The Beginning
Post date: Sep 20, 2012 1:43:02 AM
Step 1: Cloze Reading
Watch this video:
Reading closely means reading for meaning and understanding. Follow these 8 steps to perform your own close reading. To begin, read your passage slowly. To begin, read your passage slowly.
Task 1: Identify any vocabulary you are unfamiliar with and look up the definition. Double check that the definition makes sense in the context of the text. Place in the first section of the email.
Task 2: Language Choice - identify any language that attracts your attention for any reason. Why do you find it interesting? Jot down your reasons in the second section of the email
Task 3: Verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs. Identify the ones you find in the passage. What do you notice? Are there any patterns? Comment on your findings in the email.
Task 4: Predictions - what might happen next? Why? Email.
Task 5: Opinions and reflections - what do you think of the story/narrators/characters? Email
Task 6: Connections - what does the task remind you of your own experiences? Or other books and films? What are the similarities? email.
Task 7: Questions - note them, and remember there is no such thing as a stupid question. Try to list more open questions than closed questions in your email.
Task 8: What key themes are reflected in the video? email.
And remember it is one email, not eight.
Step 2: Explore The we are going to begin our exploration of Digital Graphics with learning the basics of Photoshop.
Pick 5 Projects
1. Do your drawing on paper first.
2. Try to recreate your drawing on the computer
3. Compare the two. Remember that it takes a lot of time to get used to manipulating the mouse. The skills used here will help for future projects.
1. Use one of the photos that come with the program such as the skull or bottles. Have the students use the selection tools to select just one bottle of just the skull.
2. Delete the background. Make sure the students do not save changes to the original photo.
3. Create a composition pasting at least 5 images to their canvas while using at least 3 different transformations.
Choose an appropriate word to add using the type tool. Work on the spacing and color of your type to make it work with your design. Remember, we print in black and white so you need to think about the contrast.
Assignment #1:
Create a drawing using the painting tools.
Digital Painting
Students will gain knowledge to choose and apply colors using the tools learned in the previous lesson. They will also learn about the blending tools.
Moving Paint
Students will learn to manipulate the paint like a painter as well as some darkroom techniques. Students will learn to use the blending tools.
Selection Tools
Students will learn several ways to select a piece of a picture. Students will use their knowledge of these tools to manipulate a photograph into a new image.
The Selection tools are the Marquee tools, the Lasso tools, and the Magic Wand.
Assignment #2:
Use the selection tools on an existing photo. Select, cut, copy, paste to create a new picture.
Transformations
Often you find that your picture is not the correct size or shape for your needs. You may need to change the size, straighten it, tilt it, reorient the objects (direction) or put something upside down. These transformations and more can be done in Photoshop.
Assignment #3:
Choose a simple image that can be isolated for a repeat design. To this design, add an appropriate title using type.
Add a background color to your picture. This can be done by going to your first Layer and adding color if you did not begin with color.
2. How can you control the placement of your image to create your pattern?
3. How was color added to your background?
4. How did you apply the type?
5. Are you satisfied with your completed image? Explain.
6. What could you have done to improve your design?
• Size:
- CD: 4.752 inches square
- Vinal: 11 inches square
• Use of at least two photographs to create your CD
• Include the artist and title
• If time allows, create a back cover.
Name Period Project #3
Repeat Design
Assignment #4:
Choose a simple image that can be isolated for a repeat design. To this design, add an appropriate title using type.
Explain the steps you used to isolate your photographic image from its background.
Filters
One of the fun applications of Photoshop is the use of the many filters. You can create many different effects ranging from changing a photograph to look like a painting to distorting the photograph in swirls or waves.
This lesson will involve some exploration on the part of the students. They are to choose one photo to work from. This can be from their own disk or on the hard drive. Students will create a reference file of the different filtered effects. They will take this knowledge and create a design for a book cover using one or layered filters as well as type.
Assignment #5:
Select one photo from the clip art photos that comes with Photoshop. Using your selection tools select different areas of the photo and apply one filter to it. Do this on ten areas of the photo. On at least three areas, apply a second (or more) filter. Notice how some filters distort the image beyond recognition.
Book Cover Design Assignment #6:
What is a book cover? What is it used for? What kind of information must be included on it? Think of these questions as you create sketches for an original book cover design. Your sketches are your method of visual brainstorming. They can be as tight (detailed and carefully rendered) or as rough (simple shapes, figures) as you want. The sketches can include words and other notations (such as which filters you want touse). Once you decide on a sketch, start to acquire the necessary photographs for your art. These can be taken from the Internet or they can be scanned onto your directory.
Criteria:
• Size: 5" x 7" (12.7 x 17.7 cm)
• Show evidence of filter use. Be careful not to over filter and lose your images.
• Include a title.
• Include the author - you. It is not necessary to write 'by' before the author's name.
• The final art will be printed in color. Include your sketches when you hand in your log sheet. You do not have to do any additional sketching.
CD/ Vinal Cover Design Assignment #7:
Now is the chance to put together all we have learned so far and created a CD cover. You can use an existing group or, even better, make up a group. Perhaps you are the latest musical rage. For this assignment, go online to obtain photos. Make sure that you are not copying any logos, existing CD covers, illustrations or typography from the Internet. Collect photos of your chosen musician. Make use of layers, typography, and different opacities. You can filter, select parts of photos, transform images and have some fun with the cover.
Criteria:
Currency Design Assignment #8:
You are an important dignitary in a new country. It has been suggested that new tender be designed incorporating your photograph. To make sure the currency cannot be counterfeited you must use complex patterns in it as well. Design this currency.
http://gizmodo.com/an-illustrated-history-of-american-money-design-1743743361
http://www.howdesign.com/design-creativity/projects-profiles/redesign-us-currency/
Criteria:
• Size minimum: 3" x 5" (7.6 x 12.7 cm)
• Full color
• Your photograph must appear in it. Make sure you use the selection tools to isolate the head. You can use the picture within a shape or . . .
• Pattern(s) in the background
• A denomination
• A country
• Your imagination
• Log sheet upon completion.
• If you finish the front, you may work on the back.
Self Portrait Assignment #9:
You have been commissioned to create a self-portrait for an upcoming museum exhibition. Using a photo of yourself either scanned into the computer or taken with a digital camera, create this self-portrait. Try to make the portrait reflective of you. Do not make the portrait unrecognizable. A lot can be done, filtering, selecting areas and repeating them, collaging things onto your final print, and . . .
1. Scan in a real dollar bill (Larger than life) front and back.
2. Have each student take from or redesign (In color) both sides.
3. They can have any picture on the front, must have series #, One is to be on more than once written as well as 1, signatures, or?
4. Print out on gloss paper.
Look at resources of other self-portraits done throughout history. Notice that the styles in the self-portraits reflect not only the artist's personal style but also the current style of art from that time period.
Think:
How can you reflect yourself in the portrait?
How far can you take it without losing all recognition of yourself?
After you print out the computer-generated version, could that be the starting point for the portrait (completed off the computer)?
Submitted by Ken Schwab: Dollar Bill Design
Photoshop & Design Assignment #10:
You are the Art Director at a Graphic Design Studio. There have been a number of exciting jobs that just came in. You have the luxury of choosing your next job from the following.
It is time to get ready for the Spring season. The following manufacturers have hired us to create a new ad campaign promoting their merchandise. Choose one company. Create a series of ads (at least three) that relate to each other promoting the company.
Clients- Adidas, SONY, Snapple, Legos, and Hagen-Daz. Finished Size - 7" x 10" (17.7 x 25.5 cm)
Use photos as well as typography.
Plan your use of color; use of photography; other elements in the ad campaign.
What is your slogan? Who is your target audience? Which publications do you think the ad will be most successful running in?
Give the steps used in creating the ad using Photoshop? (How did you get your finished results?)
On the back, do sketches before you begin working on the computer.