Digital technology is the same revolution as adding sound to pictures and the same revolution as adding color to pictures. Nothing more and nothing less. – George Lucas
Over the past two weeks, the Miscoe Hill students in grades five and six art classes have been learning to use the Sketchbook app by Autodesk. We began with the basics of drawing tools, flood fill, and layers with this tutorial:
Students were given the week to practice during studio time after the introduction and in their asynchronous time later in the week.
The second week we followed up with a tutorial on adding layers, changing opacities, and experimenting with textures:
Again, students were given the week to practice during studio time after the introduction and also in their asynchronous time later in the week.
It’s worth noting that when I make the videos, instruction is my priority, not necessarily making good art or showing off my skills. What you see happening is the creative evolution of applying tools for the sake of applying tools, in this case covering all the basics to help young art students gain fluency with the digital medium. The result is a meandering stream of consciousness, which I hope helps my students free themselves from the “cookie cutter” approach to assigning one-size-fits-all art projects.
The final tutorial was for adding photos to the existing artwork, which shows students how to add photos in Sketchbook, leading to the next week’s project as well. With this particular exemplar, I added photos that I had in my camera roll with a desire to bring our backyard barnyard and a visit to Maine to my otherwise pretty sedate artwork. In the tutorial video I make preposterous suggestions for what the kids might add:
Mrs. Gentili – This artwork was created with the Autodesk Sketchbook app. I used a bunch of different tools, including the paint brush, felt pen, eraser, airbrush, flood fill, opacities, photos, and texture tool. I did not have a plan when I started this. I let it evolve as I experimented with the tools. I like how it came out especially considering that it was unplanned. If I were to change anything, I would make the window outlines consistent.They didn’t disappoint!
As always, I found myself delighted when scrolling through the many artworks uploaded to both Google Classroom and Artsonia. I enjoy each and every one of them and take particular delight in those who take their own unique path or start with something similar to the exemplar and end up with something very different. Here are just ten of the myriad of truly wonderful artworks by 10 – 12 year old art students and a whole lot more can be seen on our online gallery on Artsonia:
Lia R – I uploaded some pictures from “The Lion King”. This drawing was inspired by that movie. The pictures were uploaded from safari. These were the trees, Mufasa in the sky, a faint galaxy, and the Rafiki holding Simba. I drew the rest. I like this art because it looks like there are galaxies and fireflies.Madeline O – If I could redo my artwork I would fix the lines on the road, and the erase some more parts of the stop sign and the little pond thing. The thing that I liked the most is how some of the stuff in the picture are drawn on and some stuff is a real picture. The thing that was the most hardest to do was the road and mountains because before the picture was there of the mountains the road and mountains were the same color so it was hard to find a different color for the road.Rory G – I decided do make a kind of abstract city scene. I wanted it to have lots of color and to be pretty unique. I put in some pictures that I had taken and one that I found online. I used a couple of textures to make it really pop. I also used different layers to make the textures and add one.Michael L – My favorite part is the scene the T-rex is eating a bird and blue the raptor is coming after him. Jurassic world inspired me to make this painting. I might change the background. I learned some of the tools like the line tool, circle tool and the rectangle tool in sketchbook. The bushes pop out because of the shading underneath it looks more 3D as well as the windows and fences.Caleb R – The Spooky house is my drawing, but it is also my house. The house itself is not a huge home for the mobs, in fact the mobs are always together. Although I think I hear someone at the door. Oh wait, it was just Vamp the vampire practicing his jump scares on the roof. Wow I wonder what’s for dinner, better ask Valk the witch. “Hey Valk what’s for dinner” , I yelled. “Beef stew”, she yelled back. Hey let’s talk to Pump the pumpkin. “Hi Pump”. “Hey I’m trying to scare Victor” Pump said. Victor by the way pretty much just sits in attic all day trying to scare Vamp.Ana K – My favorite part of this artwork is the outfit (a folk Ukrainian outfit) and my least favorite it the face. My inspiration behind this artwork is my culture.If I had the option to change my art, I would spend more time on the face and the proportions. While making this I learned more about the Autodesk Sketchbook brush and pen options and how to layer artwork. To create this by sketching out a base human, coloring it, adding shading, dress details, then by coloring the background and adding an image of spruce.My favorite part of this artwork is the images of my cat’s food. My inspiration for this project was when I wanted to draw my cat for summer memory but it didn’t match the theme so I had to change it to a mini-golf course. That made me want to create another artwork of my cat and since this was a open ended project, I decided to draw my cat. If I were to create it again, I would make the background lines straighter. I learned how to change opacity and add texture to objects like the fish. I was surprised that the cat food cans came out as good as they did. I started by drawing the cat with the shape tool and then moved on the the fish. I made the background lines with the straight line tool and then added shadowing, texture, and images. Lastly, I used the fill bucket to color the drawing in.Emmet K – I got this idea from castles but I did not want to make a regular one so i made this one. I used the artist pen for a lot of things and a air brush for the sand in the air. I am surprised how good it came out. I learned how to add photos, and i learned how to save a pen that I like.I drew what you see when you get into the app sketchbook. I drew this because I did not know what to draw and I thought I should draw what I see so I drew what I saw. I would draw this again it was way to complicated. At first I was not going to add clip art as the letters but I had to so I did.Jack P – This is my digital drawing of a house also there is a dog in the window with two little bunny’s and there is a sunset.
