Friday, November 8, 2013

GRAPHIC ARTS . . . Drawing on the iPad!


Our Graphic Arts Electives for 4th and 5th grades started this year on the small screen. We used iPads to create our self-portraits with an app called "Sketchbook Pro". With this app, we are learning how to use layers to create images. There are special palettes to use for lines, shapes and colors and an assortment of advanced drawing tools to create the special effects we are looking for. We also experimented with using a stylus to draw on the screen and discovered how to use multiple finger swipes to enlarge and navigate around the image.

Many artists use an iPad as a modern day sketch pad and are as comfortable making quick sketches on this screen as they were trained to do with a pencil on paper. Famous artist, David Hockney, from England has been experimenting with this new medium. He is well known for his large, colorful paintings that can be seen in museums all over the world. He also enjoys using apps like "Sketchbook Pro" and some of his drawings have been used as the cover for magazines. Here is one of his iPad sketches used for The New Yorker . . .

4th and 5th graders are finishing up their portraits using this very same iPad app. Separating our images into layers, we first created a line drawing of our faces on one layer using a pencil tool and a thin black line. Then we created a color layer and learned how to use a paintbrush tool and the color palettes to choose and adjust the colors for the image. The last layer is the background layer and here we were able to "flood" the entire screen behind our drawing with a tone and have fun adding crazy designs and fancy strokes to the screen. Here are a few examples of some of our finished portraits. You will be able to see all of them printed out at our art show next week or on artsonia.com by clicking on this link.
http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

Artwork by Ben, 5th grade
Artwork by Morgan, 5th grade
Artwork by Jett, 4th grade
Artwork by Zach, 4th grade

1 comment:

  1. I think the ipad self portraits were beautiful. And Creative. The lines were are straight on and it looks like it is the real person.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your thoughts!
Barbara Levine
Ranney Lower School Art