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 ❤

digital: Vine

Are you on Vine? It's the latest social networking app and so far we're loving it. Vine allows you to share short video clips - just 6 seconds to capture exciting moments. We've only just started using it (our first post was our video at The Photographers Gallery INSET) but I can see the potential - quick captures of displays, student work, tutorials - a chance to give a more 3D glimmer into what we get up to in the classroom. If you want to follow us our username is: iheartteachingart

- Claire ❤

lesson ideas: halloween!

To end the first half term in my tutorial lessons this Autumn we went for a slightly spooky theme! I know not everyone would feel comfortable delivering something halloween themed but I found a few different things out there on pinterest that I decided were more 'art' than 'halloween'. I'm also a firm believer that the idea of creating work for a commission/client could be for anything - halloween included! Anyway a slight tangent there but I found some of the staff room conversation tilted in that direction a little when it was discovered I'd gone spooky last friday! Anyway we experimented with a few different craft activities, all of which I found via pinterest...

Shadow Puppets

Chez Beeper Bebe has some wonderful templates for halloween shadow puppets in this blog post! My students are post 16 so I used the lovely photograph from her post to get my students inspired and they came up with their own designs but if your teaching the younger years the templates might be handy! Once the students had made them we used our photographic studio lights against the white board and took photographs and made some short films!  

Ghost Treat Boxes

Mini-Eco designed and shared these amazing templates! There's a range of faces and step by step instructions. My students loved these and got pretty creative customising them as well - check out those bat wings! 

Halloween Bunting

We saw this wonderful bunting via organise your stuff now. It was really easy and very light on resources - just a few bits of coloured sugar paper (cut into triangles!) and some markers and now I've got some cute bunting decorating my graphics room!  

We had our lesson on the last day of the half-term so I just got the students rotating through the different activities whilst we played some halloween songs (you can find mine if you search halloween spotify playlists!) and ended with a half-term course review and me handing out a few sweets!

Happy Halloween!

- Claire ❤

3W: Rebecca Loyche

Still Life from Rebecca Loyche on Vimeo.

who: Rebecca Loyche

what: photography, video, installation and sound

why: Rebecca Loyche's portfolio is filled to the brim with stunning work across a range of disciplines but it was her video work above that really caught our attention! 'Still Life' is a series of videos filmed in an old building in Berlin as it was being knocked down. The films capture stunningly what initially seems like a still life scene but soon crumbling walls and sounds interfere then it all becomes calm again, there's just something beautiful about it all... 

Rebecca Loyche // Vimeo // Soundcloud 

digital: digital tools we love part IV

When it comes to the start of a new project I'm always keen to show my students as much visual information as I can - I want them to see the artists/designers that have inspired me to create the project in the first place and I want them to get inspired too! The thing is, when I first started teaching the only way I'd ever seen this done was using a PowerPoint presentation or endless print outs and it didn't seem to quite cut it. PowerPoints always make me feel like I'm meant to explain and discuss every image and print outs seem like a crazy use of paper, I wanted something fresh and engaging that allowed my students to just get a quick flavour of the project that drew them in so they got excited about it without me giving them my opinion of why it's a great project and how the project ought to take shape. Then it came to me - a video! Above is the first ever 'video intro' I created for my students, the class I showed it too responded really well - they loved it having a bit of music, it meant they got their own bit of time to digest the project and it made a great starter at the beginning of the lesson! We create our videos using iMovie as you can quickly drop still images, add text and captions and then drop some music into it - it's really simple, in fact I found it's quicker than creating a PowerPoint (or the like!) and has captured my students attention a lot more effectively. 'Video intro' is my favourite way to start a project and I've got a bunch lined up for September, as have the rest of the team check out this amazing one that Kirsty put up today for her photography project! It's brilliant! 

- Claire ❤

Like this digital tools we love post? Why not check out parts one, two and three as well! 

Tutorial: How to create a solarised photograph in Photoshop

Example of a digital solarised print

The best part of being on holiday is getting the time to learn new techniques to teach my students. Solarisation is a method that has always interested me and you never know what your getting as you expose your print for that brief second in the dark. For those of you who are unaware of what solarisation is... it is a photographic effect that gives the print the appearance of being both negative and positive at the same time. In the darkroom it is achieved by subjecting the print to a brief second exposure during the development stage. The lightest tones of the print are affected the most by the second exposure thus altering the normal tonal values of the print. A white line or halo will appear between the first and second exposure creating a 'solarised' print.

In this video tutorial I will be showing you how to create a similar result digitally in Adobe Photoshop without the mess and unpredictability of the darkroom. If you like this tutorial then why not make the effect into a lesson and have a battle with darkroom vs digital solarisation methods. You could even look at the sabattier work of Man Ray to inspire your students outcomes. Let us know which one wins and have fun solarising!

- Kirsty ❤

Tutorial: How to make a Chris Ede inspired illustration

Chris Ede (Image courtesy of illustrationweb)    

                                      

Following on from my 3W about Chris Ede comes this tutorial which aims to give you an insight into some basic Adobe Photoshop techniques to teach students how to create a simple Chris Ede inspired illustration. I used this tutorial with my Btec National Art & Design students for a project on animal illustration and they loved it! The outcomes were very impressive, some even put my little chicken example to shame! The tutorial shows my own interpretation of how you might create these types of effects and they are by no means the actual techniques used by the artist but meant as a simpler less advanced version for beginner to intermediate level learners.

Hope you enjoy!

- Jess ❤

Tutorial: Letterpress effects in Photoshop

At I Heart Teaching Art we believe that art needs to be interactive no matter what course subject be it fine art, graphics or photography. We love getting students to create work that you just want to touch and this tutorial is going to teach you how to create beautiful typographic letterpress effects. You may of seen Claire's embossing tutorial a few weeks ago (if not go check it out!) - this is a great addition that compliments her lesson activities really well.

So, you may be thinking what could I use this technique for? Well, it could be a great part of a typographic lesson. As a starter activity students could test different approaches of 'hand' letter pressing before moving on to create the same effect digitally. We're fortunate enough to have some some lovely metal letterpress stamps in our department and they look great stamped into thick, watercolour paper. If you don't have then don't worry just make some letterforms out of thin aluminium wire, wet some paper and hammer the letters in one by one. You'll get some great effects! Students can then follow 

our digital letterpress tutorial above and compare the differences in a group critique at the end of the lesson. This effect could also be a good alternative to our textile inspired album cover tutorial or even swing tag packaging. Have fun and if you use this effect in class then please share the results - we'd love to see them!

♥ resources:

vintage envelope: Fuzzimo

brushes: We Function

font: Marmellata Jam

Tutorial: How to use the Blend Tool in Adobe Illustrator Part 3

This is the last of my tutorials on how to use the blend tool in Adobe Illustrator and hopefully this will round off the set nicely and give you a small insight into how you might go about using the technique to create a beautiful piece of digital abstract art like those by Andy Gilmore. The tutorial is intended to show a direct replica of one of Gilmore's works for educational purposes so please experiment with the techniques to come up with your own design! Also, this is my interpretation of how you might create this effect and it is by no means the actual technique used by the artist. 

Magical Geometric Digital Art by Andy Gilmore

Part 3: How to use the Blend Tool in Illustrator to create an Andy Gilmore digital artwork.

Then why not head over to Veerle's Blog and have a go at her tutorial on how to create Andy Gilmore style multi-coloured spirograph (below) learning how to use the rotate tool in the process!

Happy tutorial-ing!

- Jess ❤

Tutorial: Multiple Exposure Effect

This cool technique follows on from my post earlier this week and is another fun and easy way to distort an image. In the past I have spent hours with my 35mm camera trying to get that perfect multiple exposure until I just discovered how easy it is to imitate the effect in Photoshop. Check out my video tutorial below to create charming multiple exposures that will get you and your students addicted once you start making them!

Have fun - Kirsty ❤

Tutorial: Ghosting an image in Photoshop

As I've been planning for my new distortion project I thought to myself there must be an easy way to digitally manipulate a photo to give it a warped appearance and after much playing around on Photoshop... here it is! This tutorial is a really quick, fun and simple technique to create distorted 'ghostly' images and I think students will love it. It helps if you start of with the right type of portrait so for mine I chose in honour of Claire, Gwen Stefani (if you haven't noticed by now she's a bit of a no doubt fan!) Images that work best are going to be those that look shocked or scared so get your students to practice in class by posing with props and using lighting to really dramatise their image. Once you're happy, download the images onto a computer and follow the video tutorial below.

You could easily combine this technique into a whole lesson looking at movement. Start of with this digital technique and then take your students into the darkroom to experiment with movement of photographic paper. You can distort the image or give the illusion of movement by twisting, bending or dragging photographic paper on the enlarger baseboard. This technique works with photograms or negative prints and all you have to do is play around with the varying length of exposure. Like the sound of this? Then have a look at my BTEC L2 Photography Pinterest board for some inspiration.

PS. This is my first time at creating a video tutorial so I hope it's easy to follow. Enjoy!

- Kirsty ❤

Tutorial: How to use the blend tool to make cool text and imagery

Flower - Jessica Townsend     Slinky Type Paul Hollingworth

As promised (albeit a little late) here are my tutorials on how to make this charming spirograph style flower image and some other really cool things such as the 'Slinky Type' above by Paul Hollingworth.

I stumbled across the 'blend tool' in Adobe Illustrator by chance whilst having a play around one day and it is one of the coolest and simplest functions of the program guaranteed to give you that 'wow' moment and bring you and your students hours of fun! There are lots of great things you can do with this tool so I will be introducing the basics today and then bringing you more advanced techniques in my next tutorial post.

Part 1. Blend tool introduction and how to create simple 'slinky text'

Part 2. Creating simple spirography style imagery using the blend tool

Hope you enjoyed these little tutorials! Don't forget to watch out for Part 3 (coming soon) to see how to make more advanced imagery inspired by one of my all time hero's Andy Gilmore (below).

Magical Geometric Digital Art by Andy Gilmore

- Jess ❤

3W: Have a nice book

who: Yosigo and Salva Lopez
what: have a nice book project
why: A brilliant project which celebrates books and photography by showcasing books in a video format! We love it!

Have a nice book // Vimeo Channel // Blog

3W: Olek

who: Olek

what: guerilla crochet

why: crazy, ambitious and colourful! Watched the video above where she covers the wall street bull in crochet! There's another video and images on Tonys Gallery website who hosted an exhibition of her work this March. 

Olek // Blog // Tonys Gallery

3W: Lianna Sheppard

who: Lianna Sheppard

what: fashion/design 'modu_gram

why: simple and almost math like and absolutely gorgeous photographs/videos of the collection - we adore it! 

Lianna Sheppard // her blog // her vimeo 

3W: Quentin Jones

who: Quentin Jones

what: mixed media illustration, film and installation with strong fashion influence 

why: we love her work! Perhaps the coolest thing we've ever come across and the more we search the more incredible things we find! Videos, illustrations, installations and more! There's lots of different approaches you can take to make Quentin's work inspiring and relevant to your projects (we used it as an initial idea starter and our students created an installation piece and animated gifs, pictures and gifs here) There's also a whole host of video work that can be used for starters/background inspiration like this one for Victoria Beckham's S/S 2012 collection...  

Quentin Jones // Video work // A day in the life (video interview)