Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Hue Animation Studio Review

Looks Good... I'd love to try one... Unleash their imagination
It's easy to teach any subject and fun to learn using stop motion animation. Bring anything to life with a simple click. HUE Animation Studio is an award winning movie-making kit for kids aged 7-13 which includes a camera, stop motion animation software and a 60 page color book full of tricks and ideas. More info

Thursday, September 8, 2016

The Robot and the Human Paintbrush

Did I waste all the time I spent struggling to master proportion, foreshortening, and line quality? This guy seems to be having an awful lot of fun. I don't know that it's ART, but it sure seems like a good time

Saturday, July 30, 2016

Drawing in 3 Dimensions with a simple device!



Kind of amazing... I think schools can make great use of this one! I'd start off with a lesson in which kids wrap their brains around creating a single drawing that they do in both 2 Dimensions and in 3 Dimensions and then reflect on what they learn about: Drawing, Sculpture, the differences and similarities... what they learn about shapes, etc. etc.

Friday, July 8, 2016

Art Museum Learning Resources (from graphite.org)

Some resources worth consideration from:
https://www.graphite.org/top-picks/art-museum-learning-resources?utm_source=What%27s_New_in_EdTech_2016_7_08&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly 

Art Museum Learning Resources

You can't beat seeing art in person, but these websites and apps offer the next best thing. From digitized collections to art history timelines to virtual tours of museums, these picks offer a full suite of resources for the art classroom.

Asian Art Museum Visit Website: http://education.asianart.org
Inventive lessons and activities integrate Asian history, art, and more
Grades Pre-K-12
Type Website
Price Free
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MetKids Visit Website: http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/metkids/
Whimsical, kid-friendly intro to the wide world of art
Grades 1-6
Type Website
Price Free
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MoMA Art Lab Publisher: MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art
Interactive projects, cool prompts, and famous works inspire creation
Grades 1-8
Type App
Price Free
Platforms iPad
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Smithsonian Education Students Visit Website: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/students
Kid-friendly access to museum resources on wide range of topics
Grades 3-12
Type Website
Price Free
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Color Uncovered Publisher: Exploratorium
Engaging ebook combines art with science in playful ways
Grades 5-12
Type App
Price Free
Platforms Android, iPad
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Faking It Publisher: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
What did we do before PhotoShop? Altering pre-digital images
Grades 6-12
Type App
Price Free
Platforms iPad
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MoMA Publisher: MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art
Museum companion can stand alone as a modern art resource
Grades 6-12
Type App
Price Free
Platforms Android, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
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Teacher Rating Not Yet Rated

Google Art Project Visit Website: http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/project/art-project
Massive online global collection makes art accesible to all
Grades 7-12
Type Website
Price Free
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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Visit Website: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/
History and art intersect on the Met's vast, reading-centric site

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

From the Guardian 1/2012...
http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2012/jan/19/david-hockney-art-technology

David Hockney: The art of technology

As David Hockney's iPad drawings go on show as part of a new exhibition, we look at the artist's love affair with technology



This weekend sees the opening of a major exhibition of new work by David Hockney at the Royal Academy, including a display of his iPad drawings and a series of new films. Hockney has embraced the iPad as a means of making art, saying in an interview in the Guardian this month that 'the iPad is like an endless piece of paper that perfectly fitted the feeling I had that painting should be big.'

This weekend sees the opening of a major exhibition of new work by David Hockney at the Royal Academy, including a display of his iPad drawings and a series of new films. Hockney has embraced the iPad as a means of making art, saying in an interview in the Guardian this month that 'the iPad is like an endless piece of paper that perfectly fitted the feeling I had that painting should be big.'



David Hockney xerox

Hockney's adoption of the iPad is the natural next step in his interest in using technology to explore art. In 1986, he was experimenting with Xerox and collage (the picture on the left is a self-portrait composed on an office photocopier) and in an interview in the Guardian with art critic Waldemar Januszckak on his 50th birthday in 1987, he touches on how computer technology can radically affect the way images are perceived.

Hockney's innovations also included the use of the Quantel Paintbox, appearing in the documentary 'Painting with Light' to demonstrate its groundbreaking qualities.
In the television preview below, Hockney describes how it feels to paint with this electronic paintbox.

For a fuller understanding of the Art & Career of David Hockney go to: https://www.artsy.net/artist/david-hockney

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Tech that Makes Art History Lessons Come to Life

Nice article from EdTech Focus on k-12...

"Technology Can Make Art History Lessons Come to Life

New and emerging tech tools are helping educators make art and art history a richer, more immersive learning experience."
"...It’s one thing to study the elegance, beauty and sophistication of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, but what if virtual reality or mobile technology could actually transport you there to experience the marvel itself, rather than just reading about it?
While it’s not quite fully baked, there are organizations and technologies that are tinkering in this space to make art education something that leaps out of the text books and engages students on a richer sensory level.
But in order to offer the next-generation of art history education, we must start with better imaging technology.

Building a Treasure Trove of Digital Art Imagery

Two decades ago, educators had limited options for sharing art images. It was pretty much up to the trusty old projector to convey the richness and depth of some of the world’s most stunning masterpieces.
An article by Leo Doran in Education Week highlights how today’s students have it much better than their parents did years ago.
For much of the 20th century, slide projections of color images dominated the teaching of art history. Students’ exposure to some of the world’s most important and sublime works of art came through overhead projectors or static, often grainy images from printed texts.
Today, online databases of high-resolution digital images mean that students can access millions of artworks, or move through virtual spaces, where their parents might have had access to only a few hundred lower-resolution images.
Thankfully, there are a number of public resources and nonprofit organizations working to provide students and educators with access to rich digital-art repositories.
Having access to precise reproductions of art in the classroom matters, argues Fowler of Plano Senior High. Images are “the next-best thing” to studying works of art in person, he said, and “a lot of intricacies can be missed if an image isn’t high quality.”
Some of the resources where the images are housed are public, such as Smarthistory or the Google art project, while other image repositories, like nonprofit Artstor, require schools or districts to buy an institutional license. Behind its paywall, Artstor also offers a slew of essays and teaching resources targeted specifically to the AP Art History exam.
The wealth of imagery students have is easy to take for granted. But it requires the investment and effort of numerous entities. And sophisticated imaging technologies allow these digital replications to be more faithful than ever to the original artwork.

Mobile Apps Art Educators Can Love

Filling the archives with rich imagery is one thing, but how can educators truly innovate how students engage with art beyond looking at it and reading about it?
Touch Van Gogh, an interactive-art mobile app for iOS and Android, allows students to poke, rub and expose layers of the art in ways they couldn’t before. An article from the Van Gogh Museum highlights the unique features of the app.
In the recently restored painting Field with Irises near Arles, you can virtually polish away the discoloured layer of varnish, just as the restorer did on the original.
Through the colour reconstruction of The Bedroom, you see the colour of the painting before the red pigment faded. The walls of the room are no longer lilac but blue.
This app is just one of several in a growing category. The Global Educator Institute has compiled a list of additional mobile apps that art educators should consider integrating into their curriculum.
As the technology matures, educators should continue to push the boundaries of how art is taught. Reading and looking at art is just the beginning; educators must think more about how they can empower their students to explore and experience art as well..."
Read the full article at its source: http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2016/05/technology-can-make-art-history-lessons-come-life 

Friday, April 22, 2016

APP for Visual Art Creation... creation tool for middle & high school...


Art App Offers Excellent Tutorials, Support

4/18/2016 12:10:00 AM
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Title: Autodesk Sketchbook Summary: Impressive creation tool for teens serious about art
Pros: Impressive brush selections, professional tools on an easily accessible tablet screen.
Cons: There’s a learning curve for kids not already familiar with professional-level digital art tools.
Bottom Line: Gives students easy access to professional tools for creating digital art.
Read more here.
By Graphite from Common Sense Media

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Creating Finished Student Art from Academic Subject Visual Notes!


From Scholastic>>> http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2016/03/visual-note-taking-keep-focus-and-improve-retention 

Here's an out-of-the-box opportunity to get some art into academic classes and get some academic learning into art classes... or any combination or permutation of this... could be powerful, highly motivating learning!

Follow the good ideas and suggestion from the Scholastic article and then, bring these notes into the 'Art Learning Space' be that a formal Art class or even simply some time out from the regular, academic classroom to consider Art for a change, and engage in some creativity... curate, arrange, re-arrange, collage, add captions and/or other visual elements to, RE-color - Touch-up - Embellish the notes as they were taken... and on and on as your students MAKE a finished piece for exhibition (or to be scanned and digitized to be added to a virtual exhibition). This models PROCESS and its relationship to PRODUCT and the act of thinking and
spontaneously creating... 

"Visual Note-Taking: Keep Focus and Improve Retention

If you’ve ever read author Dav Pilkey’s story on his school years, you know that our young doodlers shouldn’t be shunned for their artistic pursuits. He tells about years of being in trouble for writing and drawing in class, only to become a favorite children’s author and illustrator today. Have you sat through a conference or presentation lately? A meeting where you found yourself playing online instead of paying attention? Maybe some artistic time would help you focus. Guess what? It would help students too.
Visual note-taking is nothing new, but it is making waves online as we share more and more information visually. Also called graphic visualization or sketch noting, you might be taking notes this way already. Visual note-taking is more than just doodling. It is a way to synthesize information; carve out the most important points and use images to convey the message simply and effectively.
Two educator friends, Amy Mount and Amanda Koonlaba, shared some of their recent notes as examples. Koonlaba says she has just always doodled with her note-taking. Mount also wrote a post about using sketch notes professionally and comments that using the hashtag #sketchnote can lead to shared note-taking. These women show how varied our creative skills can be, and also that we don’t have to be artists to take meaningful sketches.



Studies show that note-taking enables recall and the synthesis of new information. Doodling can significantly increase the amount of retained information, according to a 2009 study. It says that even if doodling is not intentionally related to the listening task, more recall occurs. And while an article published through the Center for Teaching Quality suggests students might initially push back and be unsure of their artistic ability, I’ve found young students are willing to break out the markers. It’s a great opportunity for capturing their enthusiasm at a young age and building note-taking skills.

Selecting the Right Lesson
Young students need lots of scaffolding and direction for any new skill. First, think about the information you want to tell students and what’s most important for them to know. We were covering different kinds of folktales. I don’t care if students remember or memorize every element, but I wanted them to understand how these types of stories are related and how they are different. We were practicing reading and responding to various genres (RL.3.2) throughout the week.
For our lesson, students worked with a different type of folktale each day, from the Grade 3 version of 25 Complex Texts to Meet the Common Core. (Side note: These come in every level and I’ve used them for years. They are great texts and easy to differentiate while keeping the rigor!) Students had previously read some myths and fables from our reading series, but we had not broken the genre apart. I folded two sheets of 8" x 14" paper into a booklet for each student because I thought they would be more likely to doodle when they didn’t have lines..."

Read the full article at its source: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2016/03/visual-note-taking-keep-focus-and-improve-retention