Student Work
Here you will find samples of my students’ work from a variety of courses in the discipline of commercial art. Specifically, these courses include Foundations of Visual Art and Digital Media, Photography, Animation and Graphic Design.
Digital Painting:
Digital Painting – Using a photo of themselves students had to use at least 5 values from light to dark and create a digital painting. They had to choose their color palette and mix at least 3 tints and 3 shades for each hue, avoiding black and white. They placed their finished portrait in an environment they would like to be in. Photoshop was the application for this assignment and some of the tools used were the selection and scale tools, masks, layers, filters and mixer brush.
New Tech High School, Napa, CA Napa High School, Napa, CA
Student: Ray, Rolando, Bryce, Unknown
Mixed Media:
Looking in a mirror and using graphite. Students were learning about values and shading and avoiding the use of line to outline, rather – using shadow to create an implied line. This was a class that rejected the use of computers. So, I met them where they were at and we started with pencil and paper. Eventually they learned to scan their portraits and open them up in Photoshop, having a lot of fun with layers and adding text in the background. By the end of the semester they had some digital skills under their belts.
Calistoga High School, Calistoga, CA
Students: Carlos, Jazmine, Jenna
Photography:
Students were tasked with stylizing a scene using food that could be used in advertising. Considerations – foreground, middleground and background, contrast for emphasis, repetition for composition, rule of thirds, color harmonies, lighting, use of tripod and camera and visual consistency. Students used Photoshop to edit and crop the final image. Selection tools, layers and adjustment layers, masks, filters and levels were skills used.
Central Coast High School, Seaside, CA
Students: Madison, Rolando, Miguel & Tina
Elements and Principles of Design:
The examples shown here are from students who came from different high schools. My foundation classes begin with the E&P of design. Cameras, tripods, Illustrator and or Photoshop are taught. Learning to reflect, add and edit color, select duplicate, resize and move layers, show their emerging skills.
Central Coast High School, Seaside, CA and Calistoga High School, Calistoga, CA
Students: Amaya, Carlos, Madison, Oscar
Animation:
Students were tasked with showing a variety of learned skills in these examples. A character turnaround, where the character (owl & Bat) have to be drawn in different angles or key poses that describe the start and end of an action – being mindful to keep all drawn poses consistent and proportional. Other skills shown are a walk cycle, applying squash and stretch, secondary action, staging and all principles of animation. The growing plant-frame by frame animation and The football field animation shows the students skill in 3D modeling, background design, visual storytelling.
Applications used were Illustrator, Flash, Animate, After Effects, Photoshop and Clara.io
Video:
Video – student made, short documentary that gives advice on learning new subjects and listening to one’s inner voice to guide them to their creative passion even when criticized or filled with self doubts (Be Who YOU Are). Features Artist Jason Fann and colleagues.
Application used wasPremier Pro
Calistoga High School, New Tech High School, Central Coast High School, Oceanside High School, CA
Students: Seth, Joseph, Patricia, Justin, Kekoa, Dean, Miguel, Lizzette, Christian, Nate
Graphic Design:
A collection of communication pieces that include logo design, drawing warm-ups, digital painting, digital illustration, typography, branding campaign and posters from students at different schools – Design thinking used throughout the process; emerging to advanced outcomes.
New Tech High School, Napa, CA Central Coast High School, Seaside, CA San Juan Hills High School, San Juan Capistrano, CA
Students: Alex, Seth, Emmit, Aysha, Lindsey, Faviola, Emma, Ariel