Color in Motion is an animated and interactive experience that explores color communication and color symbolism. Designed by Claudia Cortes for her MFA Thesis in Computer Graphics Design at RIT.
Here are 10 book artists that will make you and your students look at books in new ways.
If you’re a fan of map art, like I am, you’ll want to bookmark Creative Mapping, which is dedicated to creative uses of maps in art and how to map information creatively.
Try this with your family, friends, or students. Plan a Portrait Party where you and a fellow artist pair up and draw portraits of one another. You can then swap the portraits you drew or submit them to this site.
Doodlers Anonymous is a permanent home for spontaneous art. There’s a blog, interviews, themed-based submissions, and lots of amusing thoughts on paper.
Cassidy Curtis’ Graffiti Archaeology project is a time-lapse collage, made of photos of San Francisco graffiti taken by many different photographers from 1998 to the present. The site lets viewers explore the contested space of this visual urban landscape over time.
Check out the stunning portfolio of Acconci Studio, a collaborative international architecture and design firm founded by New York artist Vito Acconci. [via Design for Mankind]
Blu is a graffiti/street artist from Buenos Aires Bologna, Italy. His work has popped up all over the Web, most notably here. Fans can follow Blu’s work through his blog.
Lastly, I found this New York Times’ article on the importance of sleep in improving creativity and problem-solving of interest. Perhaps, we need to schedule nap periods in school?
Added a new page to my Art Junction site today called “VoiceThread in the Art Room,” which is intended to assist art teachers in using VT in their classrooms by providing tutorials, project ideas, examples, and other relevant resources.
I attended a community forum tonight on the current financial crisis in Florida that led to the reduction of art and music programs in our county’s elementary schools this year. Following the showing of a short video featuring local elementary students talking about the importance of art and music classes for them, Jackie Johnson, Public Information Officer for the School Board talked about the drop in state funding for education and the upcoming mill rate increase that’s on the November ballot. Then Mark McGriff, Chair for a local political action group called Citizens for Strong Schools, talked about the need for everyone in the room to advocate for the mill rate increase. We also heard from Sue Johnson, Co-Chair of Friends of Alachua County Elementary Arts Programs who talked on the value of the arts in schools as well as several concerned parents.
“Best line of the night” goes to Mark McGriff who in response to those who say “they can’t afford to pay the mill rate increase,” said “We can’t afford not to!”
This past week I had the opportunity to work with 5th grade students at W.S. Ryan Elementary School in Denton, Texas on a VoiceThread project. The project involved a collaboration between Nancy Walkup, the art teacher at Ryan, her students, and myself. It was as much a learning experience for me as it was for Nancy and her students as this was the first time I worked with a group of young students using VoiceThread in the classroom.
Students began the project weeks before my arrival by viewing and discussing the work of Carmen Lomas Garza, a Texas artist known for creating paintings of her childhood memories, and then creating their own childhood memory drawings. After completing their drawings, students wrote rough and final drafts of descriptions of their pictures. Cindy Hasio, a student teacher in Nancy’s classroom, scanned the students’ artwork so it would be ready to post online. Compared with all this preliminary work, my role in the project was fairly easy.
I arrived at the school early each morning to set up the recording equipment prior to first period. Over the course of three days we were able to record twenty-six stories to accompany students’ pictures.
Rather than attempt to record students’ voices in the art classroom, we decided to turn a small reference room in the school’s media center/library into a recording studio. This was beneficial for several reasons: (1) A number of students expressed concern about having to record their stories in front of the whole class; (2) The small space of the reference room allowed us to better control ambient noise during recordings; (3) The recording space was in close proximity to the art room; and (4) most importantly, the room we used had a Ethernet connection allowing access to the Web.
The recordings were done in small groups of 2-4 students who sat around a table taking turns working the computer and recording their stories. After showing each group how the VoiceThread site worked and creating identities for each student (something the site allows you to easily do), I let the students do the recordings on their own while I stood back and observed. I felt that putting the students in charge, so to speak, relieved possible anxiety of recording their stories with me, a stranger at the school, and would also increase their sense of ownership of the project. Furthermore, it helped some students to know that if they “messed up” while recording their stories, they could simply cancel the recording and try again. Only a few students required more than one attempt.
All in all, the project went smoothly. But, I must admit that getting through the number of students we did in three days would not have been possible without the cooperation of classroom teachers who permitted some of their students to come to the recording studio outside of art time and others who excused students for returning to their classrooms late because they were working with me.
Memory Drawings from Ryan Elementary Students (link)
A Few Observations & Tips:
Students were excited by the opportunity to share their work and stories online.
VoiceThread is easy for young students (and adults) to use.
VoiceThread can be a great tool for combining image, text and voice in various types of interdisciplinary projects.
Art teachers should look at VoiceThread for ways to combine conventional art media and new technology in planning classroom projects for their students.
It’s best to allow the students to work in small groups to help each other record their stories.
I collected around 40 or so avatars from the Web prior to my visit to the school to allow students to pick from when setting up their identities in VoiceThread. Students enjoyed choosing their own avatars from this collection, which helped to raise their interest level in the project.
I used a Blue Snowflake Microphone to record students’ stories. I chose this microphone in part because it easily fit in my suitcase. In use, it worked pretty well and was typically held by students a few inches from their mouths while recording. Where transportability is not a concern, I would consider using the Blue Snowball Microphone instead.
Lastly, one of the unexpected surprises that occurred during this project was an interview by a local newspaper reporter. Subsequently, our VoiceThread project ended up on the front page of the Denton Record-Chronicle.
My trip to Texas was made possible through a grant from the Fine Arts Scholarship Enhancement Fund from the University of Florida’s College of Fine Arts.
Enjoy this clip from Carlos Vilardebo’s 1961 film of Alexander Calder’s “circus,” an intricately assembled performance piece played out by handmade characters including jugglers, sword swallowers, clowns, and animals. See more of the Vilardedo film here. [thanks swissmiss]
