Large group Terry Fox Poster activity

 This in a September/October project that's great to do with elementary students as a large group activity. 

Step 1: Tape a large piece of paper to the white board (in the place where the projector will project)

Step 2: Project the Terry Fox image that you want onto the paper

Step 3: Trace a light pencil outline of the image 

Step 4: Ask a student to go over the light pencil outline with a black marker

Step 5: Show the class an inspiring Terry Fox video and ask them to write down a quote that they feel inspired by (or to write their own sentence about what Terry means to them)

Step 6: Using different bright coloured- markers, have students come up one at a time to add their quote or sentence to the poster

Abigail Watson and Bela Fleck: Banjo Love Mosaic

To celebrate a recent album and tour, banjo geniuses Abigail Watson and Bela Fleck asked fans to send in photos of themselves holding a banjo. The result is the Banjo Love mosaic poster made up of all those submitted images:

See the high-res version and galleries of all the individual images on their site, here:

http://www.banjolove.com/#main

As a long-time Bela fan I could't resist, even though I play guitar, I went to my local music store and played around with a beautiful banjo for a while and took this photo for my submission:

This would make a great Visual Arts project for the classroom or the school community. It is a versatile project that can accommodate any theme and include a variety of amounts of participants. Basic photography and photo-editing skills are required. I would recommend using Illustrator and Photoshop to finalize the collaborative poster. 

- Patrick

Graphic Design Unit: Movie Poster Project

Happy New Year!

To start the year off, here's a fun and easy art project. This would work for a unit on graphic design.

Step 1: introduce the 4 fundamentals of graphic design. (see handout below)
Step 2: allow students to build an understanding of the 4 fundamentals by working through a few exercises
Step 3: review what worked and what didn't work in the exercises
Step 4: introduce the poster design project


Poster Design Project:

Part 1: use this article from the Globe and Mail to see some of the most successful movie posters from 2014

Part 2: write a summary of how your favourite poster uses the 4 fundamentals

Part 3: create a poster for your favourite movie using all 4 fundamentals

-Patrick