FOURTH GRADE . . . The Art of Photoshop

Fourth graders are discovering the magic of modern technology in their general art class. With our self portrait, we are going to explore how art can be expressed with the traditional tools of a graphite pencil on paper as well as using modern tools and digital images on the computer. Leonardo da Vinci will be our inspiration for the more traditional lessons in drawing portraits, but I have always thought that Leonardo would have been a very eager student of all things digital in our modern world. Imagine what he could have done with the art and science of Photoshop!

Adobe Photoshop is a wonderful retouching tool for graphic artists as well as anyone who owns a digital camera. Most of us know how to upload photos to a computer and use them in different applications. Therefore, we should also know how to correct a photo, change its size or alter the color. With Photoshop, my students will learn how to do all of that, as well as discover how to change a digital image into a creative and original work of art.

With new advances in technology there is always a moment we have to step back and review what impact this new technology will make in our lives. When I was younger, cameras used film to record images. Unless you were very skilled at darkroom techniques, the image was printed just as it was captured by the camera lens. The best we could do at the time was use a pair of scissors to crop the photo. Now with software such as Adobe Photoshop, photos can be altered and you would never realize a change was made.

Here is a video put out by Dove Beauty a few years ago that I shared with my classes today. This really highlights the significance of Photoshop and the impact it has on our perception of beauty and reality.