once while in psychology
i met a rock who spoke to me
and though i was in quite a shock,
i did not speak..
i let him talk

and boy, he had a lot to say
it took nearly the entire day
he told me a wondrous…
glorious tale, of oceans wide
and giant sails

sails…sails?
no, not sails
sorry sir;
surely i meant snails
yes, yes. giant snails
he told me a tale of giant snails
of oceans wide and giant snails

and boy were they big
those giant snails
they’d trample forests
and cities for days
and sometimes little bunnies
that just got in the way

and in this wonderful,
magical land…
ruled the children
all of them, hand in hand
for the coffee supplies
had all run out
and the parents quit waking
and eventually…
died out

and ruler of the children
was a rambunctious boy
who controlled all the playgrounds,
sandboxes,
and toys

powerful his image,
atop his giant steed
he ruled like a bully
children bowed at his knees

until the day came
when a brave little tyke
picked up a rock
and took up the fight
she threw that rock
and cracked the snail’s shell
and with that ‘bonk’
the rambunctious boy fell

and so ends this tale
and so ends the rocks
the children all freed
grew new coffee crops

and as some grew up,
they could wake in the mornings
and yes, with adults,
their lives grew quite boring
but still they lived fully
for as you all know…
there’s little worse
than a snail-riding bully

There are two things that begin a child’s education. First is speech, and second is reading. So as a future educator, and with this being an Art Education class, I thought it would be quite fitting to create a children’s book for my final project. I was inspired to do this from my first collage from our collage project and my first books as a child learning to read. The image of my first collage, which is of a platypus holding balloons in its bill and floating through the clouds, has a very childish feel to it. This reflects a lot of my art, which though looks very different from traditional children’s book art, always seems to remind people of just that. Because of this I have wanted to make a children’s book for quite a long time.

To make my children’s book, I plan on using traditional drawings and collage. Combining these two materials I hope to create a highly artistic medium in which to express my story. Scanning these drawings and images into the computer, I will than use various Photoshop elements to create a finished product. These images I will have printed professionally, and then using an old book binding, I will rebind my pages into the book. To finish off the project, I will use acrylics to redesign the cover. The length of the book is yet to be determined, though it will undoubtedly be as long as it takes for me to tell the story. The story is a very long rhyming poem I have written, and will be revealed when the book is finished! Also, I plan on using the entire time allotted for us to work on the project.

This project could be redesigned on many levels. There is a saying that, everyone has a story to tell, and I truly believe this to be true. I feel many kids would really get excited about the prospect of making their own story. Whether you had a middle school class write and illustrate a story, or had a high school technology class create one in Photoshop, I feel this book could stand as a model for many exciting class projects!

I believe that in our evolving, technology driven nation it will soon be necessary for all students to have laptops if  we are to compete with the rest of the world. If funds and recourses were no option, then I would replace all my students books and paper with a laptop! The possibilities of what we could accomplish with this is endless. We could have classroom chat-rooms, homework emailed right to the teacher, blogging about the classrooms progress so the parents could go right online to see their child’s progress! Not only would a program such as this immensely jump-start the children’s learning and education, it could eventually become cost-effective considering time and resources saved. Another piece of technology I’d like to use are the electronic white-boards! Several of my instructors have had these and I found it very useful. Not only does it work as a white-board (again saving the use of all those markers), but it also doubles as a projector. A projector that you can draw right on top of. This is very useful for drawing classes and the likes, as you can show the process of different drawing techniques. 

Which ones would you use…a wiki, a social networking site, blogs, powerpoint, imovie, any of the Adobe programs or other software you think would be fun/educational (maybe Corel Paint), etc. ?

I feel that one of the most important aspects of art, is seeing the art work of others. Though there is nothing like seeing a painting face to face, I get great inspiration from seeing the works of others, my peers and successful artists. So I feel as a teacher, a powerpoint before each new project would really be helpful to really get the kids inspired and get them thinking in the right direction. I also love the idea of blogs, since they are so simple to access, yet also very customizable. Their use for the teacher in viewing his/her students work, as well as both the students and parents, can not be questioned. Finally, I feel now that Photoshop is an excellent tool that can be helpful both in computer art and in getting ideas and planning for paintings and other such media. Bringing this program into the classroom at a younger age would really help to kids go far, as I am just now learning and have found countless uses for it. I can only imagine what it would be like if I had been using it since say, middle school! Also, I was initially wary of learning it, but now that I have I love it. So I think if I learned other programs I could find many other useful things to bring into the class room. 

What grades do you see any of these working best with?

Obviously computer technology is very useful, but it is a lot to give children the responsibility of a computer. I know that my 5 year old sister can go online and click on a bookmarked pages she likes, and enjoy some games there. My 8 year old sister can go online, google whatever she likes and discover the internet that way, so there is no question that children can learn the technology at a very early age. I feel that the technologies outlined above could fully be used in about middle school and on. Before that I think children could be introduced to some things, but asking an elementary school kid to keep up a blog is a bit overboard. especially since typing classes don’t usually start till middle school.

What technologies do you think have more of a place in the art classroom (strengths)? What about other classrooms?

I think that powerpoint, electronic white boards, and Photoshop could be really useful in art classrooms for the reasons outlined above. I also think that if learned correctly, tablets could be a great learning tool for art. Being able to draw something and then add effects and change tools so easily could be very useful. Also, there’s nothing better than sharing your art and getting your art out there, and documenting your art to see your process, progress and improvement is very important. So I think a classroom blog would be a great tool for an art class too. As far as other classrooms, all these tools could be useful for those as well. For instance, imagine going online and video chatting a conversation in spanish with a class in mexico learning english. The uses are truly endless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6r4KT8-VX0

Interpretation:

To understand this video, you have to understand the song, for though the video doesn’t necessarily tell a story, it is riddled with meaning and symbolism. In this song, ‘dancer’ is used as a metaphor. You see, when in a group, a dancer must follow a specific path, without having individuality. The song is referring to a rehearsed, almost emotionless, hollow act. When they ask, “are we human?” they do not mean in the literal sense, but human as a quality. So, I feel like with this video, the artist is questioning if what they do has any real purpose, or is important. Are they individuals with real things to say, or just a hollow act used merely for our entertainment? This really speaks to me, as I’ve often questioned if my art is just a selfish thing for me, or if it could have real significance in my world. The questions this video presents sort of remind me of an animal circus or zoo act. The animals never look happy, they just sort of, go through the motions to survive, but never really live. I feel this speaks a lot about his question, “are we human?” I don’t think anything in school has ever made me ask such a question as this song does. In a way, school is like the rehearsed act, and once you are finished, it has prepared you to finally live. 

Semiotics:

The artist utilizes several symbols in this video. First of all, the most prominent symbol is that of the bird flying. This represents the individual, free theme of the song. This is also represented in the feathers that cover the lead singers shoulders, which emphasize that they are in fact individuals and not just a hollow act. The other animal, a cougar running on the rocks, is also representative of that freedom. The placement of the video I feel is also important. It takes place in a dry, desolate, canyon sort of atmosphere. I feel this is reflective of that dry, emotionless act. You can also see a horned animal skull by their equipment that also emphasizes that dead act. Adding more symbolism, there is a scene where they hold pictures of their faces in front of their faces. There is a lot of references in the lyrics that refer to them as puppets, and cutting the chord, as in the puppet strings. This double faces imagery refers to the faces of the act, and the real, emotion filled, human faces of the members. I feel that the artist used all of these symbols to express the overarching theme of their song, and did it very well. Also, I feel like these are sort of universal symbols, that could be recognized possibly without the song or without understanding the lyrics. Though the powerful meaning of the lyrics certainly resonates very well with the video.

So I made some major changes to the original ad. First of all I de-centered everything. I also played with the colors of the letters and beveled and embossed the Google outlines. Probably the best improvement is I colored the white background. Overall I feel this is much improved from the original.

For the high school artshow ad I wanted to do something both asthetically pleasing yet simple in design. I originally had trouble deciding where to place the Elk logo. At first I thought of having it light and REALLY big behind all the other text and images. However this presented a few problems as far as distracting from the messege. Also, it seemed to desk memo paper-ish. Like the ad was written on one of those stickie note pads that already have images on them. So I chose instead to incorporate the “C” into the word Centerville. I then came up for a title for the show, using the theme of a recent art project from my old high school for inspiration. After finding the Google logo online, I decided to incorporate that so as to have a comparison for the viewer between the entry pieces shown and the original. I feel it really expresses the inventiveness of some of the entries! This caused me to want to change the text in the theme so that the color of the letters matched the color of the logo. However this proved to be too distracting and hard to read. Eventually I came to a simple text description of the event, enhanced by the images in the title and the samples of entries. I felt that no background colors were needed, as it would steel from the original Google homepage which I used for inspiration. I also felt that as with usual ads in newspapers, a border would be created to seperate it from the other images on the page and therefore no border would be necessary for me to add. As far as tools are considered it is just a matter of text, free transform and the arrow tool. I wanted to use the lasso to get rid of the boxes surrounding the example entries, but other that the bottom center piece, it would have proved to difficult and after a failed attempt I just left them as is! Overall I feel its a clear messege and a successful ad.

Here is my final logo for the assignment! It’s way more simple but much more professional looking! The “C” was hard to adjust but using the “Smooth” tool it finally turned out looking good! I also simplified the colors down, using just the black and gold school colors rather than coloring in the elk.

I’ve colored the elk now with a brown and a tan color. I had some trouble with getting the antlers a whole shape in order to color them. A good trick is to click “View” and then “Outline” to only view the line. Also, I have to stop being afraid to zoom in! Because it can make things WAY more simpler in Illustrator.