Student work/Lesson idea: Scripture in pictures, faux stained glass panels

Voila! I have almost 75 of these in a finished-state but these are some of the better pieces overall. Each is representative of a individually selected Bible verse and used some religious symbology and colors to illustrate the verse.

Can't we all just get along?

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you will join us

And the world will be as one

[lyrics from John Lennon's "Imagine"]

It would be awfully nice if it really were so easy to just cover our eyes and make a wish so that everything would fall perfectly into place, wouldn't it?

Student Work/Lesson Idea: Animorph portraits - digital

Last year was my first year at this school and some of the classes I was tasked with leading were Computer-aided (CAD) Graphic Design classes.  Now, I can hold my own in terms of navigating Photoshop and other such photo manipulation softwares but for the most part?  I'm self-taught with what I know how to do (which is probably somewhere between intermediate and advanced if you want to quantify it) but mostly?  I'm a hack at it.  I have learned through my own trial and error, tutorials that I've been able to find via Google, and by way of assorted and random textbook tutorials that I've gotten from others.  Needless to say, last year was a huge growing experience for me but I did make tremendous strides in learning how the best ways to teach a CAD class as well as becoming reasonably proficient in my technical writing skills.

Most of my planning periods last year were devoted to writing and converting tutorials (to be used for Photoshop CS2) for my students to use in class.  It was a tireless job but I was committed to doing it.  I had a few archived lessons from previous instructors before me but many of them weren't intensive enough for the level that I know my students wanted to and could work at.  Just the same, after I finished out the semester, I realized that for all of my own tutorials that I had written, I would be stupid not to start researching a textbook that could be used because ultimately?  I'm a hack at it all and the students needed to learn the fundamentals of photoshop the right way.

I researched a number of textbooks and settled on The Photoshop CS/CS2 Wow! Book.  It got decent reviews and was reasonably priced if bought at a used rate versus brand-new.  (I also got the  Illustrator version of the book and I'm planning on using it when I teach the Advanced Graphic Design class this coming Spring.)

Recently the students did a tutorial in the Photoshop book (found on p. 615 of the book) called "Applying an image with Liquify."  The jist of it is that you take a print of an animal and then apply it to the surface of someones skin.  The example use stock photography of a female model and a zebra print.  Each of the students were instructed to complete the tutorial and then create two more versions using pictures of their own, stock photography, and other animal prints.

The students had a lot of fun with this project and I will definitely keep it in my archive of winners for future classes. It was relatively quick to get through with them - I gave them about a week (five classes at 55 minute blocks) to complete the tutorial and then two other self-directed pieces - and I feel their outputs are both high-quality and impressive to look at it.

Student WiPs: Faux stained glass panels - "Scripture in pictures"

Last Spring I got the crazy idea to do stained glass art with the 2D students.  It seemed the ideal project for them to flex all of their visual art know-how with regard to most of the elements of art and principles of design they were learning and the timing the project ended up falling perfectly with the Spring choral concert at our school.  It seemed like a real win-win project overall.

We used sheets of acetate (called Dura-lar) and painted them with acrylics to achieve the colored glass effect and then we outlined the pieces of color in solvent-based paint marker (Sharpie Oil paint markers and Elmers Painter markers - both in black). We hung them with double-stick scotch tape to the windows down the student gallery hallway and they were very well received.  Overall, the end results were pretty good but I was not entirely satisfied with them because though they were in the style of stained glass they lacked the presence that REAL stained glass has.

After we finished the project, I mulled over what could have been done to make it different and better for weeks.  Materials and tools to make real stained glass just wouldn't fit in the budget and my classroom is shared with another teacher so I didn't want to do something that would result in shards of glass everywhere that would be dangerous for her/her students to contend with.

This school year started and I had no plans to do stained-glass again but after I took the student work down in the gallery, I couldn't shake the urge to try it again and make it better.  I knew there was an answer to how I could imitate real stained glass and it just so happened that the project could fall appropriately around the time of the Christmas music concerts which would make it perfectly align with the rest of the fine arts program.

After about three hours of walking aimlessly in brainstorm mode around Michael's and a good number of hours online researching options, I finally came across the perfect alternative on instructables.  I quickly ordered the necessary supplies of solvent based markers in a broad array of colors (Bic brand over Sharpies this time because they were cheaper), mini glue guns, and mini sticks of black hot glue for the faux leading work.  I had the students pay $1.06 for me to get them 8x10 frames at the local Dollar Trees OR bring in their own 8x10 frames to use.

Then we went about the design process...

• Studied scripture (easy for us since we are a Christian school and every student has a Bible for Bible class)
• Looked at religious symbology - Here's a very comprehensive chart and list of scriptures and their corresponding symbology and meanings from BYU
• Selected scriptures to illustrate
• Drafted at least (3) thumbnails of possible designs using both lines and color
• Selected one full color and detailed design to make into a large scale design on 8x11.5 paper that I then reduced on the copier by 90% so that it fit perfectly within an 8x10 frame

We followed the directions almost exactly as instructables stated in the link above and so far the students have said it's their favorite activity.  Here are pictures of them going through the drafting/design process...

And here are pictures of them transferring their designs to the glass from their frames with the black hot glue as their medium...

And the final step was when they did the fill color on the reverse side of the glass (from the piped glue) and did touch-ups of the color fill.

The students are still working on their pieces but they should all be done by next week some time.  I will (of course) post pictures of the finished pieces.

Tips that we've found during the project are as follows:

• Simple shapes work the best and if you're short on time, use prefab coloring pages instead of making your own
• Slow and steady is the best way to go when drawing the glue lines
• Start from the center of the design and then move out as the glue cools/dries/sets
• Color fill on the reverse side from the glue but then touch up and even out the coloring on the same side of the glue side to make the color more evenly saturated and reduce the appearance of coloring lines

Everything and nothing. All at the same time.

There must be more to life...

than having everything.

-Maurice Sendak

I can't string together a coherent explanation for this one because it just screams excess to me.  That's the whole point to begin with though so I guess the point has been made.

Note: No fifty dollar bills were harmed or damaged for this mask. (Meaning the money isn't as real as it might appear.)