The "Before" or "After" Narrative Digital Art Project!

Computer Graphics Class explored narrative and sequential art in a collaborative project with another high school. After creating and exchanging images with students at the neighboring school, each student interpreted the story behind their given image, then created a "before" or "after" image to expand and illustrate their original interpretation. The resulting images were then shared with the original artist.

View Artwork

Websites Made to Order

Multimedia Presentations Class recently created restaurant websites using online design tools. The websites were assessed on content, organization, navigation, aesthetics, and technical design. Seniors were given the option to create a website for their senior project. Click on the thumbnails below to view each site:

iPad: A New Way to Draw

Drawing students explore the truly unique capability of the iPad through the use of their fingers to directly manipulate their portrait drawings. Drawcast, a free application for the iPad, features color picker, brushes, translucence, and zooming.

A Digital Mindscape

Open Project in a New Window

A "Digital Mindscape" is a collaborative Computer Graphics project. The project involves a modern day twist on a creative exercise invented by surrealist artists in the 1920's.

In the 1920's version of the exercise, an artist would draw an image on a piece of paper, then folded it to hide the drawing. The paper would be passed on to the next artist to continue the drawing, and so on. Each artist added to the drawing without viewing what the previous artist had drawn. After several panels were completed, the entire drawing was unfolded to reveal an unexpected result. Artists would play this "game" to inspire creativity, originality, and collaboration.

Our modern day version involves the use of Adobe Photoshop photo editing software. Students create a 6"X6" digital panel, crop one inch from the edge and send the cropped piece to another student. The student expands the panel and continues the design using photographs and photo retouching tools within the Adobe Photoshop program. The process is then repeated.

In all, sixteen students created five panels each, for a total of 80 panels, resulting in a work of art that is 33 feet long, connecting end-to-end to create a 360° work of art.

The challenge for each student was to work within a strict timeframe (one class period per panel) and be creative. Students must also consider Photoshop techniques that they have learned throughout the semester - resolution, photo repair and clone tools, how to copy layers, flip, rotate, etc. This was an activity that challenged students to think critically and solve visual problems.

Artists from Two High Schools Collaborate on Graphic Design Project

The "Landscape of the Mind" was a collaborative art project between the computer graphics classes at Newark High School and Naperville Central High School.

This graphic design project involved the use of Adobe Photoshop, email, and iChat video conferencing software. Students created a digital panel, cropped the edge and emailed the cropped piece to their partner at the collaborating school. The partner expanded the panel and continued the design using photographs and photo retouching tools within the Adobe Photoshop program. In turn, the panel was cropped and emailed back to the original artist and the entire process was repeated.

Upon completion of the project, students discussed the project and critiqued their results through a video conference. Students discussed the role of technology in creating distant collaborative opportunities. Read more...

Design Class Meets Production Artist

Special thanks to Mr. Grodek for video conferencing with our class! Mr. Grodek, a production artist for Sherry Matthews; an advocacy marketing corporation for non-profit agencies, joined us from Texas through iChat software. Mr. Grodek answered questions posed by Design students regarding his schooling and career. A new feature this year was the ability for our Mr. Grodek to view student work in real time. Mr. Grodek was able to view, question, and provide immediate feedback on each students' work. Pictured below are still images from the video conference:

Reaching Out to Experts in the Field

On April 8th, Mr. Blidy’s computer graphics class used web conferencing to converse about various works of art they had produced. The expert they contacted was Amy Murphy, a former art director for Warner Bros. During her time with Warner Brothers, she helped in the production of television shows such as The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Right now she is a teacher at Naperville Central High School.

The Computer Graphics Class had the opportunity to interview her and ask her various questions about her career and creations. Then she observed the classes’ work and commented on it. What made this interview different was that instead of having the video of the interview projected on a big screen, the video was confined to the screen of a laptop computer. The students converged around the computer and the result was a much more personal and individual web conferencing experience.

In the future, the use of web conferencing will only increase and has so far been very helpful for many classes at Newark High School.

Article written by Stuart Warpinski

National Expert “Visits” the Art Room

Mr. Blidy's Multimedia Class has recently had the opportunity to have a video conference with Mr. Paul Ewen from New York. He is a writer, editor, and producer of public service commercials. He has been part of three Emmy Award winning broadcasts and has won a Promax Silver Award for his American Voice Campaign for MTV productions. He has published articles on editing including "The Essence of Editing: Much More Than Technical Aspects of a Program" in Student Filmmaker Magazine, June 2006.

The conference allowed the Multimedia Class to see and hear Mr. Ewen, who joined us from New York, using web cameras, video projectors, and iChat software. The video was projected to a large screen on the wall. The class was also able to watch some of his commercials, including "Vote For Something", "Global Warming", and "American Voice".

The class was able to ask him questions about his job, his commericals, and his creativity. "In all, this experience was very rewarding for NCHS students. It gave students a chance to meet and talk with an "outside expert" in the field" said Mr. Blidy. Prior to the interview, students created public service commericals of their own that Mr. Blidy posted on the school's web site for Mr. Ewen to view. During the interview, Mr. Ewen was able to provide valuable feedback about the student made commericals.