In this Maker project, we have split into two groups, Herzog and Carr. For the first half I was in Carr. In Carr we focused on drawing. Emily Carr was a famous artist from 1871 to 1945. She was most well known for her landscape artworks. In these couple of weeks we will be learning how to incorporate pressure, doodling, shading, perspective, and using colour into our drawings.
The first goal was using pressure. In this goal we started to learn what different brushes in the tool bar do, we learned how to use various pen and brush styles and sizes, we learned how to change the pressure from our Apple Pencil to make lines thicker, thinner, darker, or lighter, and we learned how to create patterns from lines. The app that we used was Sketches Pro, and you can check that out here. After we had learned all of those things, we had to make our name using the things that we learned. This is what I did.
This slideshow is my progression when I made my name.
The second goal was doodling. This was mostly using 2D shapes to show what we have learned. We made an emoji to practice our shapes, and then we got right into it. Our assignment for doodling was sketchnoting something. It could be our life, a video, or anything else. We needed to use lines and arrows, containers, organization, and text in our sketchnotes. For my sketchnote I did a Mark Rober video.
These are my sketchnotes for the video.
Our third goal was shading. This time, instead of drawing 2D, we learned how to draw 3D shapes. One of the most important things in shading is understanding light and shadow, and we learned how to do that too. For this activity, we had to create a value scale, which is something which has the darkest colour at the left, and the lightest (white) at the right. Here is my value scale.
Then, we built a robot out of 3D shapes! We learned that it is very important to break objects down into shapes, if you want to draw them. For example, this guitar could be broken down into these 3D shapes.
Guitar:
Robot:
Perspective was our fourth goal. To build this skill, we were to find the horizon line, find the vanishing point, understand linear perspective, add depth through perspective, and use the smudge tool to add depth. We used layers to help us create a landscape photo. I chose the Sydney Opera house.
Just like that, we were onto our last skill! We were learning how to use colours to show emotion. We also got to Zoom with Chloe Devine! We had to create a logo of a random business that we knew or wanted to start.
Why are we learning this is a common question in PLP projects. We are learning this because this actually helps with one of our core competencies. The adult world connection is also a big part of all PLP projects. Some of us will have jobs where we must use either photography (Herzog) or drawing (Carr). But this project is more about understanding the skills that we develop. The driving question for Constructing Creative Communication which I’ll answer in the final blog post for this project is “How might I use technology to create and communicate?”