The Shining while listening to the Plastic Ono Band's Instant Karma. You know, like "we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun"?

Interesting little tidbit of information anyway, but I also came across this neat bit as well- the image of the twins was inspired by the Diane Arbus photo (pictured above) Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967. This got me thinking about how interesting the confluence of multiple sources of inspiration result in totally new works of art. An energetic John Lennon song and an Arbus photo of two innocent little girls who happened to look alike. Who could have seen The Shining as a result of those inspirations*?

How do you teach "mash up anything that inspires you and make it new"?

*granted these are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the only influences that resulted in The Shining.

Adobe Education Challenge

2010-09-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

The new Adobe Education Exchange has some truly amazing resources, thanks in part to the recent challenge that they offered to submit your best digital lessons and ideas. Adobe has just announced that the winners are in.

Book Title

Subtitle

By Author Name

I'm thrilled to announce that our first two projects from The Student Creative were both listed as 'runners up'! Paint the World With Light (buy your copy now, proceeds still benefit the Jacaranda School in Malawi) is our first book of student light paintings from 20 schools around the world. Our new project, Float, got a 'runner up' nod as well- even though we haven't officially begun! Congratulations to all the teachers that participated (and will participate), and especially to Matt Cauthron (another art ed rock star) and Mike Skocko, my co-~~conspirators~~ collaborators on these projects. More news on Float coming very soon...

A big congratulations to Nicole Dalesio, who in addition to having three tutorials listed as 'runners up' won first prize for her tutorial on using Photoshop to make scratch art:

Nicole also submitted this tutorial on rotoscoping in Photoshop, which might be of great interest to anyone looking to try something new for The Rotoball Project.

Be sure to also check out her Vimeo page- lots of really creative uses of Photoshop to be found there through her fantastic tutorials. Congrats Nicole!

Pop & Rock Stars

2010-09-01T17:26:00.000-07:00

Last night as I was reading through my favorite art ed blogs & sites, I came across two incredible and inspiring stories of teachable moments in the art room. The first is from Tricia Fuglestad's elementary art room at Dryden elementary school. Tricia was doing a lesson on pop art dogs (pup art, of course), and one frustrated student discarded a drawing he saw as a mistake.

With the help of her class, Tricia turned that mistake into the new pop sensation that is Shark Dog. Read the full story here, and then buy the schwag. Hello Shark Dog t-shirt! Seriously, this thing needs to get its own tv show. Or at least be a logo for something. If only it was a Shark Carrot...

He's got laser paint eyes! Love it!

On the other side of the country and opposite end of the k-12 spectrum, Mike Scocko's students made this amazing music video for a local band, and have gained national attention. Mike describes a number of teachable moments (as well as a disclaimer about the lyrics*) in which the students learned about fighting for their artistic vision, and making real-world compromises and decisions.

I've had the great honor of collaborating with both Tricia and Mike on a few different projects, and am in constant awe of what happens in their classrooms. Talk about rock stars!

*Note to Mike- after listening to your lengthy disclaimer, I was prepared for the worst. I put the baby to bed and waited for the wife to fall asleep. I even sent the cats out of the room. Turns out it wasn't so bad after all. Have you heard what ELSE is on the radio?

Facebook Revolution?

2010-08-22T17:15:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what the point of this is, but I'm noticing that a lot of my favorite blogs post to facebook as well. So I'll bite- here's the official home of the revolution on facebook. Is it just me or is there something disturbingly ironic about that?

One of us!

...and we're back!

2010-08-17T23:17:00.000-07:00

My Summer Vacation. By David Gran. If you haven't guessed, I spent quite some time away from my computer this summer. Unplugging can be difficult, but its a beautiful place once you get there. This summer was less a vacation and more 'the Amaya Tour 2010' - in which we took our daughter all around the Northeast to meet friends and relatives. One of our stops was Martha's Vinyard. Almost every summer my family gets together on the island where we can relax and spend some time together. This is also our big chance to spend time with my cousin Hermine at her art gallery on Edgartown Road.

Maybe I'm a bit biased, but I just love her artwork, and would love for her to come and talk to my students about painting... if I could get her to leave the island... and maybe fly to China.

We also took Amaya to her first museums. We took her to see a fantastic Andrew Wyeth exhibit at The Hyde Collection and a fascinating exhibition on how Degas inspired Picasso at the Clarke Museum. At the Wyeth exhibit, I fell in love with a birds eye view of a farm house - complete with the actual bird looking down from flight. N.C. Wyeth apparently didn't feel the same way about it - he flipped Andrew's early painting over and used it as a platform for model trains.

Amaya seemed to love the exhibits as well - the paintings inspired her to shout loudly and fling her arms up in the air. It was nice to see that rather than bother other patrons, they were quite happy to see a baby in the museum.

Now that we're back, posts around here might not come as frequently since 'blogging time' has largely been happily replaced with 'bedtime story time', but its a sacrifice that I'll happily make. I'll still make time to post about interesting sites and projects I've found, discuss pedagogical issues in the art room, and make the occasional rant.

Hipstamatic

2010-06-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

Hello Summer! Things are still slow here at the Revolution, thanks in large part to spending some much needed quality time with my family. Of course, I've been taking lots of pictures of little Amaya (a.ka. 'The Bear'), which brings me to the subject of today's post. In the past I've mentioned a bunch of my favorite iTouch apps (here and here). This summer I've had a chance to play around with my mother's iPhone (yes, my mother has an iPhone and I don't. Please don't rub it in) and I am absolutely loving Hipstamatic, an app that mimics the look and feel of the cheap plastic cameras from the 70s and 80s. Complete with light leaks and poorly constructed viewfinder, this little camera yields some surprisingly good results. In fact, I had a hard time taking a picture I didn't like. For example, here are some pictures I took on our a little day trip to Vermont:

The fun doesn't stop there. You can mix and match films, lenses, and flashes. As my favorite photography site, Photojojo notes, there are 336 different combinations! 6 lenses + 7 flash options + 8 films = 336 different combinations. Their comprehensive guide to Hipstamatic and wall-o-hipsta-photos demonstrates the possibilities.

Also note that there are some adjustments you can make in the settings tab. Be sure to increase the quality of the photos- you'll want to keep these. There is also the option to randomize the settings on your camera- by shaking it. Nothing like adding a little more chaos to your photos- you might get some unexpected results.

To be honest, as much as a mac-geek as I am, I haven't been dying for an iPhone... until now...

Thanks Flickr

2010-06-03T18:32:00.001-07:00

I already knew how to say it, but I appreciate your sense of humor.

Happy Friday everyone, one more week left for us!

On Volcanoes, Strikes, and Art in Film

2010-05-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

Its been over a month since we concluded our Shanghai Student Film Festival, but thanks to some unexpected ash clouds and union difficulties, the festival lives on!

This week, storyboard artist and concept designer Tony Wright visited some of the S2F2 participating schools to talk to classes about his process of defining the look of a film from the text of the script. As a storyboard and concept artist, Tony is largely responsible for defining the first 'look' of the film as it is translated from words to image.

One idea that he brought up that resonated with me (and with the students, I hope) is how much must be considered in that translation. As a visual language, the story in a good film must be told through images - nowhere is that more clear than in the creation of a good storyboard.

In addition, Tony treated us to samples of his work, including storyboards from the Harry Potter series, The Golden Compass, and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as some concept design work he did on The Phantom Menace. In the picture above, he's showing the class his concept design for the 'dark mark' in The Goblet of Fire.

Special thanks to Tony for his flexibility and generosity with his time. This was a great opportunity for students to see first hand not only the important roles that visual artists play in film, but also the artistic vision that is needed to bring those films to life.

THE WORLD HAS BEEN PAINTED

2010-05-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

Now buy the book!

Paint The World With Light by The Student Creative | Make Your Own Book

Paint the World With Light is the first digital media challenge from The Student Creative, a book of student light paintings from around the world. The goal of this project was to have students use long exposure photography to show the unique character of their own communities.

When you purchase a copy of the book, you paint the world with a little more light; all of our profits go towards the Jacaranda Foundation, a school for AIDS orphans in Malawi. For more information on this and future projects, visit the Student Creative Website.

For more information on the Jacaranda School, please visit the Jacaranda Foundation's Website.

As a sad postscript, I would like to add that this book is dedicated to the memory of my mentor at Teachers College who passed away last week. Renee Darvin was a fierce advocate for Art Education, whose passion for the arts affected thousands upon thousands of students through her work as a teacher, a professor, an administrator, and Director of Art Education for the city of New York.

We'll miss you greatly Renee, thank you for everything.

Composite Tuts for PS

2010-05-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

One of the most difficult things about photoshop is in creating realistic photo composites. New photoshop users often struggle with neatly cutting an image out of one background and placing it in another. To that end, We Graphics" has a great series of tutorials on hot to cut and paste objects with different kinds of edges. All in one easy to find place!

A Photography Blog

2010-05-10T18:09:00.000-07:00

Phoebe is a local photographer who uses her blog as a place to show sneak peaks of projects that she's working on, explore the use of her lenses, and share both her artistic experiments and successes. That's what I love about her blog- she takes you through all parts of her creative process. Check out, for example, this fantastic shot of her capturing a bee in flight with her new macro lens:

She also does great studio shots of children:

Phoebe's love of photography is evident in her blog, which was her own idea, and not a class requirement...

(Phoebe is in the 9th grade here in my intro to photography class).

Rotoball 2010: A Whole New Game

2010-04-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

This was quite an exciting year for The Rotoball Project. By popular demand, we opened the project to any kind of animation at all- and that is what we got. In addition to rotoscoping, Rotoball 2010 features 3D animation, tweened animations, frame by frame animations, pixilations, brick films (animations made with legos), and even some live video integrated with animation. However, what I really love about this year's contributions are how much the cultures of the school art department communities came out in the final videos. For example, our collective group effort now includes the brick films that Kris Fontes' class is famous for (speaking of brick films...) , a mini art advocacyfugelflick, and some great rotoball/famous movie mashups from Heather Swan's class (hi Huntington!). I could go on. Each school took their own spin on the project, and within those differences, each student created their own unique response.

I'm proud to present our third annual installment, Rotoball 2010:

End of publishing as we know it.

2010-04-27T22:07:00.000-07:00

Been a while since i blogged from Taipei. Here is a thought-provoking video. See it to the end and you'll get it.

-cr

S2F2 2010 (Part I)

2010-04-25T22:04:00.000-07:00

This year's Shanghai Student Film Festival was a great success. The students spent the morning learning about the process from Marvel Studio's C.B. Cebulski, storytelling from UCLA's Joe Janeti, and Stephanie Auerbach, a set dresser from Merchant Ivory productions.

In the evening, students watched some amazing student made films. For me, one of the highlights was Madison Boll's My Brother, a touching and complex documentary on her autistic brother; an impressive feat for a middle school student. The middle school students also impressed with Revenge a creepy ghost story from Maria Memede. Dr. Joy and Mr. Sad showed off the music talents of The Lycee Francais de Shangahi's own band The Broken Picks.

Of course, I'm also especially proud of the work of my own students. Cailin and Meg's Ambrosian Flagrato is the first IB Year 2 film we've produced at SAS (we'll post that after the assessments), and they did a phenomenal job. Great script, great acting, great directing, camera, and editing. Finally, I'm proud of Hearin's The Box, the winner of the 2010 Shanghai Student Film Festival!

I couldn't be prouder of all the student work- each year the students set the bar higher and higher for themselves. I know the judges must have had a difficult time culling out some of the fantastic work.

Still Here!

2010-03-28T22:23:00.000-07:00

We were away for Spring Break last weekend when the news hit that Google cutting ties with China. Blogger is owned by Google and yet we're back and I'm still able to post through my little tunnel under the great firewall... but if anything changes, we'll let you know where else to look for the revolution dispatches.

Ars Non Gratia Artis, Ars Gratia Pecuniae!

Wait, that's not right...

Digital Art Revolution: An Interview with Scott Ligon

2010-03-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

If I used a textbook in my digital art classroom, it would very likely be Scott Ligon's new Digital Art Revolution: Creating Fine Art with Photoshop. As it is, I'm all over the place with my curriculum; so for my own purposes, it will serve as an excellent reference. Drawing on the work of different artists, Ligon takes us through various tutorials that range from basic to more advanced techniques in Photoshop- and in doing so builds a clear path through what is otherwise an easy program to understand yet hard to master. Below is my interview with Scott:

David Gran: As an art teacher, I appreciate the pacing of the tutorials and ideas for projects, but I especially enjoyed reading your first chapter. You raise some great points about how digital media is transforming art, and I was wondering if we could start our discussion there. To begin, I'd like you to elaborate on the point that the digital media has no technical or aesthetic limitations. Can you address how digital media is unbound by aesthetic limitations?

Scott Ligon: What I would say is that digital art has no inherent (permanent) technological limitations. There are obviously technological limitations at any given time, but they are temporary and they are not inherent characteristics of digital art. Processing power and storage capacity are constantly and exponentially increasing, with no end in sight, while people are constantly developing better and more intuitive interfaces to transfer information between the physical and digital worlds.

Which brings us to aesthetic limitations. Digital technology is just a lot of “one’s and zero’s”. It has no inherent characteristics and no limitations other than the very temporary limitations imposed by the current state of technology. It can look like anything, or have virtually any other set of characteristics beyond the visual image, such as movement, interactivity, or sound.

I think the time is fast approaching when it will no longer be useful to even consider digital art as a medium at all. A medium has characteristics. It has limitations. Digital technology is more like an invisible, enabling structure from which things can be created, sort of like atoms in the physical world.

DG: So what are the implications for art teachers?

SL: This question leads us to another topic I discuss in “Digital Art Revolution”, the blurring of boundaries between mediums to the point of irrelevance.

Just to clarify, it’s not the mediums that are no longer relevant. I’m a big fan of traditional, physical materials in art. It’s the borders between the mediums that are increasingly irrelevant. I’m sitting in my living room with my laptop typing these words, but I could just as easily be using this same device to make a drawing, a video or a song. I can use my laptop to distribute content and make it public. I can disseminate ideas throughout social networks. Whether something is a non-moving image, whether it moves, whether it interacts with the viewer or integrates with their physical environment, whether it tells a story, whether it has sound or is only sound…these are now choices within the same digital toolbox rather than examples of different mediums. A creative person, working digitally, will choose among these and other possibilities based on what is appropriate for their work and their interests.

Creativity is fluid. It’s about synthesis. We take things that already exist and put them together in a new way. Digital technology is also fluid. Digital technology is all about synthesis. Digital art breaks down borders and really echoes and enables the creative process in a very direct way. This should be a fundamental consideration for art teachers.

DG: How must we be reacting to the changes in contemporary art in how we design curriculum?

SL: First of all, I just want to mention that the fundamental building blocks of visual art remain the same. We still use line, color and value. We arrange shapes into a well-considered composition. We respond to an image because it conveys a certain universal quality or feeling to us even while it remains unique. What digital technology has introduced are new possibilities in how these elements can be used, and a subtle but redefining shift of consciousness about how we approach creative endeavors.

We should organize our classes in a way that encourages all of these new possibilities rather than places artificial limitations on our thinking.

DG: What would you say is our responsibility in preparing students with 21st century art making skills?

SL:
• Find a balance between the technical and aesthetic and make sure students understand how these concepts are related. Teach “why-to” rather than just “how-to”.

• Present various creative approaches as possibilities within a continuum, rather than examples of different mediums.

• Foster originality. Encourage and guide each student in exploring and refining a personal, unique approach to their art. This is not just a worthwhile goal from a creative standpoint, it’s also extremely important to a creative career in the 21st century. Thanks to digital technology, most things can be done from anywhere in the world. The person that creates something unique and personal is the person that is irreplaceable.

• Teach students not only how to create their work, but also how to share it with the world. Increasingly, people are doing what they love, giving it away for free through various digital means of distribution, and then gaining public interest to an extent that they begin to generate income from their work. This is quickly becoming a realistic alternative to traditional approaches in establishing a career in art. In fact, I’d say this is probably a more likely path to success than waiting to be “discovered” by someone in a position of power.

Digital distribution of creative content, social networking as a means to disseminate ideas and awareness of creative projects, navigating through interactivity…these are all fundamental characteristics that must be considered when preparing artists for the 21st century. They will become increasingly prevalent as long as there is human civilization.

We need to get our students to consider these possibilities from the beginning, before they have their thinking affected and limited by ideas that are no longer relevant.

Lastly, to broadly generalize, I believe that many schools reward people who are good at sitting still, being quiet, memorizing things and repeating them back. More than ever, we need a generation of young people that are active innovators and creative problem solvers. We live in a time when virtually any information can be quickly accessed. It’s what we do with all that information that will determine our fate and direction as a species. The kids who have the most potential as leaders and innovators are often the ones that are the most disenfranchised by our current cookie-cutter approach to education.

Art teachers are in a perfect position to foster creative thinking and individuality. School administrations could benefit by remembering the value of the arts when determining curriculum.

DG: Thanks, Scott!

SCOTT LIGON is the author of Digital Art Revolution, Creating Fine Art with Photoshop (Watson-Guptill/Random House). He is an award-winning digital artist who frequently lectures on the subjects of creativity, filmmaking, and digital art. Ligon is the coordinator for the digital foundation curriculum at the Cleveland Institute of Art. He is also the author/director of the short film Escape Velocity, winner of “Best Experimental Film” at the USA Film Festival in Dallas, which has played in theaters and festivals worldwide and is now available on iTunes through Shorts International. http://www.digitalartrevolution.com

Lip Dubs

2010-03-12T18:36:00.000-08:00

One of my former students just introduced me to the "Lip Dub" phenomenon, in which various school communities do an entire music video in one long carefully choreographed shot (see my previous post about my desire to assign the students a single shot video). In addition to the challenge of choreographing this correctly, and coming up with neat ways to use the camera, it seems like an excellent way of bringing the whole school community together in a way that celebrates various aspects of school life.

This is the video that Kai sent me, it stands out among the Lip Dubs as it was filmed backwards- similar to Spike Jonze's music video Drop for the Pharcyde, but again... all in one shot:

Searching for LipDub on YouTube produces quite a few results, with some really neat ideas and interpretations of the project (as well as some lousy ones... hey, it is YouTube).

No, how to get the whole school together for a few hours though... now there's an even bigger challenge...

Thanks Kai!

Carrot Revolution: The Musical

2010-03-07T01:33:00.000-08:00

Thanks Joe!

Happy Friday! The Way Things Go... Now

2010-03-04T23:41:00.000-08:00

If you're a fan of the still-amazing-25-years-later Rube Goldbergian feat of The Way Things Go, you'll be amazed by This Too Shall pass. In fact, it would be pretty hard not to be impressed by this four minute single-shot music video; its not just the amazing contraption, but the choreography of camera, the machine, and the actors, all moving together in harmony.

In addition to all the obvious amazingness about the video, I especially love that the process is the product. To me, this video really celebrates the act of artistic creation.

...and its a catchy tune.

Here's the Wired article about the making of the video.

Thanks for the link, Ben!

Film-o-Rama

2010-02-24T16:45:00.000-08:00

One of my very talented former students sent me some great links that are perfect for any IB Film or Media Lit class. Well, the Lars Von Treier one might not be perfect for your classroom. In fact, you might want to make sure its appropriate before sharing it with the students. One project that I've done in the past is to have the students create videos in the style of famous directors. These would be perfect examples.

Wes Anderson's Spiderman:

I love the way they mimic both Anderson's deadpans and camera pans.

Lars Von Triere's Denmark Tourism Ads:

Thanks for those, Travis! We've got a new agenda in IB Film today!

Finally, I stumbled across this article, that celebrates the art of cinematography with written descriptions of techniques, and visuals pulled from YouTube. Its a really excellent explanation of the art, and a great introduction to film language.

DEADLINES AHEAD!

2010-02-22T18:16:00.000-08:00

If you're working on either the Rotoball 2010 or Paint the World with Light projects, our deadline is next Monday, March 1st! If you are a participant, and haven't received an email with instructions for uploading from me, please send me an email or leave a comment here.

I've been fortunate to get a sneak preview of some of the projects that some of you have been working on, and let me just say this in advance: wow.

iTouch Art for 2010

2010-02-09T19:52:00.000-08:00

In January 2009, I posted my favorite iTouch/iPhone apps for use in the art classroom. Since then, I've found several new apps to be incredibly useful and engaging for the students in a number of different ways. Note: I have deliberately not included any iPhone apps that require use of the camera. Although some of these products look fantastic, I don't have an iPhone, and thus can't rate them. The apps listed below are free, or a few dollars at most.

One of the most useful tools I've found is Air Mouse Pro. This allows me to turn my iTouch into a remote control for my computer- complete with a trackpad and mini keyboard. Mostly, I use it for presentations; it frees me to walk around the class during class discussions and demonstrations. However, anything you can do on your computer, you can now do from anywhere in the class. This works much better and is a huge improvement over Remote Pad , which I had recommended last year.

The Oblique Strategies is a digital version of Brian Eno's card stack for overcoming creative blocks. Simple and universally applicable phrases help you think of ways to approach your projects in new ways. When I've been discussing ideas with my students, I've occasionally pulled out the Oblique Strategies to help them dig deeper into their ideas. Sometimes it falls flat, but sometimes it provides an eerily helpful perspective. An alternative to this is an app called Methodology which is basically the same thing (and might even be a rip-off of the Oblique Strategies, but the one advantage to it, is that it randomizes the card stack responses.

Yet another version of this is the Creative Whack Pack. This has a nice design and explanation of the suggestions it makes, but overall hasn't generated as interesting responses for my classes as the Oblique Strategies has. The suggestions are more general ways to think creatively.

Do you have any projects that include storytelling? The Idea Generator (mentioned here before) also has an itouch app, great for coming up with writing prompts. This has worked very well with my film and video classes. There is also a Movie Idea Generator, but I've found the suggestions here too convoluted to be developed into workable ideas.

Although Brushes is David Hockney's painting app of choice, I've found that Autodesk's Sketchbook to be a much more intuitive program and easier to manipulate. Similarly, Layers has an interface like Brushes, but has a great visualization for looking at layers as stacked glass slides. This is a fantastic way of helping students understand how layers work in programs like Photoshop, Flash, or Final Cut.

If you can't get enough of painting programs, Asian Painting is also a neat app. The interface is made to resemble an ancient calligraphy desk, and the brushes all fade appropriately.

If you are participating in our Paint the World with Light project, then Light Painting is a must have app. This app allows you to flash different colors at different speeds, or simply create a constant colored light brush.

Also for photographers, DOFMaster allows you to quickly check your depth of field range for an SLR or DSLR camera.

For film students, Grat's Slate is a great application that turns your iTouch into a movie clap board. Even though syncing sound and image might not be critical for us (since we mostly record both onto the same digital media now), this is a great way to organize your shots and easily identify your takes in post production. Plus, it makes your students film shoots seem more professional.

Although there are too many Museum Apps to mention now, its worth downloading these, especially if you're planning a visit. For example, the Brooklyn Museum's app allows you to find basic information about its collection. Who knows what goodies can be found in the apps for the museums in your neighborhood?

Finally, I feel compelled to not recommend Photoshop Mobile, because of my extreme disappointment. This application bears nothing that resembles Photoshop except in name.

Devils on the Doorstep

2010-01-27T17:49:00.000-08:00

As a film teacher (or probably more relevantly, a film geek), I watch just about as many films as I can. I often mean to include suggestions of films to watch in class here (including a constantly changing list of films about artists that every art class should have). Long story short- I was reading an interview with Danny Boyle when he came here to host the Shanghai International Film Festival last year. In response to a question about his favorite Chinese film, he mentioned Devils on the Doorstep as one of the best films to come out of China.

I'd never heard of it, but as the serendipity gods are always looking out for me, I happened to spot it at one of my favorite DVD stores just a day or two after I'd read the interview. Then it sat on my shelf for a few months. I just got around to watching it recently, and I have to say that its one of the best films I've ever seen.

Its also one of the most surprising films I've ever seen. The movie that you end with is so far from the movie that you started with, that its an incredible feat of creativity and vision that the director is able to pull of such a transition. The hard thing about recommending a film like this is that I can't say too much about it- what you will appreciate most about this film is the unexpected directions that it takes. That being said, understand that it is not for the faint hearted; taking place during the Japanese occupation of China, this film does quite graphically depict some of the horrors of war.

That being said, it is a fascinating film from a cinematic perspective, as well as a historical and contemporary socio-cultural perspective. Director Jiang Wen has been banned from making any more movies in China. Although he is married to a French woman and can work outside of China, he refuses. His stories, he says, take place in China, and that's where they are meant to be filmed and shown.

Where the Web Went Right

2010-01-19T19:17:00.001-08:00

A Rant

The other day, I was catching up on some of my news podcasts which are always a day or two late for me (hey, how'd that election in Massachusetts turn out)?

One of my favorite podcasts is NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook, but my one big beef with his show is that in the interest of being 'fair and balanced' (now there's a loaded phrase), he often lets some pretty nutty folks say some pretty nutty things without too much challenge. I often wonder if they do this simply to prove that they don't have a liberal bias*.

The show I was listening to recently was one of those shows. In an episode titled "Where the Web Went Wrong", author Jaron Lanier was on the show promoting his book "You Art Not A Gadget**", the central thesis of this is that participatory communities online create a 'hive mind' in which we are sacrificing our creative energies in the service of companies to which we owe nothing.

In this discussion, he lambasts 'Web 2.0 proponents' as religious cultists who contribute their time and energy, not for their own personal gain, but in the interest of creating a god-like singularity of utopian participation. To me, this argument reeks of the conservative fear of the commons. I like to share my thoughts about art education with the greater community for my own personal interest, and all of a sudden I'm handing out flowers at airports and promoting a socialist agenda.

Well, I do live in China, after all. I can see how that could be confusing to some.

While some of the points that Lanier makes are just plain wrong and some just plain silly (and quite often both), some fall into the realm of the "wha...?" One of his most awkward points is that people feel free to "mash up" the creative efforts of others, but that the ads that regularly appear on the sides of the webpages that these mashups appear are somehow sacrosanct, and 'above' being modified for creative use. This idea is based on two false premises: (1) That ads are not mashed because we hold them with some sort of respect, and (b) there is anything useful in these ads to 'mash'. Sidebar ads aren't seen as 'holy', they aren't even seen as 'useful' for a creative endeavor. At most, I'd say they were seen as a minor inconvenience or annoyance. In fact, I'd argue that they aren't even seen at all. I don't have ads on this site and if you think back to the last site you were on, what were the ads for? Do you remember? I don't either.

Further, it shows a fundimental misunderstanding about the purpose of a mashup, which is to celebrate or satirize the derivative work in a way that creates something that we haven't seen before.

With a nod to the serendipity gods, I happened to find this wonderful Mashup of the movie UP over on the always fascinating Learning IT on the same day that I listened to this podcast.

I could just listen to that song all day.

If there is any doubt in your mind that mash-ups are somehow by definition 'less creative' than their derivative works, this video should dispel that notion. It also should dispel the notion that the creation of projects like this one are in service to some corporate monolith that feeds off of our creative juices. Pogo, the 21 year old creator of this mash up is now being wooed by corporations to make Mashup videos for them... the one above was commissioned by Pixar itself.

That is not to say that the commissioning of a work validates it above other creative works. Lanier is right in one way- that we should be compensated for our creative efforts and hard work. However, he is mistaken in thinking that everything that we do needs financial compensation. If before the internet, the quiet creative endeavors that we pursued resulted in only our own satisfaction, that was compensation enough. Now that everyone has the ability and opportunity to share the processes and products of our creative expression doesn't mean we all need to get a paycheck for everything we do.

"Web 2.0" (or whatever you want to call it) isn't where the web went wrong, its where the web went right. Before the concept of participatory media overtook online activity, the internet's main purpose was another in a long line of the one-to-many forms of media (h/t to Howard Rheingold) following radio, TV, and movies. Before web 2.0 tools put content creation in the hands of the masses, what was the internet? A place to buy all kinds of stuff and occasionally get entertained.

So basically, it was the mall... Without all the walking.

And that was just what we all needed, wasn't it? More shopping, less exercise.

*Good luck with that, Tom.

**Yeah, no. I'm not going to promote it here. You can find it with the google.

Share Your City: Shanghai

2010-01-14T23:42:00.000-08:00

My friend Kate McCormick Torres recently organized this great student project, called Share Your City. Students from around the world submit images of their cities to her project, which she will then display on a Google Map, linking artwork and geographic location. This promises to be an exciting way to experience a global display of student work.

I had my IB students work on this project in the medium of their choice. In their workbooks, they described what they love and hate about Shanghai; what they think is amazing about the city, and what they think is bizarre. They thought about what medium would best express their ideas, and how to show the city from a perspective that was uniquely their own.