New 3D art!

Here is a great example of the quality of work that our kids put out in 3D. I've been remiss in not adding work, but I'll make myself do so more. This is a beginning 3D kid, but clearly she is not a beginning art kid. She is one of my favorites for many reasons, including work ethic, imagination, and her desire to make art. Go Annie!

The piece is approximately 12 inches long by 12 inches high by 8 inches deep and made from low fire clay--as you can see by the sheared off-back.

Student Surrealism

Cup of Suellen by Alice

Here is one of the 14 pieces of artwork that was selected for the 2013 Student Surrealism Show, and the work will be on exhibit at the Dali Museum. The artwork will be on display at the Dali Museum, 1 Dali Blvd., St. Petersburg, FL 33701, from January 11-February17, 2012. There will be an awards reception on Tuesday, January 22, 2013 from 6-8pm.

It is hard to believe that half of the year is done. I am very excited for the next half!

A student made this piece for a surrealism competition.

Painting Tutorial

Please do this tutorial. It should help you with drawing and painting in Photoshop.

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/painting/liu-kang-in-photoshop/

Working away.

The kids are working away. It is hard to imagine that we are almost done with half of the year. There has been much good are made, and I'm excited to see what the kids will do in the remainder of the year.

A heart-octopus. It is about 15x15x5". The kids isn't sure how it is going to be finished, but I'm really liking the idea and craftsmanship so far.

Great PS tips!

Here is a great list of Photoshop tips that will help your workflow!

Mixed art!

Here's a new piece in which I combined three different animals. I combined a horse, zebra and a cow. I used different blending modes and shadows to make this piece, and overall, I think it turned out pretty well. 

Enjoy. -Colton P.

Complete one of the blogs on the linked page: http://smashmaterials.com/2011/12-best-surreal-photoshop-tutorials-ever/.

Poster tutorial.

Your task is to complete one of these tutorials. I want you to change the text within the poster to something in which you have an emotional investment.

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/designing-tutorials/how-to-create-an-ice-cold-poster-with-3d-text/

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/designing-tutorials/how-to-design-a-rockin-80s-party-poster/

Kobi's cruising along.

Here is a great piece that a beginning Photoshop kid did. Once he selected his images, the piece came together pretty easily. But smart planning makes for easy and good work!

To see more of Kobi's work click on the link to the right.

Select Fuzzy Hair

Here is a nice tool to make fuzzy selections:

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/selecting-hair/

Think about how many uses this will have!

Art, art, and art.

This piece started off as a tutorial (see the post from Sept. 23) that went in a totally personal direction. This beginning graphics kid obviously has art making skills, and his work will be amazing once he gains a higher level of skills and techniques.

Cloud dancer, he calls it. Super real I say.

Clay action.

Here are two works in progress from our sculpture class. These efforts are from two beginning kids.

Annie wants to add a bird to this piece, and I cannot wait to see what happens.

This is the base, which doubles as the chest, of a puppeteer. 

Pen tool!

Please watch these tutorials. Follow in PS what the maker is doing.

Link to the tut: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ8qLkZ0QmY

Link to the tut: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7eY0J5Lkp8

Great links for copyright free movies.

Videos Thought to Be in the Public Domain

The sites listed below contain movies commonly thought to be in the public domain, and works 

their owners are willing to let be distributed. “Public Domain” refers to the body of creative
works and knowledge in which no person, government or organization has any proprietary
interest such as a copyright. There is some risk, however, because of the difficulty of identifying
works that truly do not have any proprietary interests.
• Festival Films
http://www.fesfilms.com/masters.html
• Desert Island Films
http://www.desertislandfilms.com/
• Reel Media International
http://www.reelmediainternational.com/
• BuyOut Footage
http://www.buyoutfootage.com/
• OpenFlix
http://www.openflix.com/
• Internet Archive Moving Images Collection
http://www.archive.org/details/movies
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/

Great PS Actions

Check out these great Photoshop actions from Pixel Curse dot com:

Art making, good!

The Beginning kids are in full swing getting used to the software, the Advanced kids are branching off to work on graphics, architectural rendering, web design, etc. Great kids, good work, art everywhere.

A kid made this for one of the clubs at our school.

Tutorials to do!

These are three great tutorials, and you will do each of these tutorials. But you can choose which one you want to start with.

Create A Stylish Dancer Photo Manipulation: In this tutorial we are going to show you how combining multiple stock images, and various design elements to create a stylish dancer photo manipulation.

Design a Skin-Textured Typography Scene in Photoshop: In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a 3D-looking textured text effect in Photoshop without the need for any 3D tools or applications.

Create Abstract Colorful Balls illustration in Photoshop CS5: In today’s drawing tutorial, you will learn how to create abstract colorful illustration using simple tools and techniques.

Art coming out of everywhere!

We are barely into our third week, and the kids are already surprising me. The beginning kids have finished the preliminary tutorials, and they will start making art this week. The advanced kids hit the ground running, and I've asked them to create their version of Surreal art. There are some great attempts so far. Here is a link to one kid's (check out her Sept. 7 post) and I like the below image too.

The explanation is as good as the art!

New Art Abounds!

And it begins! This is going to be an exciting year, for sure. I have two full graphics classes, a busting-at-the seams digital film class, and two full sculpture classes. I will make it a point this year to get my other kids to start blogging so that they can share their work with the world.

Really, what needs to be said about this first drawing in Photoshop except great job Tanner!

A New Year!

I am excited to get back into making art with the kids. I have two sculpture classes, two graphics classes, and a digital film class. Our kids are amazing, and I cannot wait to show the world what they are capable of!

Summer Shenanigans.

Just like many schools, we are making a transition to iPads as a tool. It will be interesting to see what applications we can put to use there as a means to impart information as well as assess the processing of that information. Two kids in one graphics class used iPads to create interactive books, and I think this may be a project that is used. But to publish the books is $500. Really expensive. But the book is fun and informational--if you like bears, ah, stuffed bears. Or more specifically, one stuffed bear and his shenanigans. Here is a post from Marc's blog site earlier this year.

This week, Chris and I are working on creating a book that will be available for the IPad. It is a Shakespearean version of Gus Green Bear. Mr. Runge has written a script for the book, and Chris and I are responsible for making the scenery and figures. Chris is mostly working on the actual bear that will be on the pages because he is a "master" at using shapes. I, on the other hand, am working on creating the scenery for each page in the book. This is one of the scenes that I have made so far. It is a beach scene. I am also currently working on a scene on a veranda at a restaurant named Raffles. It is not done, but it will be shortly.

Cartoon Class.

Okay, how can I not feature this piece.

"This here is my graphics teacher, Mr. Runge. He's a pretty cool dude. Not only does he have an 

awesome beard, but he's a boss at martial arts (hence the ninja-ish pose). I'm turning him and the rest of 

my class into lil' cartoon people, then handing them over to my friend *Sam* to animate. Woo!"

Umm. Yeah.

Urban Legends

We just finished a project where the kids had to illustrate an urban legend. I like both the overtness and subtlety of this piece. Is that possible? From our kids it is!

Pretty stuff!

It doesn't matter how many times I say how amazed I am at the quality of our kids work I am always pleasantly surprised by the next group of pieces that they make. This is done by a second year kid whose work is usually of really high caliber. This piece is, too!

Just beautiful!

An interactive book?

Two of our students are working on an interactive book. Here is a sample of the beginning.

The kids are doing the graphics in Photoshop and them using DemiBooks on iPads to animate the images. I love the look and feel so far, and I'm excited to see what else happens with this section of the chapter!

Work, work, work...

Celebrate the Arts is next week, and our kids have been working diligently to get their projects done. As usual, the kids are doing amazing work, and even though we have about 70 pieces at a different show we will still have plenty to adorn the walls of our school.

Click on the links to the right to see the work of some of our students.

Amazing work.

Sometimes I'm just amazed at what our kids can do! Here is a link to more of our kids work:

http://w3.shorecrest.org/~Mark_Runge/*Panzi%20Foundation/index.html

We're at it again!

Our kids are just starting the final Quarter of the year, and the work just keeps getting stronger. I am so impressed with what they can do!

Midgard 

Panzi's done! And so are we.

What a couple of weeks! It has been tough to get back on track after the kids finished their pieces for the Panzi project. But that gave them a chance to work on their take home quizzes. Everybody wins! We have two weeks without classroom time. We have our Service Week followed by Spring Break.

This is a piece one of the 3D kids made. He made the piece speaking about money, race and religion. He used plaster.

Soldiers are the Same Everywhere

Our work from the Panzi project is being put together, and the show should be remarkable. The work will be on display at the St. Petersburg Holocaust Museum later this year. We are very excited!

Where is Rusty?

The kids are still plugging along with their Panzi projects. I should not be surprised by the quality of the kids work, but even after four years of teaching here I am; the kids are incredible. I'll post images of their projects next week.

Kings of our art jungle!

The kids are plugging along working on the Panzi Foundation Project. There is some really good work being made from all of our students.

I cannot wait to see what next week will bring!

Here is a piece that one of my students made for the Panzi project we are doing. He is an AP student who makes good art.

"This is my contribution to the Panzi Foundation. I used the pen tool to make the shape of the country and I used selections and thresholds to make the blood spattered figures. On opposing corners of the piece is the first president of the DRC and the current president. the other figures include a crying child and women, armed children as soldiers, a UN soldier, and a convoy carrying various teenaged soldiers. In french, the official language of the DRC, it reads:  What will you do?"

We are only on the second day of the project, and I expect more good work as the students progress.

Tomorrow we will have a visiting artist, Peter Frantz, and for two weeks our kids will work on projects that are conceived from their exposure to the great work that the Panzi Foundation does. Peter invited the faculty to do work also, which was very generous of him. Our kids love to work beside of us and watch us struggle too.

Tools, tools, tools.

A competition was just brought to my attention, and even though we have only a couple of days to to do the work I will ask my kids to make a piece with this theme. They love projects, and so do I. They have to have them done so that I can deliver them to Atlanta by the 27th--no problem!

2011- 2012 Theme: “1 Billion Hungry in the World: What is Your Role?”
A Co-Curricular Activity Supported by the Georgia Department of Education and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Secretariat (UNAOC) in New York

http://www.artessay.org/

The Student has become the Master!

Here is a video that a graphics kid did. She started off the year in the Beginning Graphics class and at pace with her peers; but then she got a screen-tablet and Photoshop (PS) CS5 and just went nuts learning how to manipulate photographs and painting in PS. It is great to be schooled by a student.