Still life painting in Photoshop
This week I am writing about a way Photoshop could be used in the classroom. When I was searching around on the Internet I found some tutorials that showed how to "paint" portraits in Photoshop. I thought it was it was really interesting to watch people's technique and amazing that they could make such realistic paintings using Photoshop.
I started thinking that it could be fun to have the students make a Photoshop portrait of themselves after watching a YouTube video and see how well they could replicate what the artist was doing. But then I realized that this might be way too time consuming and frustrating. Even for students that are seniors in high school. I kept searching around on YouTube for Photoshop tutorials and eventually found an example that taught how to paint a still life. This seemed like a way more practical assignment. The students could bring some small objects from home and set them up in an interesting arrangement next to their computer. Then they could "paint" what they see. I think this would be a fun assignment because the students could paint their objects in whatever style they find most interesting. They wouldn't have to make it realistic. They could play around with the different brushes and textures and see what they can make of it.
One of the only problems I could see with this project is that some of the kids might not be as skilled with Photoshop as they would like to be and therefore get frustrated with the whole process. One way that could be avoided would be to do the assignment with older students like seniors in high school. I feel like they would be far less nervous about how it is turning out and way more excited about seeing what they could accomplish with the software. Another problem might be not having enough computers with Photoshop in the classroom. The assignment would only be able to be done in a classroom if there were enough computers for each student.
I think this would be a great way to get students to experiment and explore Photoshop.
Here's an example of still life painting on Photoshop
Citation:
Daevasmodeus. "Still Life Sketch in Photoshop - Derek LeBrun - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 23 June 2009. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
This would be a interesting exercise to try with a class. If you were doing a drawing section in an art class it would be great to include a digital drawing section. I think you could give them a class period to demo the photoshop brushes and to let them experiment then the next class period start them on a still life.