Today we allowed the students to work on their Behind the Wheel projects, after a short review with the Jeopardy Game! The students did particularly well, with David answering a lot of questions correctly. Jose asked some good questions after the game, giving Chris the chance to go over some of the basics, like layers and how to use filters.

Once that was finished, the students went to work. This was their last Saturday session to complete their projects, and it was clear they understood that. They all worked hard, ignoring their break time for the most part and asking for help when they needed it, from both the instructors and each other. Diana's splash page came out very nice:



She shows good use of color and photos in this, and she was able to integrate all the pages into a nice uniform concept. When I saw this I told her I could imagine it rotating around a central axis, moving each picture to the foreground as the mouse moved over them, and she said that was exactly what she wanted.

David made a website for his mom, who is a DJ for a local station. He even used a photo of her:



Like Diana’s site, this has a uniform concept that makes good use of color and artwork that is relevant to the subject matter. He’s thinking about making it into a real site, which I told him was a great idea.

All in all, it was a very successful final session for the Photoshop class. The students worked very hard in this unit, and had to learn a number of difficult concepts. They stepped up to the challenge, and learned a lot that they’ll be able to use in future projects. Way to go, everyone!!!

Session VII: Finishing the BTW and Road Test!!

Since the Luncheon is next weekend, Chou gave the students three different ways of presenting their work:
1. One person represents all of the Illustrator students
2. Everyone works together to present their work
3. Each student introduces their own

Upon hearing their choices, Doundup immediately nominates Jon. And when Cristina felt that it would be nice to see all of the students take part in the presentation saying that it would be "fair," Bronson replies, "No. That wouldn't be fair." Though he knew that it was, he just didn't feel like going up in front of a lot of students to present his projects.

After giving the students information, they immediately started working on their BTWs.
Because Tenzin's session's image looked just like Gumby, she (along with Michelle) started creating an "original cartoon" website. Doundup's constant sneaking to watch anime inspired his website. Ninah and Alli finished their BTWs early with the brushes/art and city skyline (respectively) website. Jaylah's website included some of her favorite celebrities. Krystal worked on a buddha themed "OMMMM" website. Garret worked on with Nike while Taylor worked on with a shoes theme. Madeline "thought outside of the box" and created an image where a man was spewing out knowledge such as HTML out of his mouth. Like Alli, Jon created a a skyline/city - Chicago themed website. Bronson couldn't think of something so he kept tapping some beats. When a music website was suggested, he finally put forth effort in his work. It turned out quite nice.

The students went to work knowing that the time to showcase their work to parents and other important figures is closing in on them.

After their breaks (which came later because working distracted everyone), they did their Road Tests and then were let out early because PTE employees were going to use their room at 3:00PM.

Session VI: Review and P-Day II

Today consisted of more review for the sophomores... but a Jeopardy kind of review!

Which didn't really excite the students all that much, but they participated nonetheless.

Similarly, the set of twins in the sophomore class answered the majority of the questions (just like how the twins in the junior class answered all of the questions in the Excel class). Because they were the only two talking, Chou and Cristina enforced a new rule which states that any one person cannot answer two consecutive questions in a row. And when they did, the points didn't count. This gave the other students a chance to think about and search Illustrator for the answers. As a result, the teams ended up with a tie game!

However, this tie did not come so easy... The Back team was losing (by a landslide) before we implemented the rule about consecutive answers. When Ninah and Alli couldn't answer anymore, Jon and Garet began to search around Illustrator.. then Taylor and Jamarra, and pretty soon the majority of the class was searching around Illustrator. When it came time for the last question, the Back team was leading by 100 points, and they were to choose the last question. Unfortunately for them, the Front team won the last 100 points and tied with the Back team. They were all winners!!

After the game, Chou showed the students a speed drawing of two girls, a realistic girl who was transformed into an animated version, and an animated version of a girl from scratch.

***

As Cristina introduced a detailed BTW to the students, the students were all questioning what kind of ideas should they use...

Cristina then interjected with the news about the Showcase. When the students found out about going back to the elementary schools, some of them said, "Spongebob.." which led to the reason why SOOO many freshmen last year did a showcase with Spongebob just ... randomly present somewhere. Ninah and Alli said that's because "they told us to."

Doundup had continued on with randomness (which stemmed off Bronson), but was directed towards a more ninja/bloody theme which suited him quite well.

Michelle was interested in (what almost all of the high schoolers are crazy about) New Moon.


While Tenzin played around with a realistic cave that turned out to look just like Gumby, so Cristina showed her who Gumby was and she created eyes that look just like him.






***
The students went back to work while occasionally asking questions until it was time to retake the permit test.

They began their blog and A.J. came and talked to them about the Showcase (again).

Photoshop Session 6

Today's session went surprisingly smooth. The students came in and Paul went over the BTW checklists with them. AJ came in and ran through his example BTW project. The students then had two hours to work on their own project.

After their second break they logged into learn@uw and took their Permit Test. They were given the remaining time to keep working on their projects.

Here is David's Mixtape Project:

Here is Richie's Pacman Fix:

November 7th

Today’s session went very smoothly, with the students getting right into the quiz and then the design setup information. They all had some experience with slicing, dreamweaver, web design, HTML/CSS, etc., which saved a lot of time. Most of the education section turned into a review before we went into the challenges, with Chris showing them a lot of example websites and how they could be broken apart using the 4 Part System. Our challenge was to have the students find three websites and copy them into Photoshop, using the Firefox Aviary add-on, and then to break them up according to which parts are the content/navigation/etc. sections. More than that, however, the students had to look at the themes and layouts of the sites, picking apart things like functionality, organization, and how intuitive the sites were. Next, they came up and showed the sites they found to the rest of the class, explaining how they had broken them down and what they thought worked/didn’t work.

Here’s one of Aaliyah’s websites:


Here’s one of Carrie’s websites:


Because they progressed through everything so smoothly, they were able to spend a lot of time going over old projects and brainstorming ideas for their BTW. They’re all really interested in making their own sites, and should be coming up with some good ideas!

Session V

Envelope distortion (once again -- because the students forgot how to do it)!

The students were amazed at how one could use gradient mesh, "Oh my God, somebody can create a face picture" screamed someone in the back (translation: Oh! So that's how stars create such perfect images)

Another student called out after, "You should make a profile picture for me."

When Chou announced that there was going to be a retake, Bronson asked, "What happens if a student fails every time they take the test?" which sparked a heavy debate on whether trying to pass is more work or just failing.

Doundup argued, "It's easy to fail. Just don't go to class."

"I'm pretty sure that your parents don't want you to skip, so you're going to have to evade them," countered Cristina.

Bronson's imaginary light turned on above his head as he realized what the instructors were trying to say.

Chou took in questions and spat out answers for the next 10 or so minutes until break arrived (where none of the students moved...once again).

During work time, Jaylah walked out of class...without telling us. =(

Anyway, Ninah or Alli (I still can't tell them apart- one set of twins at a time!) created a wonderful skyline which I thought was a great piece for her customized portfolio or a website of some sort.

Bronson couldn't think of a theme, so he started looking at websites. When he started putting together circles, Cristina suggested that he make a caterpillar themed website.

A couple of minutes later, Bronson looked to his right and said, "Why are you copying me?!" Doundup had copied his circle idea (except he mixed it with circles and ovals).

When Cristina asked for the "Circle caterpillar one" and the "Copied one," Doundup corrected her, "Mine wasn't copied, it is an upgrade."


"Nice upgrade," exclaimed Bronson.

10/24/09 Photoshop Day 4

Class started off a little after 12:15 with the day's Learn@UW quiz.

Chris pulled up a powerpoint and explained that they were going to cartoonize (vectorize) images today.

He pulled up many examples of works he has done in the past. Aliyah seemed very excited to get to work and vectorize images. She showed her enthusiasm by openly saying that Chris's work is "really cool" and she wanted to do cool stuff too.

He had the class open up the class session folder and work with him on the gorilla picture. Chris explained how to use the pen tool and thoroughly explained the fill path and stroke path functions for tracing.

The students then had time to work on vectorizing pictures on their own.

Here is Marleny's picture that she was working on.

She did a good job using the pen tool and using the fill path to accomplish the clown-esque face.

Here is Anny's progress on her picture.

She did a very good job with fill path on her hair and brought her eyes out well with make up.

Here is Diana's progress on her own picture.

She did a great job with her skin tone selection, hair tracing and overall fill path.

Class ended with the students writing blog entries and continuing to work on their pictures they've been editing.

Session IV

The students chose all of the wrong answers in the learn@UW quiz because some of those were taught in the first lesson. "That's a looong time ago," stated one of the students in the back.

As Chou started and continued his demo, Regina stated that they can't remember any of the lessons because it was so long ago. "That's why we're reviewing," responded Chou.

"She looks cross eyed.." "She got a huge forehead!" were some of the reactions to Chou's demo.

During break, A.J. "treated" (as explained by Madeline) Regina when he was describing her hairstyle. He had said that it looked like a shark! Though A.J. didn't feel like it was an insult, the students had a different opinion. It may be the new age or something like that...

A.J. continues onto Madeline, "You look like you're from 1922." This again, was a compliment, but Made and Regina and the rest of the class took it the wrong way. Although Garret and John thought it was funny, the girls didn't, "A.J. you so funny. He over there treating people."

Like all of the other critics on their projects at ITA in the past, the sophomores couldn't take criticism, but hopefully they know that A.J.'s just being A.J. =)

As the students started their Exploration unit, A.J. came back to visit the room. "Jon get off the video game. I don't even have to look at you to even know what you're doing... you know why? Because you look like this," A.J. said as he pretended to be John, with his hand out clicking an imaginary mouse, his eyes squinting and shaking as if he lacked a brain to think.

The Exploration went fairly well with little questions because the students were really into design T-shirts for the T-shirt contest.

After break, the students took the learn@UW quiz where there were 21 questions but should have been only 20... So Regina started complaining at the end of her quiz, but it eventually went back to silence.

And that makes today the only day that these students have been quiet until the end. =)

Photoshop 3rd Session

Class today started with the usual technical problems, with the projector not picking up our computer. Special thanks to Chou for fixing things up for us, hopefully next time we'll remember the fix.

The Learn@UW quiz went very smoothly today, most of the students knew the right answers when we went over it. This was especially apparent during the reviews.

When we showed them examples of what sort of things they could do with compositing (artwork, posters, album covers) the students became very excited. The associated projects really sparked their interest, as evidenced by the fact that several of them continued to work, even through their first break!

Here are some examples of what they made:


Here's Diana's HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photo of a city skyline and lights at night. She did a great job of taking the original image, a copy of it with a high exposure, and a copy of it with a low exposure and merging them all to HDR in Photoshop.

Before

After

Here's David's "Granpappy Mixape challenge," in which he had to crop out the image of the elderly man and place into this Photoshop template of a mixtape cover. This really shows David's knowledge of the layering system by knowing which layers to have on top/ be in front with the placement of Mr. 'Pappy.




Here's Carrie's "Smileyevil" project. She did a great job of cropping out the images as well as blending the smiley face with the flaming background. The little halo was a great little compositional and artistic touch as well.




After giving them a while to work on these projects, we did a quick review game, Jeopardy-style. The back-and-forth was pretty entertaining, what with the competitive nature of the whole thing, and it ended up a pretty close score. The "Keyboard Shortcuts" section stumped a lot of them, but that's something that comes with experience, and with learning the tools that fit your style best.

Next, they took their permit test. Some of them finished rather quickly, so it's probably a safe bet that they did fairly well. Here's hoping! After that, they blogged, and we're all looking forward to reading what they wrote.

Session III

CANDY was in the agenda today and although the kids were excited, they were all engrossed in their own activities...

When the class settled down, Cristina handed out the candy and explained the instructions about... 3 times. After the third time, which (unfortunately) had to be really firm and assertive, the students understood what they were to do for the Free Draw.


Amazingly enough, many of the pictures were starting to look like a lined Jackson Pollock painting.

As Chou started his line drawing lesson, Regina announced that she is afraid of turtles (which was what Chou was coloring).. and worms.. and "every other moving animal besides a human" [stated Jonathan].

When the Exploration part of the day started, Ninah and Alli jumped to choosing the Pillsbury Dough-boy as their lined image. In addition, their group moved quite rapidly compared to the other two groups. Group 3 chose a smiley face (like the old Wal*Mart one) while group 1 struggled to find a nice set of lip outline. When group 1 discovered the outline that they wanted, Michelle had Illustrator problems (it ran into a problem and closed on her, making her lose her picture for the group).

The students eventually began to finish their projects and learned how to save in .ai and .jpg! Unfortunately, some of the students did not succeed in saving it as BOTH (probably due to the lack of listening).

During the whole session today, Jamarra kept on kicking the power plug on her computer (without realizing it) and complained about how the computer was not cooperating. After her fourth time, she decided that she'll just stop kicking altogether. However, then her chair began to mess with her (she almost fell off -- Poor Jamarra!).

After Chou explained the BTW to the students, they went off to decide what to make a layout out of.

Session 2 in B109

Today is the second day of Photoshop and the students are being given their own photographs to work with. Paul took pictures of the individual students in the hall outside the lab, where the light is not really very good, providing them with photos that they can enhance. Marleny smoothed her own photo and added a soft light effect, and also used the clone stamp tool to fix a few minor issues:

One of the main lessons for today is the use of multiple layers in order to keep projects organized and easy to fix if mistakes are made. Jenny used selective color layers to enhance her photo:

Keke used drop shadows as well as several other effects to make her photo into something nice, reminiscent of a 1980’s album cover (which she thought was funny):

And lastly, Taylor used a filter to make her photo look like a painting:


Next the students were told to blog about their experiences with Photoshop, and once they were all able to get into Blogspot they were hard at it. They’re sure to have some interesting things to say, and us instructors are looking forward to reading them!

Session II in B203

Although the students were rowdy after they had lunch, they eventually settled down when Cristina introduced herself as a new instructor. When she asked, "what would you guys be doing now if you didn't have to be here?" most of the students would have been sleeping or hanging out with friends.

The lesson began on a rocky road because it was Cristina's first time teaching. Unfortunately for her, Chris and Paul had problems with the projector in the other lab and needed Chou's help. He had left her alone! But luckily the Jackson Pollock film clip was present. The students enjoyed the clip and gladly played around with the Jackson Pollock website: jacksonpollock.org

When Cristina finished the short lessons, Chou took over and the class officially began. The students were once again happily working on their illustrator lessons. They were making websites (but many of them were looking like posters).

Because the students were so engaged in their work, they were completely silent... Chou announced that they "broke the record of silence."

When it was time to criticize the student's artwork, some students had a lot of comments while others didn't take the comments so lightly. Hopefully the students will begin to accept criticism and grow from them and learn to deliver comments in an appropriate matter.

After the criticism, the students began blogging. Dhoundup had an interesting problem because when he typed in blogger.com, the text was Hindi! The instructors eventually figured out that he had other languages enabled...

First Session

In B109, today is the first session of the Photoshop, and Chris is going a mile a minute, dropping loads and loads of new information on everyone. It's easy to listen to his lecture, though, and I think everyone got what they were supposed to get. Photoshop's a fun program, and I think that everyone is interested in working with it. Jose was dead-on when he said that Photoshop's the kind of program that you can definitely use out in the real world, and make a lot of money if you know enough about it. Gavin has some projects he made in Photoshop in the past, and it's some really good stuff.

When I told the students about the importance of keeping track of their work and making multiple copies for backups they seemed to be on-board with the idea, especially when I told them that the "undo" function isn't as helpful as in some other programs. The last thing they want is to lose all of their hard work.

The Lil' Wayne project is going to be a lot of fun for a lot of them; everyone appears to want to work on it.

Here's David's:



The facial tattoos have been covered pretty well and he's got a good start on the teeth, and with a bit more practice he should be able to get them looking more natural. Good job for a first try!

Everyone got right into the work as soon as Chris was done, working on whatever project they chose from the list we gave them. The Pacman Fix is really popular, especially since you can get weird with it and do whatever you like (once you've started to fix things).

Here's Taylor's Pacman Fix:



She's done a first-rate job of rebuilding the board and putting the pellets back in place.

When we assigned the project involving students taking screenshots of websites and commenting on the designs it was pretty funny that students had an issue with it. Here we are, asking them to surf the 'net for stuff they liked, and everyone was uncertain about what they were supposed to do. I suppose they don't get asked to do that very often as an assignment. Still, once we explained that it was about design and not necessarily content, they started to get the idea. People are picking out some good sites, from sports websites to individual MySpace pages, and it's going to be interesting to see what people write in their blogs.

Here's what Malibu took as a screenshot of a website she likes:



It's very colorful and the layout is pretty decent, with everything drawn towards center.

Here's another one, this time from Richie:



He says he likes the colors and I have to agree with him. The blue-white-black palette is quite calming, really, and would go great as a blog template.

So that's what they've been working on. Very nice stuff, and it's good to have them all back at ITA!

September 12th, 2009 - Illustrator Group

In B203, the day started off with Hero Machine (ugo.com)! After Chou introduced the Hero Machine to the students, he let them loose to challenge their creativity. Many students struggled with getting the right look while Jamarra had problems with the Nesquick advertisement (which really confused her, and then just really annoyed her).

When time was up for creating their characters, Chou demonstrated how to use the basic tools. The students illustrated their knowledge in Photoshop by virtually "passing" notes. This was entertainment for a couple of minutes before they got back to work.

After break time (where none of the students left the room), they were to complete Chou's Challenge List. The students independently worked on their own trying to complete each challenge. The first of which was the Penguin and Rule of Thirds.
Chou showed an example of his work and Garret could not believe that Chou did it. With much doubt, Chou finally showed the students how he had completed the image of the girl.

After this short break, the students uploaded their penguins and the critiques began! Like Anny's particular penguin, the others created a story. Bronson's was in the office and Dhoundup created a winged penguin flying in lightning (or something like that).

After the critiques, Chou proceeded to introduce the blogspots. The students once again had a hard time getting into their blogs (which were created a year ago). They were advised to create a new one because blogs are going to be an important part this year. Their assignment for the next 20 minutes was to blog about what they learned today.

Don't let the blogs get to you, sophomores! And welcome back to ITA!