Category: Collaboration

Creating Value

11/29/2018

My fifth graders will be learning about creating values (black, white and the grays between) as they collaboratively piece together the portrait of a person who has added value to the world in a significant way.

Mini Canvases will combine to make one portrait as students learn to make values, read coordinates on grid, and learn about the value the subject of the portrait has added to the world.

Malala Yousafzi

View the Malala Yousafzi BrainPOP video (need a login) to learn about why she was the youngest person to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wangari Maathai

View the BrainPOP movie about Wangari Maathai (need a login) to find out how planting trees helped democracy take root.

César Chávez

View the BrainPOP video (login needed) about Cesar Chavez, the great Mexican-American labor leader.

Mahatma Gandhi

View this BrainPOP video (login needed) to learn about how Mahatma Gandhi fought for freedom by not fighting.

Practice Round: One Day with Markers

On the day I introduced the lesson, I thought we would focus on these concepts

How a collaboration works
How to find the coordinate in the grid
Who is the person we are creating
What is a value drawing/painting about

Since this day was super heavy with content, I didn't want to take out the paints quite yet. I thought we could do a practice round with quick results using black and gray makers to see if every was up for the challenge.

I labeled coordinates on 4"x4" papers and made a small value scale with marker

Student results: coming soon

Resources:

Black and white and the grays between make a value drawwwwwing...

Value Drawing from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.

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Whoville Collaboration Animation

11/24/2018

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"It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before." ~ How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

Goal of this lesson:

I hope to inspire my students with the demonstration of community in Whoville as seen in the animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss. These colorful creatures stand hand in hand and sing as they celebrate a non-materialistic holiday (because the Grinch stole their "stuff" but not their love for eachother and joy of being together.)
I want my students to experience a community in our art room as we work together to recreate this scene digitally in a class collaboration. Here is the plan...

1. Creative Colorful Costume:

Our first step is to reuse our cleaned up green screen poses (the same from thethird grade falling animations in the last lesson). These were erased using the superimpose app and saved as "mask png" to retain transparency. We will then import these images into a layer (using the Drawing Mode) in the Do Ink Drawing & Animation app. Students will be encouraged to use a limited color palette (3 colors) to make a fanciful outfit in the style of Dr. Seuss' Whos. They have to draw over their own clothing unless the color is in their palette. They can add ruffles, buttons, fringes, feathers, flowers, headbands, buckles, cuffs, or whatever seems to transform themself into the fanciful style of a Who.

2. Hearts three sizes bigger

"Well in Whoville they say, the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day."

In remembrance of the Grinch's growing heart, we could use Do Ink's flipbook animation options to make our hearts grow three sizes. It will look like a heartbeat as the animation plays. I would suggest using one of the 3 colors in the costume for the heart animation.

Use the duplicate button (double squares with + bottom right). Draw small heart, duplicate, draw medium heart, duplicate , draw large heart, duplicate, retrace medium heart. This loops nicely into a heart beat pattern when animating.

Four frame animation with beating heart (drawing mode)

3. Combine photo and costume

When you use the drawing mode of Do Ink, you are able to see the photo so that you can draw directly over it to make your costume. However, when you save the drawing, the photo is not included. The costume and the photo can be combined in the Composition Mode of the same app. This will require bringing in the photo from the camera roll (camera icon button) and the costume from the app gallery (star icon button). The costume will need resizing to line up just right over the photo. Use the blue handle (don't touch the green dot-that is for creating an animation path).

4. Share the Do Ink composition file

To make our Whoville inspired collaboration, students will need to share their Do Ink animation files (composition mode containing their costume with animated hearts combined with their photo) retaining transparency (which will happen automatically if you do not add anything to the background). These Do Ink files can be shared to the dropbox. It's helpful to name the project (add a title under the "i" before you save them to the gallery) then the file will automatically keep the project name as you save it.

5. Create the background with Group

To make a group collaboration, we need to agree on some drawing/design conventions to have consistency throughout the class movie. The background image will be showing a similar landscape so the class will need to agree on the colors of the sky, landforms, and ground. Then they can work together on one fanciful landscape using this color set. The landscape will be drawn in the drawing mode. Set the aspect ratio to 16:9 (widescreen) to optimize the class movie.
PHYSICAL ART ALTERNATE IDEA: The background could also be done physically as a limited color palette painting on paper that each group collaboratively draws and paints. Then, the dry painting can be photographed for the animation.

6. Put the Whos in Whoville

The Whos need to be layered into our Whoville landscape "hand in hand". Each group will need to make one composition where each of the members are layered over, resized, and positioned in a way that gives the illusion that they were hand in hand celebrating together as a community. They need one iPad that downloads the Do Ink files of each of the members as well as the landscape drawing. These files will open up in the Do Ink Drawing app gallery and can be brought into a new composition using the STAR button.

Example of a group collaboration

Students working:

3rd graders had never used the drawing mode of the Do Ink Animation app before. This was their first time using styluses in art class, thinking about drawing in layers, and troubleshooting the drawing functions as they creativity turn themselves into Whoville residents.

Student Work: View the Gallery

Students added themselves looking like a whoville resident with a heart 3 sizes big as a video and still image to their Artsonia gallery.

Resources:

A scene from the animated version of The Grinch who Stole Christmas where the whos gather together hand in hand to sing.

Handout for students to give them Whoville costume ideas

The words to the Whoville song that inspired this project.

"Well in Whoville they say, the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day."

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Green Screen Workshop with D15

11/22/2018

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Click to view my Smore flyer with resources for my Green Screen Lessons

I had the honor of working with innovation teachers, STEAM teachers, and librarians from McHenry SD15 over Thanksgiving break as I conducted a green screen workshop based on the lessons I developed for my students. View my smore of GS lessons here. This smore page points to the lesson resources, tutorials, student examples and blog posts for each idea. I have another smore flyer that lists all my STEAM art lesson that I update regularly. View all 250+ lessons here.

We worked together in the newly renovated Innovation Center of Edgebrook Elementary School. The district remodeled and expanded the library with flexible seating and filled it with technology equipment and manipulatives to give students a wide range of STEAM opportunities. I love how each of the tables have screens with Apple TVs to share digital work wirelessly in small groups. This space certainly opened my eyes to new possibilities for our district perhaps one day.

We used Do Ink Green Screen and the Brushes App for this Book Cover Photo Shoot effect

We used Keynote app to create this Pigeon Book graphic design

We used Word Cloud App and Do Ink Green Screen app for this self-portrait lesson

Used the masking tools in GS app to create a transparent space to layer video below

Silhouette Effect in GS app

We learned the technique I developed for creating a silhouette video in the Do Ink Green Screen app. (Hint: the complementary color of green is red). Once we preserved this effect we could layer it back into the app with a still or video in the background. Below you see the video produced from the Kaleido free app (great for teaching radial symmetry). The GS app has three layers, so I copied the silhouette to the remaining layer and had the girl dance side by side with herself.

Video layers in the Green Screen app to teach movement, silhouette, radial symmetry

We created a flipbook style ghost animation in the Do Ink animation app. Then duplicated, rotated, and viewed the holographic effect through a trapezoidal prism. This example shows an animation path with rotational symmetry.

We learned how to use the superimpose app for erasing green

We saved it as a png with transparency to use for animation

Combined an animated sky, still image and GS video to create the illusion of flying to connect to the story, I'm Here by Peter Reynolds

We used locker shelves to steady iPads for stop motion animation in the iMotion app. The teachers used my Keith Haring stencils to show movement in a collaborative movie making experience.
Roles: Director, Photographer, and Animators all work together to help tell a story frame by frame. The app compiles the frames into a movie like the one here.

We learned about rotoscope animation (drawing over video frame by frame). This animation is a collaboration from 3 animators who shared their Do Ink animation files with me. I layered it over an animated background within the same app just like professional animators might.

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Visual Literacy Creativity Game

9/9/2018

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Visual literacy requires clear communication through images; both creating and interpreting

Set up your game: Boxes, Pockets, Words

This active learning drawing game combines literacy and creativity. First groups of students would be given a set of 3 boxes labeled Adjective, Noun, and Verb (like these I found on amazon) that have book pockets on each of their six sides. (You can make these w/ paper.)

Students are given 18 slips of paper and asked to brainstorm collaboratively or collectively words that belong to three parts of speech:

6 different ADJECTIVES
(describes a noun) Pick adjectives that can be drawn easily
DO: furry, happy, striped, tall, spotted
DON'T: thoughtful, still, open-minded

6 different NOUNS
(person or thing) Pick nouns that can be drawn easily
DO: robot, dog, monster, alien
DON'T: Pick places like room, store, yard

6 different VERBS
(action or state) Pick verbs that can be draw easily.
DO: running, flying, crying, typing
DON'T: thinking, wondering, waiting

GOLDEN RULE: Don't use insulting or mean words. Be creative and keep it fun.

Set up three cubes for each group. Label them: Adjective, Noun, Verb

Make pockets on each of the six sides to hold the words so the game can be reused by future classes

all_three.pdf
File Size:	45 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

You can download my AVERY labels 5160 (sheet of 30) with 10 of each parts of speech with short definition. I used this to label each pouch (six per box).

Play: Visual Literacy Creativity Game

The boxes become like DICE that students will ROLL. What ever comes up for their Adjective, Noun, and Verb is what they need to DRAW. The goal is to communicate clearly so others can guess the parts of speech they are drawing correctly. Visual literacy requires clear communication through images; both creating and interpreting.

1. Roll the dice and jot down on the back of your paper (secretly) what you rolled. For example: Adjective=Furry Noun=Tomato Verb= Crying

2. Draw a crying furry tomato as clearly as possible on the front of your paper

3. Guess each other's drawings. There are lots of ways to organize this step

Collect the drawings and gather the class. The teacher sees the words on the back, the class guesses the adjective, noun, and verb drawn. You could use a document camera to project the drawing larger. Guide students through the parts of speech to help them make guesses.
Students lay their work on their tables. Groups switch and write on a slip of paper their guesses for the other group's adjectives, nouns, verbs drawn on each paper. Go back to your table and check to see if any one got it right.

VARIATIONS:

Instead of drawing the words on the dice that you helped generate, switch dice with other groups.
1:1 Chromebook class: Use a google form to enter the words. Pull the words into a random generator tool to play this game without dice. Draw on paper or use google draw. Students view screens to guess or share images digitally through projector.

Furry Tomato Crying

Tiny Pencil Dancing

Scary Golfball Sleeping

KEEPING SCORE:
You can award up to 3 points for someone correctly guessing the verb (1 point), adjective (1 point), and noun (1 point) = 3pts. Each table (or team) of artists can add up their total points to see who has the highest Visual Literacy Score.

Resources: Schoolhouse Rock Grammar

If your students are having trouble with Nouns, Verbs, & Adjectives these Schoolhouse Rocks videos can teach these parts of speech with short entertaining videos.

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Family STEAM Night Sphero Painting

5/17/2018

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Spheros (robots controlled by an iPad App) will help families CREATE

The Plan

Six canvases were masked out with tape to spell the word CREATE.
These canvases will be covered in paint spread by Spheros driven by families using iPads.

We borrowed spheros from Windsor and Patton to make a set of 6 (one per canvas). Then covered them with special washable covers to add texture to the art and protection to the robotic devices as the are directed to run through the paint to spread it.

The Set Up:

Coming soon

Connected all the @SpheroEdu robots to #ipads
- ready to roll#steam night #Drydenrocks #artsed #d25itspersonal pic.twitter.com/1VFJP0HYOd
— Tricia Fuglestad ☕️ (@fuglefun) May 17, 2018

In progress:

Another amazing activity put on by @fuglefun using @Sphero I can't wait to see the finished product!! #STEAMNight @DrydenSchool pic.twitter.com/vMWOtzZCVY
— Laurie Wasik (@laurie_wasik) May 17, 2018

Results: purple mush-UGH!

So, we learned TWO things about sphero painting as we worked
1. It only takes about 15 minutes to paint a small canvas.
2. Spheros only hold their charge for an hour or less.
Both of these things were learned while we were working on our HOUR long event. This meant that we over-worked the canvases almost immediately and ran the spheroes down in charge before the last session ended (UGH).

Results 2.o: 5th graders to the rescue

I asked the 5th graders in 5-1 to see if they could FIX this problem while using up the rest of the poured paint (that would have gone down the drain). The challenge was to make an abstract design with overlapping CLEAN colors.

Here is how our “fix” went today- thanks everyone who responded with ideas pic.twitter.com/po52aWlw6z
— Tricia Fuglestad ☕️ (@fuglefun) May 24, 2018

I re-taped the letters on the canvases and we gave it a try. The plan was to make a mark on each canvas to give them unity and balance without MUSHING up the colors. We started with paint brushes but switched to popsicle sticks half-way through class so that our mark making was looser and the application thicker.

The bright white of the letters contrasts nicely with the textured multi-colored backgrounds

Removed the tape and covered with varnish

I displayed it over the entrance to the art room

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Swapping Animations and other tricks

1/24/2018

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The Do Ink Animation app allows you to save files in their original format, export animations as movies, or create stills from the movies. If you save them in the original format you can only view them by pulling the file into the app. But this also means you can SWAP your animations from one iPad to another so you can layer effects or try this cool trick. What you're seeing below is one animation shared out with two other iPads. I change the animation path on each one and set the timing to make it look like the sprite is flying from one screen to the next.

Click me to download the Data DoInk File

Make an animation. Mine was like this.
Use the share button to save as Data (DOINK) You can practice using my sprite file here
Copy it to the Dropbox (or Google Drive)
Open Dropbox on a different iPad
Find the file, choose "...", choose EXPORT
Choose "Open in..."
Select Copy to Animation App (Do Ink)
I did this in a third iPad as well.
My animation was playing over a color background. So I made a still image of the color and used it to help fill up my time so the screen will look blank while it waits for the other iPad to play the animation.
iPad 1: The first 3 seconds were my animation then I used my blank color image to fill up 6 more seconds. My movie was a total of 9 seconds long.
iPad 2: I used my blank color image for the first 3 seconds, my animation ran for the next 3 seconds, and my color blank filled the last 3 seconds. My total animation was 9 seconds.
iPad 3: I used my blank color image for the first 6 seconds and my animation filled the last 3 seconds for a total of 9 second movie.
Then, I asked for help and we hit play on all three iPads at the exact same time.

Swap for storytelling and collaborations

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Exquisite Corpse Collaborative #DotDay

9/25/2017

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Click the box image to view what I purchased for this project.

5th graders are going to do an all grade-level collaboration in celebration of International Dot Day. They will contribute an exquisite corpse drawing of either a HEAD, MIDDLE, or LEGS on a cardboard cube. This idea was inspired by the IAEA conference. They had the cubes set up on tables for us all to draw on in pencil. I took some back with me to inspire my students...and it worked. My students were very inspired by them and were begging to try it too. So, I used our amazon gift card from winning a NextVista.org contest to buy the boxes for this year.

Planning:

Here is a graphic I made to describe my plan. Every student in 5th grade is part of a large collaboration, so I want them to understand the big picture.

Planning sheet for the Exquisite Corpse Project

Inspiration/Resources:

See the slideshow video below for creative solutions from artists and illustrators. These examples come from this Kids @ Random lesson. I made them into handouts as well.

Exquisite Corpse Examples by Slidely Slideshow

I made these into a four-page handout to print and put at tables as resources.

Questioning:

When I was at the IAEA conference last year, I was very inspired by this lesson. Not everyone was taking the time to create, so I did three drawings on one side of a stack of boxes. Later, I took this picture and reflected. I like to be different and break the rules when I create art, but would that work during a collaboration?

Examples: Bold, big, patterned, painted

My examples (made digitally using Brushes Redux)

My examples painted on cardboard boxes

Students Working: (in progress)

Students are done designing their "head", "middle", or "legs" and began their first step of painting. They traced their design in black marker, erased the pencil lines, and painted a solid background color. They had to choose a color that was different than their neighbors. Each started painting from right to left so that the middle line of paint might be dry when the second artist paints next to it. The boxes are laid flat until we are finished painting. I pulled some off the drying rack (below) to get a glimpse of some future combinations. Aren't these fun?

Student Results:

Below is a peek at some of our finished painted heads, middles, and legs. View the whole gallery on Artsonia here.

Digital Exquisite Corpse Collages

Each student will make a digital collage of their piece and two classmates using Pic Collage for Kids. See the gallery here.

Made by teacher at IAEA

My painted examples

Label for students to hang near their interactive art installation

These exquisite corpse collaborations will be sculptural interactive pieces. Other students throughout the school will enjoy spinning the head, body, and legs to make new combinations. So, the fifth graders will need to make a plan for where they will install each set, make directions that invite respectful engagement, and a museum label that credits each artist.
I also hope to assign students to check on the installations each day to make sure they are respected.

All of the exquisite corpses were mounted up on a base with a museum label. Student wrote the artist names, chose locations, installed and photographed them, then wrote a morning announcement to announce them to the school community.

Math Problems based on Art

Our 24 boxes with various combinations created these math problems.
View the answers here.

Resource: Monster Mixer Online Game

This game, Monster Mixer by Crayola, might help students generate some fun monster themed combinations when they begin drawing their ideas. I collected a bunch of their monster combinations and printed them out as another resource for my students (below).

Here is another online game called switcheroo by crayola that helps you think of creative heads, middles, and legs as well as arms, wings, and whatevers...

Digital Extension:

CREATING DIGITALLY: Years ago, before we were a 1:1 iPad art room, we used our limited number of iPads to make collaborative exquisite corpse drawings. Here is a link to that lesson and template.

DISPLAYING DIGITALLY: Each square created will be photographed for students' online digital art gallery. These can be added to folders on our dropbox where students can combine a head, middle, and legs of their choices (one being their own) to make a fun digital combination. I used the Superimpose app and its perspective tool to line up the squares on top of a real photo to create this effect.

USING PERSPECTIVE TOOL IN SUPERIMPOSE APP:
First import the template (above) as the background layer then follow these steps. I made the directions into this printable PDF here or view the pages below.

5th graders inspiring us all

Exquisite Corpse blocks sitting on the art room counter

During the last week of school we are going to use the fifth graders' art to inspire the rest of the school to try the Exquisite Corpse game using the game sheet below or here.

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5-1 Took The Mannequin Challenge

6/7/2017

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Exploring collaboration, creativity, body language, storytelling, and theme

Click to view this quick "how to" video

5-1 has been begging me to do the mannequin challenge for months. I kept putting it off until today, their last day of art class at Dryden. We watched this how to video, chose a theme (the teacher isn't looking), rehearsed, then filmed in one long take this amazing scene. Great job 5th graders! What a creative way to practice group collaborations!

The Mannequin Challenge from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.

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Collaborative Dance Video

6/5/2017

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Layered green screen video over background made in Kaleido Free app

Students danced or moved for 2 seconds

They saved a video of their Kaleido free radial design

They layered the two videos in the Green Screen app by Do Ink

To celebrate the end of the year, 1st and 2nd graders who finished their projects early made a collaborative music video. Each student contributed a 2 second clip of themselves dancing over a video of a radial design. The music video that inspired us was also an artistic piece created with rotoscoping.

Students tried to crop and get a clean green screen effect for their 2 secs of fame

Finished Dance Video:

Stayed tuned to the very end to see the students dancing along at the last day of school assembly. Thanks Mrs. Quick for taking the footage.

Dream of Dancing from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.

All Dryden students were completely energized by trying to dance along with our 1st and 2nd graders. Love that they had a chance to lead with their fancy moves!

Still Image Gallery on Artsonia: View
a screenshot from the video

Click the image to view the gallery of stills from the video

Related idea: What if your art did a dance?

That's right! What if students made art that could move through the magic of stop motion? These little movement videos could be layered over kaleido free backgrounds and put in a collaborative dance movie too. First you would need to do the stop motion animation in front of green screen. The subject could be, for example, their cardboard whirligigs. See this post for how to make them.

Dance Whirly-bird Dance

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Rotoscope in a Retro Mutoscope

5/16/2017

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I'm super excited to have found the Flipbookit in my Twitter feed a month or so ago. The discovery came at a time where I was thinking about how to display our class animations as I was preparing for rotoscope animations lesson with my 5th graders. What a perfect solution. The flipbookit is a DIY kit that creates a retro styled mutoscope, an early motion picture hand cracked flipbook device. This box has a crank that spins a rolodex of cards that you can customize through their online tool printed on labels. It took me 1 hour to put the box together and 1/2 hr to print, stick, and load the art. They are too expensive to have each student make their own, but because of their design, they make for a really simple all class rotoscope collaborative project. I'll try to explain.

Collaborative Rotoscope

The Flipbookit animation is only 24 frames long. That is a pretty short video.
It would be best if the video loops too since the crank allows you to view it over and over again. So, I asked one 5th grader from each of the 4 classes to volunteer to be filmed performing a short dance move that would easily loop. Here they are below.

Rotoscope in a Mutoscope from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.

1. Film a short looping video

I filmed them before green screen and used the Green Screen app by Do Ink to clean up the background so my animators would be undistracted by the background and better able to focus on the dancers when they draw their rotoscope.

2. Prepare the 24 frames of video

The Flipbookit website has an online maker tool that helps you prepare for a rotoscope animation. After you upload the looping video to their site, you can chose the portion you want to use, see a preview, and download the 24 frames of the video. These frames are what your students will draw over to make the rotoscope. If you have 24 students, then they each need to draw only one frame of the animation. We were able to do this in one 45 minute class period while learning the app, tools, and concept.

3. Preparing the tools to draw

Since the class is going to make one collaborative animation, we need each of the 24 frames of the video to look similar. The size of the image, color of the pen, thickness of the pen, and style of the drawing need to be similar enough that the illusion of movement is created. I set some parameters ahead of time when I created my example. Here is the handout to set up the drawing in the Brushes Redux app.

The Brushes Redux App allows you to choose a custom size canvas. You need 800 x 667. Do not resize the photo when you import it. It will be exactly 800 x 667 and needs to stay as inserted to match the other drawings.

We used a solid opaque black line size 4

The photo layer is semi transparent so we could see our black lines & we drew on the layer above. We make the photo layer disappear (close the eye icon) then save our drawing to the camera roll

Students each had an iPad, stylus, handout, and a chance to view a physical flipbook

4. Turn in and rename digital files

I shared out the flipbookit images through my dropbox. Each student was assigned a number and drew their piece of the animation based on this image. When they were done, they turned back their art into a new folder with the number and their name on the file. It automatically organized by number. I was ready to upload it to the flipbookit maker tool.

----VIEW STUDENT IMAGES HERE----

4.5 (optional) Made an animated gif

I wanted to see how the 24 drawings would look as a digital animation so I loaded them into https://ezgif.com/maker to make an animated gif from the images.

5. Print and load the flipbookit

PDF generated from the 24 frame animation made by students ready to print.

I followed the online directions for converting the 24 drawings into a pdf that would be printed onto the special sized labels that came with the DIY Flipbookit. I stuck them on the blank cards and loaded them into the rolodex to see the magic of Mutoscope animation from our collaborative rotoscope animation.

Digital animation made physical

Displaying the Mutoscopes:

Resource:

Every Night I Dream Of Dancing by Andrew Huang is a music video collaboration of thousands of drawings from 30 different artists. The song is fun and the artwork is very inspiring. It has much more color and creativity than this project, but now that we've learned the process, perhaps next time we can take it further.
Drawing from Experience
This lesson requires student to create a CONTOUR LINE DRAWING. Allow the old and wise (and very little from all the years of sharpening) Grandpa Pencil explain more.

Drawing From Experience from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.

Watch this brainpop video that explains Traditional Animation (need a login)

Extension: Build a Mutoscope Viewer

A package arrived the other day in a very cool box. I was heading out to recycle it when it occurred to me that the flip top that opens to a windowed interior may make a cool viewer for my Flipbook (mutoscope). I'm not done painting the inside or customizing my own animation yet, but I thought I'd share what I started here.