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!