Bryn Celynnog - Sixth Form Photoshop Help

Aside from my lessons I was asked to help learners in years 12 and 13 who were struggling with Photoshop. There was one learner who for his final piece had created a wooden surf board holder, the piece was great and very detailed, however one thing he was lacking was some ICT work in his project. This is where I helped him.

 

I took photographs of his work and created some 'mash up's' of how his work would look on the front of surf magazines and posters. I gave these idea's to him, I then showed him how I did it step by step. The learner then went away and created his own posters and challenged himself further by putting his work into shop windows in Photoshop.

 

 

Here are the photograph's I took of this learners work, I cut up and took area's from most of them to create the final posters.........

 

 

Here are some of the posters I created in Photoshop using this learners work and some found imagery off the internet.

 

 

 

 

Bryn Celynnog - Year 10

My year 10 classes had the same scheme of work going on with 'Aborigianl'. I knew I wanted to run a clay project and thought these would be the best classes to run it with.

The lessons started out similar to the year 9 ones, learners would merge two of their cultural masks together to make one final one. With this new mask learners would create a clay slab design before we moved onto clay.

In the first lesson learners were taught how to correctly cut, roll and wedge clay. They spent the first lesson mark making with the clay, they brought in different materials that they thought would leave an interesting mark. If they found something they liked then they would make note of this and then perhaps use it on their final pieces.

With their final designs in hand, learners in the first making week cut their slabs to the size they wanted them and created the backgrounds only first.

Once the backgrounds were made on these slab reliefs, learners then began to build up their designs. They knew not to go too thick so their pieces would not explode in the kiln. To add on additional pieces to their clay, learners used the 'scratch and slip' method. Learners then spent the next six weeks perfected their slabs so they could then be fired and then painted on to.

Alongside their slabs, learners were producing a 'clay diary' in their skecthbooks that they would add to each week. This not only brought in literacy to each lesson but would act as an aid to the learners if they wished to use clay in the future, when I would not be there, they had made notes on all the relevant processes.

I was really happy with how the majority of these pieces turned out. These learners had never used clay before and I had not done too much of it in the past. Learners enjoyed this process and now they have tried it out can do it again the future.

My biggest issues came from some learners who had built their clay to thick, a few of the pieces did break off during the firing process. I think some learners had not 'scratched and slipped' some of their pieces as well which meant those pieces broke off too, even though it was drilled in every week that they must use this technique. The time element to this project was quite a struggle as well, these pieces needed so many weeks to dry out and be fired, and with things like snow days occurring it meant there was not a lot of time to paint their pieces.

Bryn Celynnog - Year 9

The art classes in this school had used very little ICT in their lessons so it felt natural with my degree background to run a Photoshop project with my year 9 class. Year's 9 and 10's scheme of work was 'Aboriginal', therefore I came up with a project that would see learners designing a cultural poster as if it was going to be shown in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Photoshop. This was definitely my toughest project as it was hard enough at times to get the learners logging onto the computer successfully, let alone using Photoshop.

First of all, learners were asked to pick two cultural mask drawings they had done in their skecthbooks and combine the two to make a new mask. Learners then fine lined these drawings and handed them into me, so I could then scan them in and have them ready for the learners the week after so they could begin work in Photoshop.

 

Here are a few of the initial line drawings done. These were then scanned in so learners could then go into Photoshop, play around with levels to make the lines darker, and then begin to colour them in. For each week I prepared a handout with the step by step tasks on it for that lesson, this was designed to help any learners who were falling behind or for anyone who wished to progress on without the rest of the class.

 

 

 

 

 

Once learners had repositioned their marks and scaled them to how they wanted them, learners coloured in their marks using block colours, and then added some tones. Once this was done learners found a cultural pattern off the Internet into the background. Here are some of the posters above that match the above line drawings.

 

These posters looked great and from learner evaluations it was fed back that they enjoyed using Photoshop. However, I felt these posters were not personal enough because the background image was just one they had found off the Internet. Also, if they made the backgrounds more personal then the learners would achieve a higher marking level.

 

This is where I brought in 'scratch art' cards. Learners were given one card, with this card they would scrape in a cultural pattern. Again I scanned in these cards so they could then be the new background in the final posters.

 

 

These are example of what some of the 'scratch art' cards looked like.

 

Learners then dragged in their patterned cards into their existing Photoshop file, they then tiled up their cards in the background.

 

 

Here are some of the final posters, they are now a lot more personal! The original line drawings stand out a lot more as well.

 

I really enjoyed this project and the outcomes were brilliant. However, it was definitely my most stressful project. Stress came from little things like finding available rooms with computers that had Photoshop on and from saving the learners work correctly into one place. Each lesson was very difficult as I was hard to keep everyone working at the same level, and you could not keep your eyes on everyone at the same time because they were all hiding behind a computer screen.

 

The whole Art department was really pleased with the outcomes of this project, so much so that this project was then fed into some year 10 and 11 classes.  

 

 

Here is the final year 9 Photoshop wall display I put up outside of the Art rooms.

 

 

 



Bryn Celynnog - Year 8

For the two year 8 groups I had the scheme of work was Portraiture, and I could pretty much come up with the project by myself and my mentor's help. Before I started in this school these classes had been given a homework on Picasso's 'Weeping Woman' painting, so it felt natural that I would create a project that would link well to this.

Learners would be creating a very similar portrait to the 'Weeping Woman'.

Learners were given an A3 piece of paper each that they would have to grid up, much like in Picasso's painting. The less able learners drew less grids where as the more able drew more grids to make more of a challenge for themselves. Once the grids were drawn learners would then fill them in using different materials. Learners were broken up into five groups of four, in these groups they would move around the room to different tables that had different materials on them, as a bit of a circuit. On one table there was acrylic paints, on the other there was newspaper, on another there was oil pastels, and on the other table was a variety of collage materials. Learners would spend ten minutes at each station to fill in their grids.

Learners had to stick to one colour theme, either hot or cold colours. The choice was theirs.

 

Once learners had completed all of their grids they were then going to draw on a split portrait of themselves, half of the face would be drawn front on, whilst the other half would be a profile view. They practised these faces in their books first so they would not ruin these lovely prepped sheets they had been working on.

 

 

These faces were drawn onto the grid sheets as a class, I would go through it step by step on the board and then the learners would follow. Again so learners would not go wrong on their final sheets.

 

 

The next step was then to go back into their grids and define the area's so that their portraits would stand out, this was actually easier to do if you had more grids on your sheet.

 

 

At the end of the project all learners laid their final pieces of work on the floor and we had a group critique. This was a good opportunity for all learners to see each others work and give feedback.

 

I really enjoyed this project as it allowed me to 'inject' some Art history into the lessons as well. Learners could see the link between their work and Picasso's.

 

The struggles in this project came from some learners not sticking to the colour theme they had chosen, drawing on their portraits on their sheets to small, and not taking care in filling in their grids.