Just found this video from Adobe. Kyle Webster has created an amazing set of brushes that mimic the look of Munch’s brush strokes. I’ve been playing around with creating my own brushes for my graduate class in illustration. It’s been a lot of fun. These are FREE! Here is the link to the Kyles Munch Brushes video, and in the description box is the link to download the brushes. Happy Painting!
I’m excited to announce I’ll be teaching a Lightroom and Photoshop course in June for the Georgia Southern University Continuing Education Program. It’s a night class that runs twice a week for 2 weeks. I love teaching the night classes and enjoy spending time with students who are older. It’s been a wonderful experience.
Here is a link to the site for my class. Introduction to Lightroom and Photoshop.
After my high school classes are over I’ll be posting what I’m working on with my Lightroom and Photoshop course. Looking forward to it.
I’m also trying to get some work together for an art show Aug 1-31. Then I’ve got a workshop that I’m going to be teaching to art teachers about art and technology. I’m very excited about everything that is going on. Then I signed up for 3 graduate classes at SCAD. I’m back to trying to get my MFA in Illustration. I’ll be posting along as I go. I also started a Youtube channel for Nancy Miller Illustration.
I finally got a custom URL for my Messy Art Teacher Youtube channel. I’ve gone past 102,000 views. http://youtube.com/c/MessyArtTeacher
This has been all the effort I’ve been making while working full time.
Still continuing the work on the students creating a soccer ad for the school and Adidas. We also experimented with Layer Modes and creating a custom path/selection with the pen tool. I’m old school, so I tend to learn towards using the pen tool. I’ve seen Youtubers like Peter McKinnon still use that feature. It should be finished on Monday. Then Tues, Wed, and Thurs. I have plans for drawing a background of a line pattern using pencil, and pen.
I’m having students learn how to puppet warp in Photoshop. It’s a feature that is in After Effects and I noticed it in Adobe Animate. It’s pretty flexible for creating a puppet from a character you’ve created. I got the playlist up for my flex grouping in one of my larger classes. I split the class into 2 parts. 1 part that can work independently based on what I’ve seen of their 1st day of instruction. Then 2nd day I have them split into 2. One group is with me then I redo what I had taught them previously from beginning to end. I think some of it is that it is difficult for students to follow what I’m doing on screen. I’ve increased the size of my cursor, and I really need to look into seeing if there is an add one to make my cursor larger and blink in Photoshop. On my to do list. Click on the youtube playlist image to watch my playlist.
The boxer I got off of Pexels.com. Free download. Next week they will start their own custom puppet warp animation.
Audio, oh audio, where for thou audio. Finally got the students animations exported from Photoshop on Friday. They are learning Premiere and starting on post-production. We got a title, and transitions. Working on looking for audio on Monday. The rest of the week will Premiere skills and how to create an animation in Photoshop using the Puppet Warp feature. They have to get a photo of a boxer to box before they make their own. I made an animation Robot Dancer to the Safety Dance Song.
I think there is a learning curve with using Premiere. Many students are used to good old iMovie and would prefer that. I like Premiere because you just have more control and better effects, etc. It’s a good step into then learning After Effects. I don’t think we’ll get to After Effect semester 1. I tried Adobe Rush at home, boy I didn’t care for it. It is easier than Premiere, but I felt like it is clunky in comparison to iMovie. Just a personal opinion. I’d rather just use Premiere, or I’m just used to Premiere and I’m being stubborn and don’t want to really learn it.
I was disappointed that Premiere no longer supports animated GIF. I’d had my students make some GIF animations 1st semester and then Premiere stop supporting it. Like what? Oh well, moving with the times.
I’ve cut down the number of frames my students have to create. I decided 20 frames total and then they can loop it several times in Premiere. Building them up to a higher frame count. My poor students last semester I was giving them # of seconds, and it was a lot. Live and learn.
This Friday I went to my first soccer game. Never been before, so much more exciting when you know the players. Some of my students are on the team. I took some video of the game. Plus got some night shots. This shot you see is from practice earlier in the week. They will be using the photos I took to create an advertisement for Adidas. I think they will turn out pretty cool. We start with the mood boards and research on Tuesday. Monday gotta upload photos from the search for objects/shapes that look like letters. Then I think we have to back up files. Monday will be an easier day. The rest of the week learn some new photoshop skills: layer styles, adjustment layers, and color correction.
Students started creating their bouncing ball animations in Photoshop. Probably wondering why Photoshop (PS) instead of jumping into Animate or another program. I decided that even though it is limited for animation software you can teach students to animate in 3 ways. The big plus was that I wanted students to feel like they had a frame of reference for when we do switch over to other software. I’ve found that once we start post-production students may struggle with it. Also I think I’ve gotten better a teaching it. That probably helps as well.
Working in a PC lab there is no iMovie. My students tend to lean towards apple products. Nothing wrong with that I’m all Mac at home. iMovie is very easy to use, but has limited features. Adobe Premiere is more robust and you can do so much more with the editing. I prefer it. Then when you want to switch to After Effects I think it helps starting with PS.
Students had to animate a bouncing ball based off of Preston Blair’s Animated Ball sequence. That is all over online. A dribbling ball, and then a ball animated anyway they like. Tuesday students will start learning post-production in Premiere. I think it will take a week. Well worth taking the time to learn and then students will feel more confident using the software. As far as audio is concerned I’m just going to teach them how to find audio. Later we can learn foley work. I ordered a Blue Yeti for myself. Probably use Audacity. We have audition, but the more I read reviews most Youtubers are using Audacity. It is good enough for Marques Brownlee. Love his tech reviews.
I also think there will always be some students that prefer animating over postproduction. I’m one of them. It isn’t my favorite thing worry about audio/titles/transition etc. I’m pretty tired from all the drawing that I feel like it was a sprint to get that done. Really is a marathon. I think it will be interesting to see which students excel in areas that I’m weak at. Then they can teach me a thing or two.
I had my students this week finish their photoshop merge photos project. It’s really for them to get used to using the tools in Photoshop to take several photos and put them into one picture. I have a youtube playlist that you can follow with. PhotoMerge Youtube. I blurred out the student name they had to add type and use the Text Warp in PS.
The photos I got from Pexels.com
The site is free and you don’t need a login to get high res images. I also spoke with another graphics teacher and he has his students use FreeImages.com
Pexels you have to be careful because there could be certain images you don’t want your students to see. FreeImages images are appropriate, but my students had a hard time and would lose connection to the site.
If you want to use the same images that I used with my students.
Students turned in their work via Microsoft Teams. Found out there is a 50 MB size limit. I had them re-save as a JPG and upload their images. We also started a weekly back up files on their OneDrive. I think there isn’t a file limit since the school signed up for the accounts but we will see. Google Drive for personal use has a 15GB limit if you don’t have it for education.
We learned about Edward Weston Photographer. We took still life photos of fake eggs and silverware. I’m hoping to share some student examples once we color correct them.
It seemed like a very busy week for students. Lots of events going on. I had decided to just teach them simple basics of using Photoshop CC 2018. May of my students are familiar with it. To explain there was a previous teacher teaching graphic design/photo, so some had take the class. I get some students more familiar with it. Or if they have used free apps like GIMP or Pixlr Photoshop will seem easier to pick up. I have a pretest that I gave a couple to see if they can composite several photos together. If they can they are exempt from this project and they can create an independent project to work on.
Reviewed using Microsoft Teams and then started recreating a piece of artwork. I decided to do Piet Mondrian Broadway Boogie Woogie. In the past I’ve used Van Gogh Starry Night or a Kandinsky. I cut a section of it and provided the file to the students to open in Photoshop.
We go over selecting using the Marquee, brush, eyedropper, shape tool for vectors, and swatches and layers panel. How to navigate with in the document. Change brush sizes.
My new catch phrase is “You can effect it when you select it!”
I also make them use a specific workspace. Currently using the Graphics & Web workspace. I make them restore all of tools in the tool bar.
Youtube How to change Photoshop CC 2018 Workspace
Youtube How to change Photoshop CC 2018 Tools
Mrs. Miller - Messy Art Teacher Blog 