Livebrush is a free drawing application but a download and install is required. My abstract image above was created in about 3 minutes.

It employs an easy-to-use brush tool that reacts to your gesture. By combining simple motion controls with brush styles, Livebrush offers a fun and unique way to create graphics.

At times I felt like I wasn’t in control but I must admit it was pretty fun. Here’s an introductory video below.

(special thanks to this amazing guy for the find!)

Check out Rankin (photographer, publisher and film director who launched Dazed & Confused magazine) and the Destroy Rankin Project. It’s…

My first round of grade 6 students (11 years old) have just completed their self-portraits unit. Feel free to view the simple five week unit here. To introduce the unit, blind portrait drawings were done, which I blogged about before here. Students then used mirrors to draw their portraits without instruction (70 minutes). These pre-assessment drawings are included in the video, followed by their final piece. Some students made remarkable improvements.

I tried a different approach that was inspired from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Photos were taken and cross hairs applied. Students then drew these cross hairs onto their A3 sheets and a middle tone was then added over their paper. 2B~6B pencils were used to add further value and tone, and erasers for highlighted areas. If you teach portrait drawing, I have other ideas and resources on my wiki as well. I may consider a portrait party for a future group. Enjoy!

OK. Here we go. True story. A coworker is cleaning out his class, disposing of old materials. I walk in and lo and behold, what do I see? The instructional booklet pictured left. It’s a how-to for a construction kit toy from 1992. It’s geared towards kids. What were they thinking? I’m not even going to discuss the catchy title. Are the instructions clear to you? It’s a perfect example on why design is so important and what it’s like when it’s not done well. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Craig Roland over at The Art Teacher’s Guide to the Internet and creator of the Art Education 2.0 ning, invited bloggers to a challenge through the Green Friday Synchronized Blogging Event.

The theme for our Green Friday event is this broad question: “How might we use art or design to promote a healthy environment and a peaceful, sustainable world?” How you choose to respond to this question is up to you.

I must say, I really struggled to come up with something different, unique and creative. I’m not sure if I have anything innovative here but all activities basically raise awareness. I have thought about this for approximately two weeks and it even kept popping in my head whilst on holiday! (I would like to reconsider a greater way for these projects to reach a wider audience.)

Frustrated, I rethought what my strengths and interests were. Would it be easier to focus on a particular year group? Would it be more effective if there was differentiation? I kept going round and round asking more questions than I was getting answers for. I have therefore decided to post all brainstorm ideas I had. Perhaps collaboration with you could further enhance some of the ideas? The details are rather lengthy so I posted them on my wiki here. I’d love to add the other blogger contributions there as well (if interested, let me know…and for those living behind iron curtains, the PDF, pictured below, is here: environment-art-and-design-lesson-ideasv3).

Activity Summaries:

1. Design an eco-friendly home using Google Sketchup
2. Create word clouds with Wordle
3. Poster Design for Elementary using ComicLife or Glogster
4. Poster Design for Middle/High School using only graphics
5. You are an illustrator, create a children’s book
6. Several video tasks
7. Product Design: Invent an imaginary product that would solve an environmental issue
8. Recycled Art: create a sculpture or work of art using recycled or found materials, or create land art

Have a look at some International Posters for Peace, Social Justice and the Environment 1965-2005 for some good examples (go to their ‘Posters’ drop down menu).

Also have a look at The Miniature Earth to see what it would be like if the planet’s population was reduced to 100.

Other participants in this activity are linked below. Give their ideas a look.

The Art Teacher’s Guide to the Internet
http://www.artjunction.org/blog

Blissful Thoughts
http://blissthink.blogspot.com

The Carrot Revolution
http://carrotrevolution.blogspot.com

Jean Fitz’s Weblog
www.heartjean.blogspot.com

The Teaching Palette
http://theteachingpalette.com

Want to learn how to make a slab plate with clay? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Sorry to the tech subscribers. Anyway, I made this video for my grade 8 students. It’s only 2min38sec. Feel free to use it as well (or correct me if you know a better way, or if I am doing it completely wrong). My other YouTube videos may be found here, but most of them are also included somewhere within this blog. If you use video in your class, I’d love to see your resources too.

Here’s a right-brained way to explain the current credit crisis. It’s well designed, presented and informative. From the site:

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. This project was completed as part of my thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. For more on my broader thesis work exploring the use of new media to make sense of a increasingly complex world, visit my website here. or email me at: jonathan.jarvis@gmail.com

Thanks to Shane M. for the tip.