Digital: Fragment App

This academic year has flown by and like many of you in Further Ed I can't believe we're about to start the exam unit! With this in mind I realised my attention lately has been on the job and that it was about time I focused on sharing ideas that I've discovered on my journey.

Some of you may have already heard of this App but it is literally amazing.. and I am a teeny bit jealous that it wasn't invented when I was studying art and design. Fragment App first came to my attention when it was iTunes 'App of the Month' and my colleague shared it with me. At first glance, I knew it would be some sort of photo editing software but I didn't realise the potential it had in the classroom!

Straight away I tested the software with some of my student's work (above image) and discovered that it was perfect for adding geometric patterns and shapes to images. I was instantly hooked and saw how it could revolutionize the development and experimentation of my student's work. 

My students have responded to the App really well and I would say that in some cases it has saved their project work. Some of my students have created entire projects using the App and it is a brilliant way of getting digital work into a project quickly without the hassle of Photoshop.

Here are some of my suggestions as to how you could use the software in your classroom:

• Initial Responses: Engaging students with different ways of how to view their images - especially those who are most suitable to abstraction!
• Experimentations: Drawing, painting, collaging, weaving, layering, double exposures, etc.
• Sculptures: Print, cut, images and turn into unique photographic sculptures.

Fragment App is available through the iTunes store and works on iPhones/iPads/Androids as well as desktops! The App does cost - but it's definitely worth the couple of pounds and if you have a department account then you only have to pay for it once.. yay!

So, what are you waiting for? Deliver it as an exciting new technique to your students over the next few weeks and make their exam project stand out!

- Kirsty ❤

Videre: DIY pinhole camera

We came across this awesome kickstarter project this week by designer Kelly Angood; the design is a DIY pinhole camera called 'The Videre'. The kit is screen printed and die-cut individually by hand onto thick recycled card. The self assembly kit comes with everything you need; a spare medium former spool, 0.4mm pinhole and a full set of instructions, and let's be fair it's a beautiful looking kit isn't it! We also love that it's made from mostly recycled materials and it's 100% made in England!

Anyway this is a kickstarter success story! Angood has been able to launch The Videre to the market after raising over £35,000 from 881 backers, more than double her original target! We reckon this might be something for our Christmas wish list - you can order one online now! There's also an awesome tumblr going and you can find out more on their website! We reckon the results could be pretty amazing, look at these portraits! You can also see the process of making them in the video below! 

The Pop-Up Pinhole Project Portraits from Kelly Angood on Vimeo.

41 days till Christmas!
- Claire ❤

Lesson Idea: Cyanotype

Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that creates beautiful cyan-blue prints. It's a pretty retro technique that was used back in the day to create blueprints. I remember when I was first introduced to in during my Art Foundation course and thought it was a really awesome technique! Recently we've been introducing it to our teaching because it's a cheap (hurray!) and simple technique that can produce stunning results. It works on both paper and fabric, the pieces above are some quick examples; I did the aeroplane one is on fabric, the other on paper. In both of my examples I've used objects (like a photogram) but you could also create drawings onto acetate or tracing paper or expose negatives - if you want them large blow them up on a photocopier and copy them onto acetate! Anyway I've put together a how to, to get you started...

Preparing the chemicals:

Download a copy of the worksheet HERE

Preparing Negatives

Once you've got the chemicals made up it's pretty straight forward! You just need to expose it to light using which ever method you like....

Photogram - placing a series of objects on top of your paper/fabric (like I did!)

Drawing - create or photocopy a drawing onto acetate/tracing paper and place on top

Negatives - create tiny ones or blow up your negatives on the photocopier and copy on to acetate/tracing paper 

Exposing

There are two methods you can use to expose a UV exposure unit (do you have one!? you lucky thing!) or good ole sunlight. The timings are slightly different for each

UV Exposure Unit: 6 minutes

Summer Sunlight: 10-15 minutes

Winter Sunlight: 3 hours 

Washing

Once you've exposed your paper/fabric it'll look green - you just need to wash it in water make it blue! 

Top tips:

• Make sure whatever you place on top of your paper is kept as flat as possible - if not it will create a shadow and you'll get blurred lines. If your doing the sunlight method either a glass plate or clear plastic sheet can be place on top!
• Make sure it's a sunny day and if your planning on using it for a project it's best not to be one in the  Autumn or Winter months as exposure times are super long! It needs to be a bright sunny day! 
• Try and expose between 10-2 it's when the light is strongest! 
• After exposing make sure you put your print back in a light fast container while you transport it to washing! We use black bin bags! 
• Be experimental with what you expose! We've had students do some fantastic super large scale pieces using the human body - literally getting a group of people to lie down on some large sheets of paper - anything can be used so go nuts!
• We get our chemicals from Silverprint!

Enjoy and happy cyanotyping!

- Claire ❤

lesson idea: photographic collages

It's been a while since we've done a post so I thought I would share a recent photographic collage lesson from one of my A Level Photography classes. It was an enjoyable lesson to teach and the students all got high results from the various techniques and even recorded their creative process into stop animations!

With only 4 college weeks to go until my students exam (how quick does time go!) I needed to find a new photographic technique that would push their practice. I don't know about you but I find when your over the halfway point of projects some students have a tendency to want to 'stick' to one idea. I needed to break away from this quickly and the following activities did just that!

  

To start the lesson I gave each student a found photograph and told them they had 5 minutes to rip up the image into any shape or size. Once they had destroyed the original image they were then instructed to throw all pieces of the torn photograph into the air and let them land on the paper provided in front of them. All pieces of the photograph were to be glued in their 'fixed' state and upon completion all students were posed with the question 'What have you just made?' Luckily, all my students recognised that they had just made a collage but more importantly the starter activity really got my students thinking (whilst making) which resulted in strong, relevant discussions!

I then did a quick demonstration of each three activities above and placed the students into groups. Our lessons are an hour and a half each so I was fortunate to split each activity into a rotation of twenty minutes which in terms of timing was spot on for each task! The whole point of the lesson was to get students to see their photographs in a different light and I found 20 minutes enabled students to create an experimental outcome that let them just create and not worry about why they were doing it. At the end of each 20 minutes we stopped, looked at work and discussed briefly processes that were working well and what could the next group do differently to improve that task. Whilst each task was underway each group also had an iPad and used the app iMotionHD. iMotion HD is basically a stop-motion app for any ios based system and allows you to record video which is then made into timed stop motion animations. The app is fantastic and I love how it records students development as well as allowing them to start viewing their work as moving images!

This lesson will leave each student with a minimum of 4 photographic collages and 2 animated videos which shows that all students can make a number of strong imagery quickly, whilst exploring new, innovative technology that records and documents their process! You can view some of our students recordings here or for alternate photographic collage lesson ideas The Photographers' Gallery 'Perspectives on Collage' teacher exhibition pack is fab!

Do you use iMotion HD? If so we'd love to hear from you to share different approaches to the software and see your students photographic collages!

- Kirsty ❤

Lesson ideas: AS Exam Theme 'Covert and Obscured'

We've already posted about our A2 exam theme resources and linked to the brilliant ones others have created but let's not forget AS! Above is the video intro we used for AS Graphics which outlines the briefs we're setting and the artists/designers we'd suggest researching for it. Below are some additional resources from a range of fabulous people that we've found online... 

Photography
our resources - pinterest board
Art2day
Sir John Lawes photography (has AS and A2 themed posts)

Graphic Communication
our resources - pinterest board

Fine Art
Saatchi Gallery - General schools section and PDF for the theme
Art2day
Slide Show via TES

Textiles
our resources - pinterest board 
our resources - paper dress lesson idea 
Slide show via TES

You can click through to view all our AS exam 2013 posts, HERE and A2 exam 2013 posts, HERE.  We're on Edexcel so that's what we've resourced for but there's a lot of stuff out there for AQA and OCR too and Art2day and Saatchi are great places to start looking!
- Claire  ❤

Lesson ideas: A2 Exam Theme 'Inside, Outside, In between'

I love this time of year! For me the exam theme is exciting it's the only time you have a really restricted time period in which to create resources and the key thing that can take a while to decide on, the theme, is decided for you by the powers that be! We deliver A Level Graphic Communication, Textiles, Photography and Fine Art between us so we've got a few resources together to share and we've been hunting around online too to find the best stuff that's out there. For Graphics I love a video intro, I've posted about them before, they are really easy to put together. I created mine straight from the powerpoint I'd already put together by exporting the slides as .jpeg files then placing them into iMovie, adding a bit of music and then you've got something to give the intro a bit of a pop (and a slide for students to pour over and digest a bit slower in their own time!). It also give a quick overview to how we've interpreted the themes and the artists/designers we're looking at in graphics. What I like about the exam unit is that the further you get through it the more resources you can find so I've put together a quick set of links to what I think is the most exciting stuff out there online being shared! Keep checking back to this post as we'll add to it each time we find something new... 

Photography 

Our resources - pinterest board 

Art2day

Sir John Lawes photography (has AS and A2 themed posts)

Graphic Communication

Our resources - pinterest board

Fine Art 
Saatchi Gallery - General schools section and PDF for the theme

Art2day

Exam Preparation Powerpoints (AS and A2) via TES 

Textiles 

Our resources - pinterest board

You can click through to view all our AS exam 2013 posts, HERE and A2 exam 2013 posts, HERE.  We're on Edexcel so that's what we've resourced for but there's a lot of stuff out there for AQA and OCR too and Art2day and Saatchi are great places to start looking!

- Claire  ❤

3W: Pierre Debusschere

who: Pierre Debusschere

what: photography, video and animated gif

why: we're currently delivering an animation project to our students and are constantly coming across more and more artists who are revlountionising the use of animated gifs to create stunning moving images.  We're overwhelmed with the incredible beauty of these by Pierre Debusschere. He specialises in photography and video in the fashion industry and his portfolio is a delight to view. 

Pierre Debusschere // tumblr // dazed digital feature

Review: INSET at The Photographers Gallery

Last Thursday I was fortunate enough to be able to attend an INSET workshop at The Photographers Gallery. The two-hour session was a workshop led session with designer/illustrator Karen Lacroix in response to their current exhibition Perspectives on Collage. The session aim was to introduce us to methods that would allow us to bring collage to the classroom. The session began with Karen Lacroix introducing her own incredible work and talking us through the different collage processes she uses within her own practise. We then moved on to creating our own work using the 'publication as process' technique (you can see my piece in the video below!). As if this wasn't inspiring enough Karen had also put together an additional worksheet with a range of different collage techniques to be tried - I won't go into detail but keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks as I'll be trying these with my own students and will be posting the results! As well as the workshop we were also given a wonderful, albeit brief, tour of the exhibits led by staff which took us through the key pieces in the exhibit, particularly those which related to the work we'd just been creating. If you get the chance to attend an INSET workshop at The Photographers Gallery I would jump at it! It was a brilliant event and I left feeling exciting and inspired about the prospects of using collage in the classroom!
- Claire ❤

3W: Stephanie Gonat

who: Stephanie Gonot

what: everyday still lifes

why: We love Stephanie Gonot's use of everyday foods in her photographs as shes re-places the normal still life objects with grotesque vs the sweet. Her ideas are original, diverse and contemporary. We hope you find them as exciting as we do. Now, where are our sugar puffs?

3W: Jon Shireman

 

who: Jon Shireman

what: frozen still lifes

why: because these photographs are simply beautiful. Jon Shireman plays with the idea of beauty by dipping flowers into liquid nitrogen and then smashing the hard, exterior surface to create a frozen reality. The results are wonderful and we're already playing with the idea of de-constructing flowers with our students to create a unique, shattered photoshoot!

Jon Shireman Flickr // Junk Culture

3W: Jung Lee

who: Jung Lee

what: installation/photography/typography

why: I think it's well known that we've got a soft spot for typography, but I think our new obsession might be neon light typography. We were blown away when we came across the photographs of Jung Lee, seeing such sentimental phrases in desolate locations has such an impact. What's brilliant about her work is the different stages, it's not just the typography itself, each piece is then installed in an outside locations and photographed - stunning! 

huffington post // One and J.Gallery

Lesson idea: Jan Von Holleben

Jan Von Holleben is a wonderful photographer from Germany who specialises in what we would describe as installation photography. He sets up this incredible installation that combine objects and people in a playful and dreamlike manner. We've found our students really take to his work and we love delivering a lesson where we get the students to look at his work then have a go at creating their own installation. It's also brilliant for getting the students working in groups...

starter Video Inspiration: The Making of 'Dreams of Flying' by Jan Von Holleben 

Main

10 MINUTES: Show and discuss further examples of Jan Von Holleben's work

20-30 MINUTES: Preparation in groups - choosing and creating props, lettering and experimenting with ideas for installation set up - it's great to the students to photograph these in progress processes too!

20-30 MINUTES: Installation and photographs - students to install and photograph their installation. Students in the groups not installing should take position somewhere with a good view of the set up (we're lucky as we've got a balcony area we can do this on!) so they can provide feedback and suggestions to the students working on their installation.

Plenary

Teacher to upload photographs and project them so the whole class can view the final photographs for a group review! 

It's a really fun lesson and it's a great way to get the students working in groups and being creative with materials and props! It also gives them a chance to 'direct' each other in a photo shoot format. Here's some wonderful examples of our own students work when they did this lesson... 

- Claire ❤

lesson idea: Timothy Pakron selective developing!

For those of you who follow our posts regularly you will be aware that our BTEC L2 Art and Design students are currently undergoing a photography project entitled 'distortion'. They're having great fun experimenting with different darkroom approaches and their outcomes looked so good that I thought I would share with you what they did. 

Starter: Video on artist Timothy Pakron

The following video is a great introduction to the work of Timothy Pakron and provides students with the artists technique and process. I like to set students a list of questions to answer through/after the video to check their understanding of what they have just watched. I find it really enforces the purpose of the lesson and gives you a second chance to re-cap darkroom techniques!

Warm up: Ink splat experiments

In students sketchbooks/blank paper get them to experiment with black ink by dripping, flicking, painting and sponging ink into their sketchbook. I normally get students to spend about 30 secs - 1 min on each experiment and explain the importance of really trusting their initial judgements. This exercise is all about having fun and not making everything perfect - you could even bring in different directional mark making techniques and text if you had enough time! If I can I try to join in to as students love to see how you respond to artists work to!

Main: Timothy Pakron inspired selective developing

materials needed:

darkroom set up

photographic paper

paintbrushes

sponges

objects

pre-cut stencils

For this activity I split the session into three parts so students can work through each experiment at their own speed. I find this works best as students can be cautious at first but as they create more they tend to 'loosen' up  and be more experimental, combining ideas and techniques as they go along. 

1) Selective developing: Get students to experiment with developer by sponging, spraying, painting and dripping chemicals onto their selective enlargements in the style of Timothy Pakron. I like to remind students here of the ink splat experiments they just did in class! 

2) Stencil prints: I find it easier to pre-cut stencils into geometric shapes/random patterns myself first due to time but, you could embed this into part of your lesson if you preferred. Once students have selectively enlarged their negative and have the correct exposure get them to place a stencil directly onto their photographic paper. Expose, develop, stop, fix and wash as normal. The results will depend on how complex the subject matter is but overall students like the simple, abstract approach!

3) Press printing: I love this technique! Students just need to choose an object (they could even use their hand if they wanted!) and expose the image onto photo paper as usual. Once the image has been exposed, dip the object into the developer and press it firmly onto the paper - holding for about 30 secs. The image will appear in the shape of your object! By the time students get to this part of the lesson they start combining the three techniques together and the results are really promising. 

Plenary: 

I always like to end the lesson on a high so take one of two approaches in a class exhibition. I would recommend either showcasing your students wonderful outcomes simply in a group critique by discussing how they could 'distort' or 'enhance' the images further. Or, if you would prefer you could make this more interactive by getting students to select their best work and install it on the floor or walls. Students then move around the room responding to questions that you ask and moving to the 'best' or 'needs improvement' pieces of work. Selective developing is a reasonably fast process so if your students are keen they will want to go back into the darkroom to try out further experiments that others have recommended in the discussions!

Enjoy - you won't be able to resist getting stuck in and having a go yourself!

- Kirsty ❤

3W: Marek Haiduk

who: Marek Haiduk

what: illustration/collage 

why: We love the vintage feel of these mixed media digital collages by German illustrator Marek Haiduk. The way she combines bright colours, geometric shapes and patterns and carefully selected imagery - they are simply stunning! 

Marek Haiduk // Flickr // Interview on the Artfuls 

exhibition: everything was moving

Yesterday I ventured up the The Barbican to check out their current exhibition 'Everything Was Moving: Photography From the 60s and 70s'. I wasn't sure what to expect, I hadn't read up on the exhibition at all before I went which perhaps was a bit of a mistake! However there's plenty of accompanying text once your up there and a handy exhibition guide. The show brings together work from photographers from around the world whose work has captured some of the most turbulent and world changing events from the 60s and 70s with everything from civil rights to the cold war. I wouldn't say it was the best exhibition I've seen but perhaps that's because it doesn't tick the right boxes for me in terms of inspiration, it was however very thought provoking, interesting and gave fantastic insight to various events across those decades. I found the work of Sigmar Polke and Boris Mikhailov particularly engaging however I can't find any examples of the particular bodies of work that were on show to share - a problem to perhaps keep in mind if you are taking students and wanting them to write it up - there's no photography allowed in the space so you'd have to make sure you picked up the catalogue! In terms of taking students along I think it would depend entirely on what your current project is and to be honest because of the subject matter I think it's most suitable for the post 16s. It would work really well if you're doing a project about documentary photography, protest, social issues, or portraiture. You can watch/listen to some great artists talks relating to the exhibition which would be good to watch before the visit and there's a great instagram competition to go along with the exhibition which would be great to use with your students if you do go up, which you can find out more about here. It's also worth booking your ticket beforehand online! A small saving, but a saving none the less! 

- Claire ❤

3W: Tina Crespo

who: Tina Crespo

what: photography

why: we love this series of work by Tina Crespo. A stunning collection of vignetted photographs which when accompanied by quotes begin to tell a story... beautiful 

Tina Crespo // flickr // blog

tutorial: Jasper James

Jasper James's city silhouettes are stunning! Amazingly, he creates his incredible series of images by just using light and glass to reflect focal points and cityscape backgrounds within his carefully composed silhouettes. James's travels through China (he is based in Beijing) to capture his unusual perspectives and birds eye viewpoints. For those of you who are regular readers of our blog you will be aware that our current photo project for the BTEC Nationals is related around the theme of 'journeys' so when we came across James's work we just knew we had to make a tutorial. We love how the viewer gets a real insight into the journey behind the subject and the city, creating a familiar story we can all relate to! This tutorial will show you a similar method to our recent double/multiple exposure tutorial and get you to build on existing Photoshop knowledge. 

If you haven't got Photoshop don't worry - why not create a paper city background and get your students to practice compositional skills by posing in front of it. Your class will love it and you'll get a piece of art up on your wall ready to use for that perfect shoot again. We'd love to see any examples you do so as always drop us a shout if you do use our tutorial.

- Kirsty ❤

3W: Shawn Huckins

who: Shawn Huckins

what: 18th century ROFL paintings.

why: because we love a bit of technology in any artwork! Shawn Huckins describes his 21st century pieces entitled 'American Revolution Revolution: What would George post?' as exploring "...the brief history of the United States comparing the political revolution of when the country was founded in the 1700s versus the technological revolution that's been happening over the past decade." Students are constantly tweeting or playing on their phones so why not embed this idea into a project. We love the thought of personal and cheeky abbreviated text messages or twitter exchanges over images and think it is a great starting point for any self-portrait/fashion related project. 

What will your students post?

// Dazed Digital //

lesson idea: Maurizio Anzeri inspired embroidery

I'm currently doing a self-portrait project with my BTEC Level 2 Art and Design students as part of Unit 2: 2D Mark-Making. We're in the experimental stage of the project so we've been trying lots of different techniques but today we looked at textile approaches. The lesson worked really well so I thought I'd share what we did... 

Starter: How many marks can you make with a pen? 

I was inspired by this blog post by illustrator/artist Jill Bliss and now whenever I'm doing something mark making related with my students I use this as a starter! I like to give a good 10 minutes for them to really doodle and get into it with just the simple aim of making as many marks as they can with just their pen. If I can I like to join in and do my own on the white board too! 

Main: Maurizio Anzeri inspired embroidery

materials needed:

vintage photos photocopied onto heavy weight paper

needles

embroidery thread

scissors

I made 2 copies of each photograph so that the students could have one photo for translating the marks they'd made in the starter onto the photograph using a pen and the other to stitch on to, this helped them plan which areas they wanted to place their marks in. We then discussed the work of Maurizio Anzeri and afterwards got stuck in stitching for the rest of the lesson! I think it's best to let them be experimental with the marks they make but it's also a good chance to highlight and explain a couple of simple embroidery techniques that they could use and highlight where Maurizio Anzeri has used them on his work. I did it up on the interactive white board... 

Plenary:Class Exhibition

A chance to showcase what they have done and discuss what else they could do to enhance the image further - embroidery is a slow process so they will be able to take away the work and continue if they are really keen on the technique or want to extend and push themselves further! 

My students really enjoyed sewing and it was nice to have a lesson where we could all sit down and have a conversation at the same time as working. We discussed everything from the sort of sewing they'd done in school to imaging people looking back at photographs of us in years to come and them looking as old fashioned as the photos we were using do to us! As always if you try the lesson, or something similar, we'd love to hear from you about how it went!

- Claire ❤

3W: Douglas Alves

who: Douglas Alves

what: beautiful mixed-media illustrations

why: because it's about time he got featured as our 3W of the week! At I Heart Teaching Art we can't resist stunning illustrations on top of a photographic image and Douglas Alves does just that. You may recognise his mixture of bizarre realistic images and unique drawings of the world from known clients such as MTV, Coca Cola and the BBC (if you haven't then check them out!) His illustrations remind us of the front cover of Bjork's album 'Vespertine' where a similar technique of nature, forms and surreal collages has been used. If you have a darkroom in your school/college then try creating your own versions with your students. We get our students to draw up their own illustrations on tracing paper/acetate and then overlay the drawing on top of their photographic enlargement in the darkroom. The results are great and it makes a good contextual comparison for their books!

Behance// Who's Next Blog