The Art Corner studio is now offering a digital art program,
In the modern era, digitally-rendered artwork is more marketable because of its efficiency, quality, and ease of modification. Although The Art Corner is dedicated to offering our students powerful foundation abilities in drawing on paper and canvas, digital artwork in painting, graphic design and photo editing is a valuable skill to a variety of career industries, including advertising, entertainment, and technology. In fact, having skills in digital design can benefit non-artistic majors as well. For example, 2D typographic design in the form of creating effective custom resumes, websites, and flyers is a compelling skill set for any future employee to have. Being able to present your professional material in an organized and aesthetically-pleasing manner enables a person to stand out professionally. Regardless of your profession, a strong digital skillset makes your child a more valuable employee.
In this course, we will tailor our material to each student’s needs, as this course is not a linear lecture. Beginners will be supervised in drawing still objects or simple forms like apples, pears, eyes, etc. More advanced students will be taught how to transfer their ideas and original concepts to sketch, line, and colored steps. We recommend your enrolled to be in middle school (6th grade, 11-12 years old) at least, as this is the age that children can grasp software terms and use computing devices in a proficient manner. In addition, if students are in 6th grade, we recommend that they already understand drawing fundamentals, as drawing digitally depends strongly on foundation drawing abilities with pencil and paper.
The first series of projects
With these students, we plan to execute a digital still life. You have seen many of our students create still lives (vases, flowers, fruit) on paper with colored pencils, pastels, and oil color, and we want them to create the same type of image, but using software with a graphics tablet. For this project, we want students to be accustomed to drawing with a tablet, and comprehend software functions like navigation, zoom, history, crop, and color correction.
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The second project
We want the students to try creating a portrait of a face. Shown above is a picture of the steps we will teach them to follow in order to capture the subtle nuance of skin color. This is a difficult project for many, as capturing the likeness of a face requires multiple corrections.
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The third and optional project
We want students to work on a conceptual illustration. Instead of copying a photograph or something from real life, we will teach them to sketch an original idea in the form of a comic, cartoon, or surrealist image. What we want to accomplish with this final project is for the students to grasp how to draw inspiration from multiple sources, and transfer a sketch on paper to a digital layer. By this time, students should feel comfortable with the digital interface.
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Future projects may involve less painting, and more graphic design concepts such as typography (font usage), layout design for printed media (posters, advertisements) using vector design software such as Adobe Illustrator and Affinity Design. We want to teach students to write and execute mock advertising campaigns and posters for musicians. Though working with fonts may seem easier than rendering a painting, it must be said that effective graphic design takes a high level of planning and forethought. Remember, that many people can be taught to copy artwork or still lives, but creating new content is a different exercise of the mind. In addition to font & typography, We will push students to utilize their photography. With basic photo-editing software and a camera phone, we will also teach them basic photography and photo-manipulation concepts.
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In case you are unsure of what type of artwork can be created digitally, here are several links from top digital artists and designers for you to view. These works range from conceptual artwork for entertainment media (video games, movies, TV) to poster designs for advertising companies.
100 Artworks from the top digital artists Digital artwork from 5 inspiring artists 100 Typographic posters Concept art: pinterest group |
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The materials needed in order to take part of this program are:
I Pad :
AMAZON- Wacom Intuos Pen $89.95
Imaging software:
The Wacom tablet we mentioned above will include some entry-level software bundled with your purchase. Here is a list of software you can download to your own computer.
Artrage 4- Demo/lite version FREE with Wacom tablet, 49.95 without tablet.
Photoshop CC - 9.99/month, industry standard imaging software. Older versions of this software will work.
Corel Painter- Industry standard illustration software, light version included in some tablet bundles, full version about $429.
Autodesk Sketchbook- A FREE version is available on the Mac App store. Paid version is about $67.
Autodesk Pixlr- FREE basic photography software available on Mac App store.
Mischief- Paid drawing software, free trial version available.
FireAlpaca- FREE drawing/painting software
I Pad :
- IPad Apple pencil, software: procreate
- Computing device: A Macintosh computer is preferred as an industry standard for the stability of its operating system, but a Windows computer is sufficient. A laptop is the best choice, but tablet computers (Microsoft Surface, iPad Pro) can work as well. Because most of our students own their own computers, you will likely not need to purchase a new machine.
- Graphics tablet:
A graphics tablet is an input device similar to a mouse, but with a pen and slate, to replicate the motion of drawing on paper or canvas. The most well-known brand of graphic tablets is Wacom. For your child’s purposes, a small entry level tablet is enough for them to learn the skills needed. Below is a link to the Wacom Intuos Pen (89.95 before taxes) which is available on Amazon, as well as in Best Buy stores. We have also included a link to a short video we recorded while drawing with this tablet, to demonstrate how it works.
AMAZON- Wacom Intuos Pen $89.95
Imaging software:
The Wacom tablet we mentioned above will include some entry-level software bundled with your purchase. Here is a list of software you can download to your own computer.
Artrage 4- Demo/lite version FREE with Wacom tablet, 49.95 without tablet.
Photoshop CC - 9.99/month, industry standard imaging software. Older versions of this software will work.
Corel Painter- Industry standard illustration software, light version included in some tablet bundles, full version about $429.
Autodesk Sketchbook- A FREE version is available on the Mac App store. Paid version is about $67.
Autodesk Pixlr- FREE basic photography software available on Mac App store.
Mischief- Paid drawing software, free trial version available.
FireAlpaca- FREE drawing/painting software
