mmsmedialab
Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at 05:42PM 6th period students created two pieces this week. The first was a Halloween-themed silhouette piece featuring a 6-step value scale or color scale. This activity required students to use layers, pencil tool and choose colors effectively. For an extra challenge, students were encouraged to use the Liquify warping tool to give the background some additional texture.
Friday, March 28, 2014 at 02:34AM 
In honor of our staff, next week is MMS Staff Appreciation week. To get in on the fun, 1st and 2nd period students are working on a project that they will give to their favorite teacher. Students chose 20 words to describe their favorite staff member and then use those words to create letterforms of that staff member's name.
Students are nearing the end of their "Versus" activity, in which they create shapes and space with two digital collages. The two sides of the piece represent two different ideas (fire vs. ice; sweet vs. sour; etc.)
This group is wrapping up their partner assignment in which they are attempting to recreate the look and feel of one of the first-ever animated sequences, the 1906 film by J. Stuart Blackton, "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" (original below).
Since we've had a hard time getting syllabi and other early assignments turned in, we did not get on computers again this week. Hopefully we'll be on them on Monday. In lieu of computer work, 6th period students have been exploring line and value through a series of assignments such as making a micrographic self-portrait and their own zentangle hand outline.
Friday, February 28, 2014 at 10:30AM 
1st and 2nd Period Graphic Design have been working on a job for a real-life client, our school librarian Ms. Brock! Students are working in teams to create promotional items for the Pacific Northwest Library Association's annual readers' choice awards. Students are making posters, brochures or bookmarks featuring the nominees. This week, the teams mostly focused on pre-work: researching, sketching and brainstorming.
4th and 6th Period Graphic Design students have been working on completing their Barry McGee-inspired artworks. On one side of the paper, students created a geometric pattern using analogous colors. On the other side, they created a very graphical portrait, using a complementary color scheme.
Students worked hard to complete their rotocoping project. Almost all students reached their goal of 100 completed frames.
Thursday, February 13, 2014 at 01:52PM In honor of Valentine's Day, we took a detour from our usual design work to focus on the subject of love. Students watched a brief video about paper cut artist Rob Ryan, then trying to emulate his aesthetic, created original digital "paper cut" art in Photoshop. Visit the full gallery HERE.
Handmade Portraits: Rob Ryan from Etsy on Vimeo.
As an introduction to Photoshop Elements and to many of the tools we'll be using on our personal portrait assignments, we created a digital initial artwork and colored them using a complementary color scheme.
As a Valentine's Day challenge, students worked as a team to develop the animated gif below. Students were tasked with organizing themselves and dividing up the work to make sure each student completed 4 frames of the sequence. While the class was not ultimately successful in meeting this challenge, they all said they learned for the future how best to organize themselves to complete a team task.
