The Art & Design Department has been building it’s Google Classroom for all year groups since February this year (thanks to the Computer Science department and the IT Manager). With the Covid-19 school closures it has accelerated our programme brought the launch date forward by 6 months. At the present we have set up all our 4th years GCSE groups and in the process of sending invites out to our 3rd formers. We will be expand the Classroom for the rest of the year groups in the next few weeks.
The procedure is as follows:
An email will be sent out to your school email with your personal gmail account (with a password and class ID code) to login to Google Classroom . Once you have inputted your password (case sensitive) you will be asked to reset your password (make a note as you will need this to login next time). For those that have been sent an invite please read the invite instructions carefully.
Once logged in to Google Classroom pupils will need to complete the first assignment. Please read the “Students Quick Guide to Google Classroom.pdf” and watch the video Google Classroom tutorials “How to use Google Classroom” and “Google Classroom – How Students Can Attach Their Own Work To An Assignment”.
Once you have completed reading and viewing these documents/videos you need to click the “Turn in” button (top right), this notifies us that you have indeed read the documents and watched the videos. With some assignments, once read, you will need to click “Turn in” or “Add” if instructed to upload a document/photo/video.
Your next assignment will appear in Classroom. In the mean time it would be good for you to look at all the resources that I have created this year that include the all current ones as well. Remember click the “Turn in” button once you have read this material.
Below are links to the Student quick guide to Google Classroom PDF and two Google Classroom video guides that must be viewed and are part of the first assignment you will undertake in your Google Classroom.
Romanian artist Adrian Borda doesn’t play any musical instrume nt. But that doesn’t mean he can’t use them to mesmerize us. As an artistic experiment, Borda has started shooting them from the inside, and the view from within is just as mystical as the notes that come out from there.
“I live in Reghin, Romania, also called the city of violins,” Adrian told Bored Panda. “Most of the violins in our country are made here. I’m a surreal painter and many of my paintings contain violin themes.”
“I don’t know much about the instruments I have already photographed, they were broken, open for repairs, so I was able to put the cameras inside them. The first that I shot was a double bass that I found in a friend’s shop. The second was a very old French cello from Napoleon’s times that I found in the city of Amiens, in an orchestra director Dominique Leroy’s house.”
Adrian found most of the inspiration for the project in a promotion campaign of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra. “I had no idea how the images were made, and I wasn’t even sure if they were photos or digital renderings, so this project was a real challenge. I had a few ultra-wide macro attempts before specialized lenses like Laowa 15mm macro appeared.”
“It was a really nice and fun challenge to create the right atmosphere inside. One time, I used wood dust, and the best light was a light bulb from the ceiling. I was moving the cello all around the house to play with different angles of light. I hope the series will continue, I’m planning to photograph more instruments and other interesting objects from unusual perspectives.”
Photographers from more than 100 countries submitted thousands of stunning photos of the built world to the annual Art of Building photography competition, run by the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB).
The competition, now in its tenth year, celebrates the creativity of the construction industry and the passion of the people who work within it. 12 photographs reached the final, where they were put to a public vote.
This year’s competition awarded two cash prizes, worth £1500 each, for the Public Choice Award, and the Judges Prize, chosen by a judging panel.
Taking home the Public Choice Award with more than 30% of the vote is Alexandr Bormotin, from Ivanovo in Russia, for his incredible futuristic image of a new underground train station in Moscow, entitled Metrostation.
The Judges Prize was awarded to Pedro Luis Ajuriaguerra Saiz a professional photographer from northern Spain, who captured Hemisferic, designed by Santiago Calatrava, a science museum in Valencia. His photo, simply entitled Fish, cleverly captured the building and its reflections, to reimagine it as a living creature.
Caroline Gumble Chief Executive at the CIOB said: “So many images managed to create a sense of mood and place, it was a delight to judge the competition. The winning photographs both show the beauty and harmony in great architecture and are a reminder of the impact on our emotions and well-being that well-designed buildings can achieve.”
Since 2009 Kevin Meredith aka Lomokev has been shooting a series of montage portraits. Each one consists of five photographs overlapping each other. The majority of the portraits were shot for Brighton Source Magazine’s street style section between 2010 and the end of 2013. Unfortunately since the beginning of 2014 Source is no longer published so he no longer trend spotted for them but continued to shoot them for his fragmented portraits Tumblr. He was inspired to shot portraits like this after seeing Bernhard Winkler shot portraits in a similar way at the Lomo World Congress in 2002 although he did not shot his first until 2009. In late 2013 photographer @PhotoAnton shot a short documentary on the subject of the portraits. (See movie below)
The above by simon.G.man Street photographer Emi 2018 uses four photos edited in Affinity photo with a vignette added to each frame before layering, replicating lomokev’s style.
Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of software, where images are edited on the pixel level. The aesthetic for this kind of graphics comes from 8-bit and 16-bit computers and video game consoles, in addition to other limited systems such as graphing calculators.
Creating or modifying pixel art characters or objects for video games is sometimes called spriting, a term that arose from the hobbyist community. As part of the Third year art programme students are going to produce 8×8 pixel portraits. Initially made up portraits or emojis in lesson one. For lesson two students will bring in a selection of 5 Superheroes to produce Superheroes 8 bit pixel art. The image above I replicated and cut down from 100 to 16 Superhero faces from Iñaki Díaz the pixel artwork 8×8, 100 superhero faces, pico8 colour palette using Adobe Illustrator. Can you name the Superheros?
Piskel, free online sprite editor. A simple web-based tool for Spriting and Pixel art. Create pixel art, game sprites and animated GIFs. Free and open-source.
The 8-bit arcade font, deconstructed
In his book Arcade Game Typography, type designer Toshi Omagari breaks down the evolution, design, and history of arcade game fonts. In the video below, he guides us through this delightful 8-bit world and breaks it down pixel by pixel.
As part of the course we encourage our students to get out there and sketch what is in front of you. As a start to the course we will be visiting London to start you off with some amazing inspiration. Taking photographs will help record certain views that you can work on when you are back at home and in school. This course of videos by Alphonso Dunn is a great introduction in what to do.
Simone studied architecture at Canterbury School of Art where the value of pen, pencil and watercolour in the communication of space and buildings became embedded in her work. She then worked as an architect in Manchester, specialising in interior architecture for 15+ years. Moving on from architectural practice, in 2011 Simone was appointed Senior Lecturer at Manchester School of Art on BA (Hons.) Interior Design. Here flickr sight can be viewed here>>>
One of the most prolific Manchester Urban Sketchers is Liz Ackerley.
About Urban Sketchers
Urban Sketchers started as a group on image sharing site, Flickr, in 2007. The Urban Sketchers founder Gabriel (Gabi) Campanario is a Spanish journalist and illustrator living in Seattle. He is a journalist for The Seattle Times where he contributes as an artist and a writer to both the printed edition as well as blogs. As more and more artists began to submit and share their drawings online, Campanario started a group to support and promote journalistic drawing depicting real life as it happens in front of the artist.
A year later in 2008 Campanario created the Urban Sketchers blog. Participation in the Urban Sketchers blog is by invitation and is limited to a hundred artists. The term Urban Sketchers Correspondent was created. Correspondents are invited by Campanario and commit to contribute journalistic sketches on a regular basis. The sketches are accompanied by stories providing a background for the sketch: when and where the sketch was created and some details about content – words and narrative that go with pictures. The Urban Sketchers blog gained popularity between 2008 and the present, attracting hundreds and soon thousands of visitors daily.
THE URBAN SKETCHER: Techniques for seeing and Drawing on Location by Marc Taro Holmes
Capture the bustle and beauty of life in your town.
Experience life as only an artist can! Join the rapidly growing, international movement of artists united by a passion for drawing on location in the cities, towns and villages where they live and travel. Packed with art and advice from Marc Taro Holmes, artist and co-founder of Urbansketchers.org, this self-directed workshop shows you how to draw inspiration from real life and bring that same excitement into your sketchbook. Inside you’ll fi nd everything you need to tackle subjects ranging from still lifes and architecture to people and busy street scenes.
15 step-by-step demonstrations cover techniques for creating expressive drawings using pencil, pen and ink, and watercolor.
Expert tips for achieving a balance of accuracy, spontaneity and speed.
Practical advice for working in the field, choosing subjects, coping with onlookers, capturing people in motion and more.
Daily exercises and creative prompts for everything from improving essential skills to diverse approaches, such as montages, storytelling portraits and one-page graphic novels.
Whether you are a habitual doodler or a seasoned artist, The Urban Sketcher will have you out in the world sketching from the very first page. By completing drawings on the spot, in one session, you achieve a fresh impression of not just what you see, but also what it feels like to be there . . . visual life stories as only you can experience them.
Reminder that the next assignment has been published here on WordPress. This is a mock question paper (Portfolio Unit 2) where you choose one theme that will be completed by 9 December 2019. Portfolio Unit 1 plus Portfolio Unit 2 will be your completed coursework element of the GCSE and this combined work will be the basis for the assessment mark that we will give out in on 7 January 2020.
Once again use your Pinterest to post images related to your chosen theme. Use the question/theme artist/photographers suggested as a starting point. The school Pinterest has posted images related to themes.
The GCSE 4th Year students end of year mark has been assessed according to the AQA Examination Board’s mark scheme (viewed here>>>). The assessment marks include each student’s WordPress blogs and Instagram stream as well as the final piece (painting) or your series Photographys. This mark forms the basis for the Internal Examination mark and is Coursework – Portfolio Unit 1.
Following on from what we have said in the lessons regarding key dates published on February 25. We don’t want to stress our 5th Year out, but there are just a few weeks left until the final deadline for all GCSE Art & Design work. Staff are and have been available to help you plan out the final stage of your coursework and Externally Set Assignment. During the Easter break you will need to work on the Externally Set Assignment sketchbook in preparation for the 10 hour examination commencing 25 April 2019. In addition all materials and work for the examination must be made ready. Final key dates are:
Group A
25 April (am only), 26 April (all day) & 29 April (am only)
Group B
25 April (pm only), 29 April (pm only) & 30 April (all day)
Both groups
Completed coursework sketchbooks and final pieces, and in the case of photographers have 20 A3 prints of your coursework printed out for the deadline, Monday 6 May 2019. Study Leave 9 May 2019.
KGS 