May . . . the month of testing. AP testing begins this week and continues through next. After that we have STAR testing. My least favorite part of the US education system . . . testing.

I am believer that:

“One must learn by doing the thing. For though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.” ~Sophocles

The test, if you want to call it that, in the Mac Lab is to improve your own skills; to make better artwork at the end of the year than you could have at the beginning of the year. The test is against yourself. Some of you have failed. Others have flourished. In the second semester you have largely been in control of your own learning. Many of you have flourished others have wasted the opportunity. You have nobody to blame but yourself if you do not have the grade that you desire. There is about a month to change course if you so desire. The challenge is yours alone.

We will be having a final project in here for you to demonstrate your mastery of the Elements and Principles of Design. More information in the coming weeks.

Artwork courtesy of Clayton A. One of the first Cinema 4D projects.

New Media

Finish up your Vector Illustrations. Was it easier this time? It should be. Think back at how hard the Pen Tool was the first time and look at what you can do with it now. Many of you are already exerts and ahead of many college graduates in graphic design.

When you finish your Vector Illustration (don’t forget to bring into Photoshop and to put on the Web), continue on the To Do List. You will be exploring Photoshop next.

We just had Every 15 Minutes. Prom is coming up and there is going to be pressure from a boyfriend, peers, etc. to do things that you may not want to do. You may think these people have your best interest at heart; that they are your friends. You are responsible for your actions. Make good choices.

That goes for school, too. The last progress reports go out this week. Notices are going out to Seniors for non-grad/possible non-grad status. Some of you may not be were you want to be grade wise. You may not have made the best choices up to this point, but there is nobody else to blame. It is up to you now. Your mom can’t do it for you.

New Media

You get the freedom to choose what you are going to do for your Vector Illustration. However, make sure you choose something that will challenge you. The difficulty of what you pen tool will be factored into your grade.

What does Jose Marti mean? How does it affect your time in the Mac Lab or you in general? Some of you are doing amazing work. You have been giving the freedom to explore projects of your own choosing and are pushing yourself and learning new concepts. I am seeing some of the best Photoshop work to ever come out of the Mac Lab.

However, an equal amount of you are not holding up your end of the bargain. This freedom to choose the projects and software that you want to work on is a privilege. I will be grading not only on the quality of the work, but the challenge.

I want you try something “hard”. It is not like there is going to be a test on it. If  you don’t understand something, ask me. I’ll help you figure it out. The “harder” stuff usually means cooler stuff. This class is an elective. You had an interest in digital arts, learning about Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. Take full advantage of the opportunity while you are here. A lot of people work through the tutorials on sites like PSD Tuts for fun. You get a couple hours every week to do it and get credit for it. Sounds like a good deal.

Finish up Surrealistic Me. Have fun with it be creative. Exaggerate.

New Media

When choosing the image for your next Vector Illustration, choose something challenging. If it is too easy, like Hello Kitty, that will factor heavily into your grade. Choose a person, a car, a plane, etc. It is up to you, but make sure it is not just simple shapes. Also, if choosing an image from Google Images make sure to pick Larger than … 4MP. That way the picture will be less blurry when you zoom in.

It should be easier the second time around. I will be grading tougher than on the Self Portrait because you should have the basics down and can focus more on adding details.

What is surrealism?

According to the major spokesman of the movement, the poet and critic André Breton, who published “The Surrealist Manifesto” in 1924, Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in “an absolute reality, a surreality.”

Think about your dreams. Think about the blurred line between reality and fantasy; the blurred line between thee conscious and unconscious realms of experience. What do your dreams say about you?

Think about your dreams. Explore prominent surrealistic artists and their work. Create a Surrealistic Me about your life, dreams, culture, and community.

Congratulations to Sydney D for winning 2nd place in Graphic Design at the 1st Annual Orange County Digital Media Arts Showcase. Her entry “Summer Skin” is this week’s featured image.

New Media

“YOU FOOL, DWARVES EAT ONLY COAL! NOW YOU’VE MADE HIM *REALLY* MAD!!
(please do not feed the dwarves)”

Today you are going to embark on an Adventure. This will be the one time that you will not only be allowed to ply a game in class, but will be REQUIRED to play a game.

Adventure was the first computer adventure game. Will Crowther was the original programmer and wrote the original version of the game with 700 lines of code in Fortran. It was played on old computer mainframes.

Your task today is to launch Adventure from the Applications folder and play. You are NOT going to work on any other assignments. The high score in each period will earn 60 minutes of extra credit in participation. HINT: Take out a blank piece of paper and draw yourself map as you go along. You may restart the game as many times as you like.

Watch these intro tutorials (courtesy of Mike Skocko) before starting your adventure: 01 | 02. Adventure map.

Working on commercials, developing apps, and launching web sites for clients is every day work for multimedia companies. The same is true for St. Charles Parish company StudioVictus, with one notable exception — its four owners are all high school students who are also juggling classes, homework and just being teenagers.

A video entry about their company recently earned Austin Bergeron, Matt Duhe, Joe Solito and Joshua Stoker second place in the Next Teen Tycoon, a national teen entrepreneurship contest.

With the $2,000 prize money, the boys are planning to reinvest in their company by purchasing video equipment, lighting for photography, business cards and paying the fees needed to become a limited liability company. Read the rest of the article here.

What are you doing to achieve your dreams? Have you started a company? Are you making money doing something you love? Why not? What makes these four students from Louisiana different (or better) than you?

Thursday Update

TED Talk: Thomas Suarez: A 12 Year Old App Developer. A middle school student already has a head start on his dreams. What are you doing to achieve your dreams? What would you tell children about pursuing their Dreams and Changing the World? Write a one paragraph response on your blog.

Entries for the Digital Media Arts Showcase can be seen here: Competition Galleries.

Extra Credit Opportunity

The 1st Annual Orange County STEM and Digital Media Arts Showcase is happening at the OC Fair Grounds April 13-15. On Sunday, April 15th, is the Digital Media Arts day and competition.

Keynote speakers include: Trevor Rothman, Game Designer & Developer for World of Warcraft at Bizzard, and Stephen Reis, Storyboard Artist and Animator for the Simpsons.

Earn two hours of extra credit in participation for attending. Must have a photo of yourself with one of the exhibits.

New Media

This is the final week before Spring Break. I expect your Vector Self Portraits to be done by the end of the week. That includes Enhancing in Photoshop, putting on your Website, and turning into my dropbox.

For those of you have finished. Continued working through the To Do List.

Thursday Update

TED Talk: Thomas Suarez: A 12 Year Old App Developer. A middle school student already has a head start on his dreams. What are you doing to achieve your dreams? What would you tell children about pursuing their Dreams and Changing the World? Write a one paragraph response on your blog.

We have a little over one quarter left in the Mac Lab this year. What great things have you yet to discover?

We should have Cinema4D installed after Sprig Break for those who are interested in exploring 3D Graphics. If you are interested in Motion graphics, we also have Adobe After Effects. I have linked to some tutorials for After Effects on the Tutorials page. I don’t have a lot of experience with it, but you can explore and I will help best I can. What are some of the other Adobe programs that we we have? What do they do? Why not find out?

**Don’t forget to turn your Resume into my dropbox this week. **Make sure to Save As . . . Word 97-2000. 

Many of you are graduating Seniors. Up until now the types of jobs most of you have applied for only required a job application and maybe some references. However, once you move beyond high school and apply for scholarships or jobs in a career field (outside of retail) they will often require a resume.

Most people who apply for a job don’t even get interviewed. They are weeded out based on their resume. Large companies have software that scan resumes for keywords. If you don’t have those keywords, your application is kicked out. If you make past the initial computer scan phase, then somebody from HR will look through the resumes. This is were having proper design and no grammatical or spelling mistakes are crucial. With hundreds (or even thousands of people) applying for a position, any simple mistake can throw you out of the running.

Following the discussion in class, you will be creating your own Resume. Follow my tutorials to create a “base template” and personalize it from there.

Thursday Update

Your Resume has 6 Seconds to get a Job

Digital Media Arts Showcase

For those of you selected to showcase your designs at the Digital Media Arts Showcase you need to fill out: Informational Flyer | Artist Statement | Media Release.

New Media

Are you a Jedi Master of the pen tool? Hopefully you took the pen tool exercises seriously and have now mastered the art of bezier curves. If not, the Vector Self Portrait project is going to be really tough. The Vector Self Portrait project is the hardest project we do in this class. Don’t make it harder by rushing through the pen tool exercises.

Remember, to get better than a “C” on your self portrait, you are going to have to do more than just tracing with the pen tool. You can’t have any gaps. It has to be recognizable as you. You must have added detail like shadowing, gradients, texture, etc.

Are you going to be the next student on the Wall of Fame?

Many of you have embraced the culture of the Mac Lab and have taken ownership of your own learning. You understand that learning can be fun and that you need to continue to learn new techniques to make your ideas to come to life. Learning something new (whether it is in Photoshop, Illustrator, or life) should be exciting, not a burden.

For the rest of you, why are you here? This is an elective. And beyond that, you get more freedom to choose what you are going to work on than any other class. Yet, you still refuse to take ownership of your learning. Why would you choose to be ignorant? Since when is knowledge a bad thing? You chose to be in this class, so why not choose to take advantage of it? Bringing your own ideas to life should be fun.

Independent Projects

Have you explored the 3rd Party tutorials for whichever program you have chosen to work in? Look under Resources ==> Tutorials and click on an application link. I proved plenty of resources. In addition, use Google. There are thousands of free resources.

What I want you to do going forward on your Independent Projects is to make the projects your own. Go beyond the tutorial. Use your own images. Or take the finished project and make it part of a bigger project. Don’t just simply finish the tutorial and be done. Even do something as simple as add a quote and make it into an inspirational poster.

New Media

The Self Portrait Project is the most challenging project in the class. Mastering the Pen Tool isn’t easy, but you will be able to do amazing projects once you have it down.

It is important to start with a high resolution photo of yourself. Photo Booth, Facebook, etc. are low res and you won’t be able to see the detail needed when zoomed in. Starting with a solid foundation (good quality picture and setting up your base layers in the Setting the Stage tutorial) is key. It will be frustrating at first. Take your time.

Are you you going to be the first this semester to make the Wall of Fame?

Many of you have not been holding up your end of the bargain. We started poster design during the 1st semester and are now 4.5 weeks into the 2nd semester and many of you are still not done. I will grade one more time tonight. If you don’t want a progress report I’d suggest having your three posters up along with an Artsist Statement for each. I created a tutorial for how to properly format your Artist Statement. Also, a quick tutorial on Maintaining a Morgue File.

New Media

Epic Fail. Most of you have chosen to earn a progress report for the first 4.5 weeks. Half of your grade is your Website with your FIVE personal logos. If you do not want an “F” or a “D” on your progress report I highly suggest having your Website completed and your five personal logos uploaded. Here is an example from Emily V.

Tuesday Update

Continue to work your way through the To Do List. Next up is the hardest project in the class: The Pen Tool. The Pen Tool requires mastery to be successful. The Pen Tool exercises are not the type of exercises to rush through just to get done. You are expected to do the exercises multiple times so that you can use the Pen Tool without watching the tutorials. If you don’t, you will struggle on the Vector Self Portrait project.

Yoda: Only what you take with you.” ~ Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

The past couple of weeks we have been talking about what it takes to be successful. In order for something to have value, it has be rare. If you want somebody to value your work, you have to have something others don’t have.

Piggybacking on that theme, lets talk about why you are in this class. All of my classes are electives. You CHOOSE to take them. So, why did you take the class? Some of you may be in here against your will because there was nowhere else to go. Either way you are in here now. You have a choice do you want to Pass or Fail? Or even, do you want an “A” or not? The choice is yours.

If you choose to look at this class as WORK instead of fun, you are looking at it wrong. Especially in the second semester. You have a lot of freedom. Freedom to choose which program you are working in, freedom to chose what project you are working on, etc. How many other classes do you get that much choice? The only caveat is that I have expectations and whatever you choose to work on put effort into it. Do the best job you can and make your work look professional.

New Media

The 4.5 Week Progress Report is coming up (like this week!!!). Your grade will be based on participation,portfolio website, and logos. By Friday, you should have finished  your Personal Logos and Setting Up Your Website.

If you can’t access your site you either didn’t fill out the Mac Lab Blog Signup form like you were supposed to (and have now lost 60 points in participation) or you filled out the form incorrectly. Probably your e-mail was wrong. Pay attention to the directions.