As a visual art teacher and artist, I will facilitate 7th and 8th grade students in the exploration of drawing and painting by using the media of watercolor paint, acrylic paint, glazes, and digital rendering to develop images or visual stories with the theme of tropical reef fish. Digital technology will allow the documentation of these explorations and enable the students to store and share their images and ideas in an individual and collaborative creative process. In addition to the 5 weeks of summer school, digital memory will allow the students to portfolio their experiments and give them the opportunity to use the images in new ways in the future.

In the classroom, a student is encouraged to imagine, read, write, and tell stories. The critical difference in this summer's 7th & 8th Grade Art experience is that a student will tell a story by beginning with the visual representation. In what ways can technology contribute to the understanding of the visual art making process? How can we visually communicate to others how we imagine and see stories?

6 Pre-Summer School Days:
The most important aspect of my work has been the organization of the classroom, hardware and software, and student work. No aquarium field trip as aquarium was booked. [To be further noted.]

Day 1 of Art 7 & 8:
Introduction of myself, Chantelle Takata (student assistant), and Elaine Blitman (artist-in-residence).

Open discussion of art. [To be further noted.]
Drawing and painting using watercolor pencils on 8.5" x 11" 20# bond paper and watercolor paper, depicting the theme of the sun or fish. [To be further noted.]

Discussion at end of class:
Each student introduced her or himself again and in one sentence described one thing they learned while drawing and applying water to the watercolor pencil rendering. Then the student mentioned something they learned from the painting of the previous student. [To be further noted.]

These previous entries are two examples of watercolor paintings chosen at random, one from the first class and one from the second class.

After class, the images were downloaded and manipulated using Adobe Photoshop CS2. Within a ½ hour, each image was cropped, filters applied, and printed onto laser paper.

The previous images are my results that will serve as samples for Day 2.

Day 2 of Art 7 & 8:

Each student introduced her or himself again and in one sentence described one thing they learned while drawing and applying water to the watercolor pencil rendering. Then the student mentioned something they learned from the painting of the previous student. [To be further noted.]

Photoshop examples were shown and discussed. [To be further noted.]

Student watercolor on paper work photographed by Chantelle and downloaded to 10 (minus one without CD drive: check status with IT) computers. I introduced pairs of students to their assigned computers and Photoshop Elements. Elaine worked with students by showing her artwork and reviewing the student's work before they painted on watercolor paper. Students continued watercolor paintings. [To be further noted.]

Student work displayed on bulletin board and put in plastic sleeve portfolios. [To be further noted.]

Thanks Judy, I appreciate having the movie. At the beginning of class the student illustrated the story she told on the video, on the Smart Board. This was the first day we used the Smart Board. She is a Hawaiian immersion school student during the regular school year. Articulate and cheerful. [Will write more later]

Illustrating the first chapter of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was introduced by reading two paragraphs. [Will write more later]

The students that were introduced to Photoshop Elements yesterday assisted others today. SketchUp software was introduced. Some students followed the tutorial; most did not. Paper or digital ideas for glazing ceramic tiles were rendered. [Will write more later]

The octopus drawing was done from observation and is the preliminary sketch for a glazed ceramic tile.

Made plans for gyotaku fish prints. Will test medium on Saturday. Art students will print on Monday, if all goes well. Art 1 & 2 ( Denise Reid), French 1 & 2 (Vanny Clay), The Art of Writing 7 (Rachel Lau) will print on Tuesday, assisted by Art 7 & 8. When dry the prints will become digital images with text. [Will write more later]

Judy, good insight about computer liberating visual documenters. Notice more ability to speak and describe when looking at visual depiction or explanation. Smart Board was great to quickly describe the story the student had in her head. At first she was concerned about stick figures. Because the medium is crude - she quickly forgot being self-conscious about the stick figures and just focused on giving visual representation to her thoughts. Before drawing, I asked her to write the title, her school name, her name: to help her relax and be familiar with the tool. [More later - distributed cognition, light box]

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This link is one of two Adobe InDesign letters with each student's work on the border. A letter to students' families will be sent home tomorrow.

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Students will take home letters tomorrow showing a digital work by each student and a letter explaining our summer class. We began ceramic tile glazing in the first class but because I needed to meet with each student to download and design the letter, the students in the second class did not begin glazing. It would have been better for each student to have a computer with Adobe Elements. The students with Punahou iBooks do not have Adobe Elements.

The technical skill using Adobe Elements is proficient for most students. But I sense frustration on the part of students as to problem solving without structure as to their choices of the tools to use. When I am with the student, they feel more comfortable to to abstract their work, and are perhaps more spontaneous. I validate the abstraction and ask them to make choices about size, color changes etc. The images that were done without my assistance are more literal, representational, and close to the original drawing or painting. Abstraction will develop with experience in using the effects and seeing the work of others.

After learning the technique of fish printing, Art 7 & 8 students assisted Art 1 & 2 (Mrs. Reid) to create fish prints. The older students will use their prints as a scanned image to experiment with Adobe Photo Elements software. The images will be used for 7th & 8th Grades' Chapel presentation on Friday. Chaplain Medeiros will speak about metamorphosis and rainbows.

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The students assisted 7th Grade "Art of Writing" students (Rachel Lau) in printing fish prints. Students began using the gradient tool for rainbow effects for chapel.
They wrote a synopsis of the process for a Word document to be printed and sent home Friday.

Bishop Learning Center librarian, Dita Ramler presented the students with an excellent overview of research methods for visuals. Each student will tell a story in a 8.5" x 11" format. The students may compose purely visual stories or combine the visuals with text.

In partial response to Diane Anderson's thoughtful wonderings on Day 4, I was interested that in both classes, the students wanted clarification that they were not required to write. Most of the students began right away on their "stories" when they returned from the library. The students had no hesitations about the ideas for the stories that they would tell. I hope to document their beginnings and evolving nature of each story. I was expecting the customary: "I don't know what to do." Clearly each student had a picture in their mind as to where they were going and several drew right away. There did not seem to be thumbnail drawings or sketches. I asked for "Work Cited" for acknowledgment of illustrator or photographer. We will discuss the problem solving process tomorrow. I was focused on fish printing with French Grade 1 & 2 (Vanny Clay) and working individually with students on Photoshop to complete a movie for chapel (Lauren Medeiros) on Friday. Although I did notice most students were writing poetry. The idea of metaphor and abstraction: visual and verbal were clearly apparent.
I will comment further at a later time.

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Very exciting the diversity of problem solving methods and results from black and white fish prints. Approximately 45 minutes of computer time after scanning by each student. I have never facilitated student color abstract work so quickly and successfully.

We had our first opportunity to observe campus and sketch. We will continue to practice daily to improve our rendering skills. These skills will be useful when using the Wacom tablets and electronic pencils next week.