Dawn\\\'s Brain - The adventures of a high school Details

Teaching basic computer skills
2008-07-29 01:34:00
I learned last year that many of my students come to my design classes with little experience in working with computers. This year, I’ll be giving them a crash course on computer skills basics. I hope they’ll be excited with their newfound power. Some of the text if specific to our lab, but most of [...] ...

Color schemes a la nudibranchs
2008-07-28 12:20:33
Nudibranchs are kind of like sea slugs. Unlike their bland land-lubber cousins, nudibranchs can be very vividly colored. Colourlovers.com has a nice set of photos of nudibranchs and their corresponding color schemes (click on the color chart to get a page with the Hex and RGB numbers for each color). Copyright © 2008 Dawn's Brain - [...] ...

My New Syllabus in PowerPoint Format
2008-07-19 20:45:50
Taking an idea from a veteran teacher, I developed a PowerPoint presentation for my syllabus this coming year. The syllabus in written form is about 8 pages. Instead of printing a copy for every student, I have it on the class website for reference. On the first day of school, I’m going to show the syllabus [...] ...

Classroom Posters for Photoshop CS3, Illustrator CS3 and Dreamweaver MX 2004
2008-07-19 19:52:01
I made some interface posters of the software I teach: Photoshop CS3, Illustrator CS3 and Dreamweaver MX 2004. I thought I’d share them here. The originals are 32″ across by 24″ down. I’ll be using our large-format color printer at the school to print them and then I’ll find a laminator somewhere. These PDFs are letter [...] ...

Idea for the Coming Year: Vocabulary and Response
2008-07-12 21:39:15
I just purchased a copy of Design Language by Tim McCreight. Check out the content sample. I got a bolt of inspiration stemming from the content of this book and the nature of discussion question posed by my online graduate art teachers. This idea is in its rough infancy stage: Each student has a response notebook. He [...] ...

English too hard for students, principal says
2008-06-10 21:13:41
English too hard for students, principal says Sydney, Australia THE head of one of the nation’s elite private schools has questioned whether English should be compulsory for the senior years, saying the courses being taught are beyond the intellectual ability of most students. The headmaster of Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore) in North Sydney, Tim Wright, [...] ...

Random notes to self for next year
2008-05-16 00:05:43
PRESENTING THE SYLLABUS ON DAY ONE I saw somewhere during my credential program where a teacher broke his syllabus down into a PowerPoint presentation. I want to do that next year and assign a quiz/worksheet right after so that students are held accountable for the material that is vital to making the classroom livable. Having them [...] ...

Notes for next year’s syllabus: Cheating
2008-05-13 19:04:57
I have caught a surprising number of students cheating in both my graphic design and Web design classes. Students have found a variety of methods of accomplishing this. Some are really obvious and some not so, but they all rely on an assumption that I am not paying close attention. So this is a warning [...] ...

Designing a Magazine Cover
2008-05-09 01:47:52
I had some truly fantastic results from my recent Photoshop project. Students were to invent their own magazines and design the covers. I had them do thumbnail sketches first. However, many of the students did them last - so next time I will have a separate, earlier deadline for the thumbnails. Lesson details Gallery Copyright © 2008 Dawn's [...] ...

We’re Engaged!
2008-04-10 04:43:19
Copyright © 2008 Dawn's Brain - The adventures of a high school web design and graphic design teacher.. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact dawnsbrain@#gmail.com so we can take [...] ...

33 awesome body enhancement photoshop tutorials
2008-04-03 04:53:34
33 awesome body enhancement photoshop tutorials, from photoshoptalent.com. This is a great tutorial resource for students or professionals would to digitally tweak faces and bodily imperfections. The linked page is a collection of links, image previews and brief descriptions for all of these fine tutorials around the Web: Eyes Enhancing Iris Color Eye Shadow / Eyeliner Make eyelashes thicker Shadowy, [...] ...

Latest student work
2008-03-16 07:50:30
I’m working on my Master’s now, and time is short, so updates are much harder to make. I did want to pop in and link to my new Photoshop student gallery. This features work done by my graphic design students. I’ve just started uploading their files, and there are many many files. I hope to have [...] ...

Painting Step-By-Step: Vlady with Octopus Lips
2008-01-07 22:07:24
I’m trying to get into the habit of getting photographs along the way when I make art. Here’s a painting I’ve just begun, and the steps leading up to it. I’ll add more to this post as the painting progresses. I first mentioned a series I want to do - of portraits of my boyfriend [...] ...
Painting

I’m going to be in a group gallery show this month.
2008-01-04 02:08:44
I’ve mentioned Pompsicle here a few times. It’s a weekly figure-drawing studio in which the models are in costume. Now we’ve having an official gallery show, with a book proposed for late this year. Here’s the flier for the show (click on it for a larger image): ...
Gallery

Mark Jenkins: Street Installations
2008-01-02 22:29:14
Mark Jenkins: Street Installations Mark Jenkins has a Web site that does not give much information about himself, other than that he has had shows in many places from New York City to Warsaw. He does, however, provide a great number of photos of his provocative work. And I mean provocative in the sense of provoking [...] ...
Street

Streetsy.com - Daily Streetart Photography by Jake Dobkin
2008-01-01 22:18:54
Streetsy.com What’s this all about? Streetsy is a daily street art site. Our goal is to create the largest curated street art site on the web. Each day, I post 7-10 pictures of street art, and dozens of pictures get added to the Streetsy pool on Flickr by fellow streetart fans. Wait- what exactly is street art? Street art [...] ...
Photography

Photo Diary: Why cat owners should not leave pans of wet paint out.
2007-12-31 22:22:34
I found the culprit, Athena: Front left paw. ...
Cat Diary Paint Photo

A Christmas Gift for Educators
2007-12-21 21:30:45
I rarely post (or even forward) forwarded emails, but this is well-written and very recognizable to teachers. Unfortunately, I cannot find the source online: Have you heard about the next planned “Survivor” show? Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped into an elementary school classroom for 1 school year. The business people will be provided with [...] ...
Christmas Gift

CSS Cheat Sheet
2007-12-19 01:52:28
I looked around the Web for a while for a CSS Cheat Sheet to give to my students for tomorrow’s Web design final exam. I found lots of good ones, but none that were stripped down enough to work for beginners. So I made one. If you’re just learning or teaching CSS, I hope this [...] ...
Css Sheet

From My Sketchbook
2007-12-17 02:43:35
Actually, these sketches were done on note paper provided by my Press-A-Print trainers last week. Yes, I was still paying attention to the lectures. The high school has bought a whole Press-A-Print set up for the students to learn how to run a small business. It’s a great opportunity for them and should be a lot [...] ...
Sketchbook

Focus on Color and Texture Using Doodles
2007-12-02 19:02:31
The following assignment was inspired by a lesson in the book “Drawing for Older Children & Teens” by Mona Brookes. I first introduced my students to the art elements of color and texture. Then we briefly looked at the works of Joan Miro, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee for inspiration. PROJECT SUMMARY Focus: Color and [...] ...

Connecting Student Effort to Achievement
2007-12-02 00:58:23
I tried something new this week. It’s getting down to last few weeks of the semester. I have an depressingly high percentage of students who are failing my classes, especially Web design. I’m brainstorming like crazy to help them pull their grades up. My policy is that students can turn in missing work later in the [...] ...
Achievement Student

A Drawing from Last Year
2007-11-27 03:46:47
Here’s a drawing I did for my boyfriend for Valentine’s Day last year, which was about five weeks after we met. I already knew I was in love with him but did not tell him for a few months. This image was prompted by a visit we took to a huge Vietnamese supermarket on Chinese New [...] ...
Drawing

Cut paper illustrations
2007-11-21 19:48:52
The following assignment came from the book “Picture This: How Pictures Work” by Molly Bang. I first read the entire book to my student via slideshow, and quizzed them on the ten guidelines listed in the book. Then they did a cut paper assignment depicting “birds attacking a victim.” Finally, they completed the assignment [...] ...
Paper

Creative Test Answers
2007-11-21 17:57:10
Here are three snapshots from tests I gave in graphic design. The students were bright but stumped, and very, very creative. Click an image for a larger version: Copyright © 2007 Dawn's Brain - The adventures of a high school web design and graphic design teacher.. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are [...] ...
Creative

Some Sculpture I Done
2007-11-20 23:18:29
It’s been a while since I’ve posted any of my art here. I have been doing a little from time to time. I am now making some sculptures for Christmas presents (family and friends, stop looking at this post!) Here’s a run-down of what I’ve been making - and what Vlady made too! November 11th Vlady and I [...] ...
Sculpture

Moneygami: Origami with Bills
2007-11-20 18:39:48
World leaders sure wear some fancy hats. [More…] From the same site…creative business cards: [More…] Copyright © 2007 Dawn's Brain - The adventures of a high school web design and graphic design teacher.. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is [...] ...
Bills

Newsweek: How to Fix a Ballot
2007-11-17 02:37:38
What voting-booth materials look like is almost as important as who’s running. Graphic designers encounter a fair amount of eye-rolling—some of it deserved—when they champion the necessity of their work outside their professional choir. Passionately defending color palettes, rattling off obscure rules of proper typography—these things often come off as superficial and fussy to the unconverted. [...] ...
Fix Newsweek

A plug for a great art resource
2007-11-15 15:33:47
Princeton Online’s Incredible Art Department This site was created by Judy Decker, former middle school art teacher. She has a vast collection of resources there, including: Art Advocacy Comprehensive [...] ...
Art Resource

More street art online
2007-11-15 01:21:25
A friend at my favorite message board has these websites to share: Street SmArt at the Daily F’log More from 6EMEIA on Flicker.com ...
Art Street

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