Piskel Practice

This week we will be creating our own animated pixel images using Piskel.
The editor can be accessed at www.piskelapp.com
Students can sign in with their school email and password.

Students are creating an image, and duplicating the slides so that they can make small changes.

When all the slides are played together you get an animated effect:

This is the type of program that is easy to learn, but can be tricky to master. Once the students get a little more practice I'll be sure to post some of their creations!

January Mystery Artist Contest

MYSTERY ARTIST OF THE MONTH!
This month's Mystery Artist is......

Yes, that's Marilyn Monroe, but no, that's not the title! We will be looking at more examples of this famous artist's work and make some pop art of our own this spring!

Happy New Year!

The lead up to the holidays and winter break was a crazy one! Students participated in lots of special activities which was great! This week has been a lot of getting reorganized and tying up lose ends so that we can change gears and start something new. 

As promised, here are some more great examples of the completed Animation Cel projects. The multi-layer concept was not easy, but students were creative and successful!

Gallery of Animation Cels

The students have been working hard on completing their hand-painted animation cels. It's so much fun to see their imaginations running wild! We have a awesome collection of uniquely designed characters ranging from robots to humans, animals, and monsters, and machines!

When they are complete, the students are submitting photos of their finished project to their online digital portfolio via Google Classroom. Here are a few that have been submitted so far:

 

I will post a large gallery of work next week once more are submitted!

Painting Social Snowmen!

We had our first of two art workshops this week and had a great time! Monday was a grade 5 & 6 painting social and Tuesday was a grade 3 & 4 painting social. Both groups painted snowmen.

We used a step-by-step method to paint with acrylics on canvas. The format was similar to adult "Paint Night" socials held in restaurants or at private studios. We painted our backgrounds, had a snack, painting our snowmen, and added our own unique accessories. Although the subject was the same, all of the artists put their own creative twist on their paintings and each snowman came out different.

Original Animation Cels

The past week we have been exploring the idea of creating multi-layer images the way they were created years ago in traditional cel animation (the last cel-animated Disney movie was The Little Mermaid).
Animation cels are named as such because the characters are designed and hand-drawn onto clear celluloid sheets. The characters can then be painted and placed in front of painted backgrounds. In animation, thousands of these cels would be taped with a camera and could create the illusion of depth of a character in front of a background.

Although we won't be creating thousands of cels for animated shorts, we are creating single cels by hand and, later in the year, we will create multi-layer images digitally. I think the students will see quite a difference!!

I showed them an example of how the layers work together to make one cohesive image:

(excuse the chipping paint... this guy has been through a LOT the past two weeks!)

To begin, the students were tasked with creating their own character. I gave them some drawing sheets and we looked at books for inspiration, but ultimately the characters were unique and the only rule was that the students had to love them. We have humans, animals, monsters, and even machines! The wide variety is making these classes really fun! 

Many students sketched out several ideas during our drawing brainstorm class before ultimately settling on "their" character. Once they had settled on a design they were able to trace it onto the cel sheets (a great use for leftover overhead transparency!).

Many students this week are ready to start working on painting their backgrounds. We are using a method of sketching out our ideas very lightly with pencil, then tracing the lines with crayons and using the wax of the crayons to add texture before painting with the watercolors. The students have liked the way that the crayon adds interest while helping them to control the watercolor (the wax acts as a bit of a barrier between sections. Although unfinished, they are coming out great so far!

I can't wait to see these characters come to life when the students paint them in!