FOURTH GRADE . . . Photoshopping a Selfie!

Fourth graders discovered the magic of Adobe Photoshop in our general art class. Each student began with their image and learned the basic steps to crop, re-size, and adjust the brightness scale. Then they explored the artistic filters to create these amazing transformations. A favorite transformation occurs in the Liquify window with tools that slide pixels around on the screen, bloat or pucker areas of the image, and create swirls like in a Vincent van Gogh painting. There are many photo editing programs and apps out there for people to use with their digital images, but the special effects cannot be controlled or customized. With Photoshop, our fourth graders learned how to create an original work of art out of a photograph, all on their own!

Here are a few examples of our Photoshopped selfies...
Although some of the transformations are quite dramatic, they are still based on photographs of the students and I will not be able to post them on Artsonia. To see all of our work, visit Panther Hall gallery later this month!

Note to families...
This art blog will be updated regularly with new posts sharing our daily activities in the art room and news about upcoming art exhibits. To respect the privacy of our students, names will always be limited to first name only and identifiable photos will never be accompanied with a name. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to write in the comment box below or send me an email at blevine@ranneyschool.org. I would love to hear from you!
    In my class, students are given the chance to explore different materials and fun new techniques as they develop their signature style. Some young artists love to draw with a pencil, some like to paint on canvas or create images in a digital format, while others prefer working with clay and molding three-dimensional forms. In my classroom, we use a variety of materials allowing all artists to experiment and figure out which type of art they like the best. At Ranney School, we place a strong emphasis on originality and celebrate artistic differences, always nurturing and encouraging the imagination of every student.
     Remember to check out our display of finished artwork and student portfolios in the Ranney home page of Artsonia.com.  http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

FOURTH GRADE . . . Seeing the world in mirror image!

Our fourth grade self portraits began as a lesson in technology when we learned how to use Adobe Photoshop in our art class. Then we turned back the clock to the 16th century and learned about the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci. Inspired by his mirror image writing, we prepared our photos on the computer by sizing them to fit in the printer and turned them into black and white images. Using only one half of the photo, we created a mirror image drawing to complete our portraits. Transposing shapes, lines and curves into mirror image is a terrific way to train our eyes to see objects more accurately.

It was not possible to upload these drawings to Artsonia because they contain photographic images of the students. Therefore, I present to you a preview of our portraits on this blog post and will be sharing all the images up close in our art show later this month.