Still here...

I have been away from this blog for too long! But now I'm back. Since May, I've been busy with all kinds of different art education projects- and I will be posting about them here.

First of all, my partner and I have started a new blog for our studio work and adventures:
sawwhetstudio.tumblr.com

More to follow...

Fibonacci Trees

The Fibonacci sequence is a fun way to show students how math and pattern can be found in art and nature. I've used this subject in the Grade 10-12 Visual Arts classes, in the aesthetics unit of the Grade 12 Philosophy course - and I've seen it used in Science, Math and Computer Science classes as well. This is a great example of a rich interdisciplinary topic for students to explore.

The basics about the Fibonacci numbers can be found here.

In the image above, I used the Fibonacci sequence to space the trees and the levels of the branches. This would be a good Visual Arts project, have students research the numbers, develop various templates and grids based on the sequence and use the spatial relationships to create an image.

- Patrick

Advertising and Graphic Design Lessons

I am teaching a Grade 10 Media Arts class this term and we're in the middle of a fun unit focusing on advertising and graphic design.

I started out teaching them the four fundamental principles of graphic design (see previous post with handout). 

Next, the students were introduced to the program Adobe Illustrator. 

After exploring the design principles with some Illustrator exercises, the students were ready to try designing a logo for a future business or product. 

To give them some background in the history of advertising and design, we watched the film Art & Copy.  

The kids enjoyed it- it gave them a look into the industry and an understanding of the different jobs involved.

After using the creative process to design their own logos, it will be time for the culminating project of the unit: use the four principles of design to re-create a favourite film poster, featuring a new logo for the film or the production company. More unit and lesson ideas to come as we work through the course...

- Patrick

Emily Carr at the A.G.O: From the Forest to the Sea

A new exhibition opens this weekend at the AGO: Emily Carr, From the Forest to the Sea- and it looks awesome! I've always found that the real point of her work was missed when her paintings were placed next to, or compared with the Group of 7's work. This article from the Star presents a thorough review of the exhibit and, although I do not agree with their assessment of the Group of 7's work, they do offer a refreshing take on Emily Carr's work:

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/visualarts/2015/04/11/emily-carr-rises-above-the-group-at-ago-show.html

Looking forward to checking out this show and bringing my class. I will post a personal review after and discuss the student response to her work. For more information check out the A.G.O. site.

- Patrick

The Dress- What is going on?

On Friday, the internet went crazy about the colours of this dress. About 50% of people saw the dress in the image above as blue and black while the other 50% could only see white and gold. 

The actual dress is blue and black as seen in the photo below.  The exposure of the photograph above makes some people focus on the contrast and see gold and white. 

CP24 feature one expert explanation here, and claims the colour is in the eye of the beholder. Since colour is a psychological phenomenon, this makes sense. What is still puzzling is why approximately 50% of people interpret the image one way and the other 50% another way.

Just to see, I played around with both images in Photoshop to try and create both colour schemes, here are some comparisons:

                                

          

The image of the dress on the far right above has the most extreme exposure and the most gold and white and has the following colours using the eyedropper tool in Photoshop:

The whitest part of the dress is light blue.

The lightest part of the gold is seen here- and is a mid-tone.

For the original image of the dress that caused all the hype, the colours are similar but darker:

The whitest/lightest part of the dress is a mid-tone blue.

The lightest part of what some people saw as gold is a dark-tone brown. 

You can see in these colour comparisons how the dress has colours in the mid range between black at the bottom (the actual colour of the dress) and gold at the top (the over-exposed photo of the dress); and dark blue at the bottom of the other Colour Picker image and light blue leading to white at the top. 

The psychology comes into it when the individual chooses to veer towards the lighter side or the darker side and whether they are sensitive to the overexposure of the image or not. If they are sensitive to the overexposed nature of the image, the mind will colour-correct to the blue-black colour scheme. However, if the mind accepts the photo as regular light, they will see the gold-white colour scheme. The photo of "the dress" seems to be a new addition to the history of optical illusions.

- Patrick

Jean-Michel Basquiat at the A.G.O.

The new exhibit at the AGO looks amazing: Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now's The Time. This is the first major retrospective of the artist's work and I cannot wait to check it out. I've already heard good things about it and the educator's night was well attended. 

One of the reasons that I'm excited about this exhibit is the accessibility of Basquiat's images. It's a refreshing move away from the often snobby, pretentious high-brow art world (seen in too many shows- where viewers stand around sipping drinks and pretending to understand the meaning behind artwork that really speaks to no one). This unfortunate part of the art world gives all art a bad name and distracts from the power of visual creativity to actually communicate something. This criticism is not directed at the A.G.O., who always have something thoughtful to check out, but to an unfortunate majority of other galleries. 

Just a little rant. I hope you enjoy the show!

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