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tips

obstacles to Drawing - Some Tips to Get Around Frequent Problems for Beginning Drawing Students

Your tools

stay away from the lighter/harder graphite pencils. Only use HB and above to 4, 6, 8B series. Consider purchasing a graphite stick for easier blending. Charcoal pencils in the higher 4-8B range are also excellent for darker darks. "Charkole" is also an excellent tool if you like rich, velvety blacks, however, some find it messy. Always use an eraser - Staedler white plastic are best along with an eraser stick (Staples has them in the pencil dept.) and kneaded erasers of any size. Blending tools are fine as are your middle finger, paper towels (brown are the best) Qtips, and chamois cloth.

Lighting

Always draw from life with a defined light source. Set up your objects on a surface and try to get a single light source coming from a direction either upper right or left to see the shadows. Or set yourself up close to a window. Try not try to draw in a room with overhead fluorescents.

Work from large to small. In the beginning look for the largest geometric shape first before doing a contour of the object. Keep yourself as loose and sketchy while working out the proportion and perspective of the piece. Go inside and out of the work simultaneously - have an ongoing dialogue with the entire drawing/composition - don't work in sections. Then you can go in for more details. Many students begin with a contour/outline only approach and concentrate on one small area. This leads to a patchy, overworked and tight outcome.

Use a loose approach

particularly early on - It is much easier to work out the shapes, proportion, form, and perspective while keeping yourself loose than going in for major details while erasing away what you don't need fro the early sketch - the details are for later - first you need to get the proportion and shapes correct.Your goal is to deal with the entire
piece of paper within 1 minute.

Learn about gesture drawing

and how that can enliven your drawing in the early stages. You then want to keep that energy inherent in the work as you get more refined/resolved and detailed. Not an easy balance but what you want to shoot for.

Background

always deal with the background early on, even if it's a soft tone. It makes for a more resolved drawing.

Surface

to avoid "floating" objects always put your objects on some type of defined surface, such as table, drapery, etc. This will help you with perspective as well as tell a more complete story about your still life. Also put in a cast shadow to anchor your pieces - remember cast shadows are darker where the object meets the surface and the diffuse/get lighter as they move away from the object. Do not have them be too dark/dominant as they can take over the focal point away from your objects.

Have fun with it! Rm

marnie's tips: TAKE THE "DISTANCE" OUT OF DISTANCE LEARNING

Call

ALL your students in the first week not just the students you have not seen in class

After week 1 jot down notes

from the bio section or print it out and refer back to it. Go back and read it throughout the semester and refer back to it in later discussions. For example, Maybe a student creates a logo in the Corporate Identity course for their favorite football team. Refer back to their bio and make a another connection to their background like, “Good idea to recreate the Steelers logo. You have lived in Pittsburgh for years now, so your familiarity with the city will help you design an updated logo for them.”

In the biography section:

Reply

to ALL students bios and really get to know them

relate

when replying to a student, relate to them somehow. Find something in common.

Here is an example from a current course I am teaching:

STUDENT BIO: I am a 30 year old returning to school for what seems like the umpteenth time. It seems the longer you wait to return the harder it is to juggle life and work and school all at the same time. …………Other things I enjoy - painting, drawing, reading - Neil Gaiman is by far my favorite author………….

MY REPLY: Great to meet you!
I can relate to juggling work and going back to school. I didn't feel as old as I thought I would as there were others that were my age and older, in graduate school. lol……………I read a lot but never remember authors. What does Neil Gaiman write? Horror? Love stories? Adventure? Mystery?

STUDENT REPLY BACK: I guess Gaiman would be most known for his Sandman graphic …………Good stuff. I had the opportunity to meet him about 8 years back and it was pretty enlightening ……………

MY REPLY BACK: I'll have to look his stuff up! Thanks! I am reading a really good book right now, kinda sad so far, but good.

TITLE: Once Upon A Day ........ by Lisa Tucker

In the above example, I made a connection with the student about reading, by letting her know that I read AND by asking her about her favorite author.

It is important

to go back throughout week 1 and read your students replies back to you and keep the lines of communication open MM

 

FAQs

Q: I’m concerned about not being able to help students while they are drawing. Do you see a problem with only being able to help students after they have completed their work?

A: If they post early or on time, they have time for feedback and a re-do. They can also negotiate a re-do – emailed directly to me. I also mark up drawings and repost them. They usually have prelim drawings to work out problems.

Q: are there any common traits among the students who take your online classes?

A: Many are what might be considered non- traditional students – working full time jobs, in the military, stay at home moms, people returning to school to pursue mid-life or late-life career options.

Q: What do you think is the best way to provide weekly feedback? How often do you give personal feedback? Did you find it difficult to give constructive criticism?

A: I generally give each student feedback the day following a project due date. This includes marking up their drawings in photoshop and re-posting them. Some students don’t read the texts or assignment instructions – yes – it is a challenge to be patient and constructive in these situations– however – you create more problems by not being constructive, so it is worth the effort.

Q: How is feedback managed?

A : Threads for assignments. Emails from the threads (cc’d to me for archiving in case there is a problem) emails from home, phone calls, and having feedback come from more than one source – say, the advisor.

Q: How much time does it really take to facilitate a course?

A: Depends on the course, number of students and the amount of effort and feedback you supply. There is lot of outside-the-thread overhead if you want to augment the material with your own examples. It varies from course to course, facilitator to facilitator. Perspective may take more time than portfolio. Generally 2 courses may take from 24 – 37 hours a week combined.jp

 

Resources

links

http://www.adobe.com Adobe has a long list of recorded seminars on topics pertaining to use of their products and general design issues. Topics include web design, trends in printing output, presentation software.

EDMC Release Form The release form (.doc) can be downloaded here if you don't already have it

colortemperature.html An excellent easy read on general color theory - a link to more of Caponigro's writing is on the apple website link listed here.

Threads for faculty development workshops are being posted as the workshops are completed in the Graphic Design Reource Group.

Wikipedia Users BEWARE! (From the Faculty Resources Area)

What is Wikipedia?

“Wikipedia is a free-content encyclopedia, written collaboratively by people from all around the world. The site is a wiki, which means that anyone can edit entries simply by clicking on the edit this page link.”

“Because Wikipedia is an ongoing work to which anybody can contribute, it differs from a paper-based reference source in some important ways. In particular, mature articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while other (often fledgling) articles may still contain significant misinformation, unencyclopaedic content or vandalism. Users need to be aware of this in order to obtain valid information and avoid misinformation which has been recently added and not yet removed.”

Wikipedia:About. (2005, November 1). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 00:08, December 13, 2005 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About.

Is Wikipedia a good resource for college research?

Once you understand how Wikipedia content is developed, checked and controlled, you will see that there are some serious limitations to using it for scholarly research. See a full discussion of these issues here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia

Can I use Wikipedia as a resource for my work in this class?

No, you may not. You can certainly start at Wikipedia to get a sense of the meaning of a term, but you must use reliable, edited resources for your writing in this college class. These resources are easily available through the AiO College library.

why Not?

As college students, you are often expected to utilize research in your class assignments. Many students find the information presented on the internet to be a quick and convenient source of information. One of the latest search options that students are using has been Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com). This is not a source of credible information and should be used with much caution, or better yet, not at all.
 
Why would I make such a strong statement? According to Wikipedia's website, "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written collaboratively by many of its readers. Lots of people are constantly improving Wikipedia, making thousands of changes an hour, all of which are recorded on article histories and recent changes. Inappropriate changes are usually removed quickly."  According to an article in the December 4, 2005, New York Times, "The real problem... [is] the volume of new material coming in; it is so overwhelming that screeners cannot keep up with it." Therefore, there is a lot of information provided on this site that has not been verified. According to a December 6, 2005, article in USA Today, "while much of Wikipedia's information is correct, some is not. And sometimes people lie or are 'vicious'."
 
Why should you care as students? The article further states "'The problem is that Wikipedia is so often considered authoritative,"'wrote Dave Winer ... 'That must stop now, surely. Every fact in there must be considered partisan, written by someone [who has a personal] interest.'" Even if the information is interesting or entertaining, that does not make it true. All information presented on this website should be considered with skepticism.
 
There have been a number of recent examples of people editing the information in biographies of others; the result of these edits can be damaging, whether the intention is humorous or not. Think about what this source could do to how information is gathered - if this is considered a reliable source of information, but the information is not verified, the concept of facts will become a lot less black and white.
 
Additionally, some faculty have found that some students submit their papers to Wikipedia - and then have found those papers resubmitted by other students. This is not only an example of severe plagiarism, but certainly not using credible sources as research material.
 
The intent here is not to pick on Wikipedia, but I have found more and more students using this as the sole source for information - and that is risky. Instead, you need to be prepared to defend the quality of the sources they choose for assignments. This means you need to be confident that the information you've presented in your assignments is accurate. Don't put all your eggs in the Wikipedia basket. Instead be confident that you are using quality sources to contribute to your work - the investment will pay off!

For Tips on How to Evaluate Online Sources, review any of the websites listed below:
 
http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html
http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/webeval.html
http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/webcrit.html
http://www.lesley.edu/library/guides/research/evaluating_webhtml

AI GDRC Updates- Summer Challenge!

Classroom Examples and Tutorials needed

Here’s the challenge: Before Summer 2 ends-visit GDRC and add one example of student work and one resource: a tutorial, web link, assignment tips, etc., for a class that you teach.

The threads are set up for each class by week and by assignments. So all you have to do is post your student work example and tutorial to the appropriate thread. Be sure to have the EDMC student artwork release form for any student work that you post.

While you’re there, check out the tutorials, tips, and other resources for the classes you teach. The resources in GDRC are there for you- to make your teaching life easier. So pick out something you can use and add it to your classroom. AIO instructors come from varied art and design backgrounds, knowledge and experience. By pooling our resources., we’ll all benefit! NW

 

Profiles

Robin Masi - Faculty, Graphic Design

The Witness Project 2007: New Work by Robin Masi

There are occasions in life when being a witness to certain events is the only role one can inhabit. Although a role of seeming inaction, it can be a very powerful and comforting one in the presence and silence that is often conveyed. Whether one is a witness to a global catastrophe or a personal tragedy, being a witness can be a role of stillness, meaning and hope.

The Witness Project began in 2001 as a response to what I had experienced after visiting Ground Zero in New York City, six times from 2001 – 2004. Being at Ground Zero, one experiences humanity at its absolute worst and its absolute best. The goal was to portray the duality of tragedy and hope for the viewer who may have been unable to see the site in person. Large-scale charcoal drawings depicting the compelling architecture surrounding the perimeter of the site that remained after the pile had been removed; conceptual costumes from recycled garments; interviews with a priest who performed ministry, volunteers, neighbors and rescue workers; and original sound and music created by musician Ken Field were presented. At the end of the exhibit the interactive piece, Transfiguration, was provided for the viewer to offer a remembrance or milagro  related to the events around that time or for their own personal offering or hope. The Witness Project has been on exhibit five times since 2002 and, to date, there are over 500 milagros pinned on the piece.

The Witness Project: 2007 is a continuation of the exploration of what it means to be a witness both as a citizen and as an individual. The current exhibition has several pieces from the original series including St. Paul’s Chapel, Transfiguration, St. Paul’s Healing Garment and Vestment, James Martin, CSJ.
The new work is based on a personal exploration into the role presented in works that reference Michelangelo’s Pieta, the white grid, and organic form. The white grid is used as a reference to the abstract ideal of beauty presented in the writings of Plato who used the principles of geometry to illustrate this concept.  Plato’s definition of beauty speaks to an essence or perfect ideal that exists for all of us to access in our own way; the manifestations of which are simply different facets of divine perfection.

The illustrated book Dad, The Pieta and Me and the visual work referencing the Pieta is based on a memory of first seeing the statue with my father, Joseph Masi, at St. Peter’s Cathedral in 1967, to whom this show is dedicated.

 

Robin Masi is an artist and a writer. She graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University with a BFA and received her MFA from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. She just graduated from Harvard Graduate School of Education's Arts in Education Program. She has exhibited her conceptual costumes, abstract figurative paintings and charcoals in exhibitions in New England, California, Washington D.C. and New York. Her play, Vanishing Point, has been performed in Rome and New York. Masi's current project include a site-specific installation entitled The Witness Project exhibited at the Fitchburg Museum of Art in September, 2003 and at the Carney Gallery,  Regis College, in September, 2004.

The Witness Project includes large-scale panoramic black-and-white charcoal drawings recreating the buildings at the perimeter of the World Trade Center site in a 360 degree view, conceptual costumes, and sound. The conceptual costumes include previously worn wedding gowns, a priest’s vestment and men's vests. These have been collaged with photographs, text from interviews, and line drawings of the buildings. Graphic material includes newspaper headlines, photographs, and interview transcripts. The sound component of the installation includes original music composed by Ken Field avant-garde composer and musician, interspersed with interviews with New Yorkers, including a family who lives in the neighborhood, a Jesuit priest who ministered to the rescue workers and a St. Paul’s Chapel volunteer and representative. One of the goals of the project was to convey the physicality of the site for those who would never get to see it at the time it depicts (January – June, 2002). In addition, is the exploration of the duality that exists when such catastrophe occurs: namely, the outpouring of positive experiences emerging from such a horrific and tragic event. It is this duality that is at the core of the project.

Masi has exhibited her current series of 2D mixed-media drawings and conceptual costumes. In 2001, her work was accepted into several juried exhibitions: Red, curated by Harry Cooper, Associate Curator of Modern Art at Harvard University Art Museums; Beauty, curated by Elaine Scary, Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value, Harvard University; and in the national juried show  New Art 2001 at the Kingston Gallery, Boston, curated by Bill Arning of the MIT List Visual Arts Center. She was also featured in the Tufts Alumni/ae Juried Exhibition and was part of a three-woman at University Place Gallery.Recently, a piece from the project was accepted into the Biennial Drawing ShowMills Gallery, Boston.

In 2002 Masi’s work was on view at the National Prize Show, curated by Lisa Dennison, Chief Curator of the Guggenheim Museum; and The Empress’s New Clothes, curated by Kathy Bitetti, Executive Director of the Artist’s Foundation. During fall of 2002, Masi was part of three 911 memorial art exhibits including:  Artists Respond to 911, Fitchburg Art Museum; Paradox, Artists and 911, Somerville Arts Museum, and The 911 Exhibition, Fulton Street Gallery, Troy, N.Y.

Masi has produced, written and designed costumes for Vanishing Point: Scenes from the Life of Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Vanishing Point was performed in Rome at the Palazzio Venezia with the Gentileschi paintings as a backdrop in December, 2001. The piece was also performed in April, 2002 in New York at the Italian Cultural Institute. The performances have been held as costumed staged readings in both the Italian and American languages.

In 1993 Masi co-founded The Varo Registry of Women Artists, a virtual gallery for contemporary international women artists (http://www.varoregistry.com). The Varo Registry is the recipient of the BBC Web Education Guide and the American Library Association's 1997 Best of the Web awards.

She also works as a consultant representing children and youth placed with the Department of Social Services with the Educational Surrogate Parent program through the Massachusetts Department of Education. Masi has taught foundation, life drawing, illustration, and painting at several different colleges including the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, UMass Lowell, Northeastern University, Regis College and is a fulltime graphic design faculty member with the Art Institute of Pittsburgh .

http://www.varoregistry.com/masi/witness
robinmasi@comcast.net
http://www.varoregistry.com/masi/

 

Faculty Workshops

These workshops are very helpful, cover a wide range of topics, and are required for your PPAR. Here are some dates - but keep your eyes peeled for emails listing topics, presenters, and new dates. All times are Eastern Standard Time.

Aug 28 1:00p Jeff Davis: Topic= E College tips and tricks

Sept 4 10:00 am David Lyons: Repeat Topic: Video in the classroom

Sept 5 3:00pm Tammy Lockett: Initial Course Setup for a New Course

Sept 12 10:00am Elizabeth: Engaging the Student in the Virtual Classroom

Sept 17 2:00 pm Catherine: Things Every Online Student Ought to Know

for more information on workshops contact Lori Trujillo-Cole lcole@aii.edu

 

Errata

In the Summer II course set up materials it currently (incorrectly) says:

Step 4: Initialize the "Student Lounge", "Ask the Professor", and "Please Read" threads

The course designers have created three Content Items under the "Course Home" unit: "Student Lounge", "Ask the Professor", and "Please Read".  These threads are empty and must be initialized by adding a topic to which students can reply.  We'll illustrate the process for the "Student Lounge" item.

• Enter Author mode by clicking the yellow "Author" tab at the upper left
• Open the "Student Lounge" content item under the "Course Home" unit
• Click "Add New Topic".  Set up a thread entitled "Post here", add a short message, and click "Add Topic".  When your students click the "Student Lounge" link in the left margin, they will see "Post Here", and a link to which they can reply with their questions.
• Repeat this procedure for the "Ask the Professor", and "Please Read" threads, which should also be posted under "Course Home".

It should read something like this (Please make a note of this)

Step 4: Initialize the "Student Lounge", "Ask the Professor", and "Please Read" threads

The course designers have created three Content Items under the "Course Home" unit: "Student Lounge", "Ask the Professor", and "Please Read".  These threads are empty and must be initialized by adding a topic to which students can reply.  We'll illustrate the process for the "Student Lounge" item.

• Enter Course mode by clicking the “Course” tab at the upper left
• Open the "Student Lounge" content item under the "Course Home" unit
  
• Click "Respond".  Enter the first post   with a short message like “this is a place for off-topic discussion”, and click "Post".  When your students click the "Student Lounge" link in the left margin, they will see your message and understand where to post and what the thread is for.
• Repeat this procedure for the "Ask the Professor", and "Please Read" threads, which should also be posted under "Course Home".
  
  

Articles/books

Awesome article in Summer 2007 CMYK Magazine!

Kyle Fletcher, a student at University of Wisconsin - Stout was assigned to write an annual report for his informational design course. The interesting part is that he wrote it for his promotional piece which, in turn, landed him a job while finishing college. He now has a few prospects for employment after school.

When Fletcher first began writing the annual report, his instructor stated that it was "lacking a cohesive narrative." After doodling and dreaming of one day being able to afford a Herman Miller chair his idea was born. He created sketches of all the chairs he has sat in while in high school through his bachelors as well as the sought out Miller chair. The repeated chairs, all doned with silly names like "Disagreeable Sacrifice and Artificial Mitigation Excalibur," were placed throughout the report and finally added the cohesive narrative needed to pull off the project successfully. He also linked this idea of his chairs with the fact, as he stated, "Designers spend a lot of time in chairs." Along with the funky imagery he created, the assignment also demanded a client page and financial section complete with "at least 5 graphs and charts."

Now, you may be asking, "why would this be interesting to AIO faculty?" This may be a good way for students to create a promotional piece towards the end of their Bachelors here at AIO. Not only would they be creating a mult-page document but it would show their software skills in the main Adobe products they learn and utilize during their Associates or Bachelors. This is an idea, I think, is worth investigating for a future project for graphic design students.

Here is a link to Fletchers annual report: http://www.kylefletcher.com/annual/A1.htmMM

nea_late_work.html Two sides of allowing (or not) Late work - From the National Eduation Association.

tokujinyoshioka Have 3 million straws handy? Tokujin Yoshioka did an installation for a showroom devised for the introduction of the Panna chair. JP

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