The Big Draw 17: Living Lines of Animation

Saturday afternoon, October 14, the Academy Center of the Arts in Lynchburg, VA hosted a Big Draw17 Living Lines event. I knew I was going to have a good time and was thrilled when we had a full house with kids and adults making art and animation and loving it. I am most indebted to the Academy Center of the Arts for sponsoring this program.

As a family event, it was very exciting to have so many adults actively participating, parents and adults who came to experience the Big Draw in Lynchburg. I had not realized, we were one of only three Big Draw happenings in the US this year. Time is running out, but not too late for you to register for a Big Draw event at your school, museum, art space, park during the month of October.

Challenging Student Creativity with Great Results: iPad Camp at ACOA

Artwork created in Procreate by iPad Camp student

The last full week in July was iPad Camp at the Academy Center of the Arts in Lynchburg. This was an especially wonderful group of kids. There were 3 boys and 3 girls. That turns out to be a great balance of energy and skills. The girls were older and more focused, the boys were younger and higher energy.  These camps provide kids with an opportunity to challenge their creative problem solving skills by learning media production tools in a non-structured environment. I am most appreciative of ACOA efforts to develop arts/technology programming.

Life Stories: One Story A Beginning

Adult cicada  Wikipedia: Public Domain

Growing up on an old farm outside of Washington DC, I had access to 40 acres of fields, barns and woods. It was a time when kids wandered and explored for hours a day, especially in the summer. 

Tiny Books Big Fun

I am seduced by the digital realm, I admit. But there is something about working with paper that floats my boat. I had a great opportunity to be reminded of this recently at the Tiny Books Exhibit and Workshop at Riverviews Art Space here in Lynchburg, VA. It added to the festive experience that it was very well attended in no small part due to great local newspaper coverage.

Kid Friendly Sea-Saving Art

Get to the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C. by September 5th if you can. You won't be sorry.

As an artist I am drawn to beauty and I am good at mimicking it. However, I have the most profound respect for those artists who create beautiful work and pull together diverse threads of universal themes...and in this case make it an excellent educational experience for kids. I love this work. I love the idea, the colors and the venue.

Parrotfish, Washed Ashore

Seventeen sculptures of marine life created by Washed Ashore.org have been on exhibit at the zoo since May 27, 2016 (and leaving September 5th). Washed Ashore is a nonprofit dedicated to creating an awareness of marine debris and plastic pollution through art. The sculptures on exhibit were created from plastic garbage that washed up on a 300 mile stretch of west coast beaches. Eighteen tons of debris was collected by thousands of volunteers. These volunteers not only clean the beaches of debris. The materials they collect are sorted and  turned into art.

Discover the World of Communication at American University

In July I taught two classes at American University's very extensive summer program for high school students, Discover the World of Communication at their Washington, D. C. campus.  Professor Sarah Menke-Fish founded the program and has been the director for over 20 years. I taught for the second two-week session with nineteen courses offered, including Advanced Scriptwriting  and Video Production, The Film Intensive,  Broadcast Journalism, Media for Change, Speaking for Impact and Nature Photography. My classes were Graphic Design and Animation. I was very impressed with the program and want to make sure teachers, parents and students are aware of this opportunity for future summers.

I had not spent much time at AU in my many years living in the area. It was a delightful surprise to discover this beautiful campus. Our classes were held in McKinley Building pictured below.

Building Apps to Help Kids Learn

Like all app developers, I want to make the best products possible. I have been creating media for young children from almost 25 years, much of it linear animation.  

For the past few months I have been working on our fifth app with new features in my development path. I realized I wanted to consult with experts who have much more experience than I do with the nuts and bolts of how kids learn. I had the good fortune to meet Beth Poss at the KID Museum's App Fair on May 1st when we were both making presentations to educators.

Learning Animation Helps Kids Develop Critical Thinking Skills

One of my favorite activities is teaching animation. I have done this for kids as young as 8 up through college students, using a wide variety of tools. My current device of preference for teaching animation is an iPad. The more workshops I teach, the more I appreciate the magnitude of the lessons learned. 

Critical Thinking Defined
There's a lot of buzz about critical thinking these days. What's the deal? Here are two important components of Critical Thinking; the ability to evaluate information and consider alternative solutions.

Prints for Kids

Like many artists, I started drawing as a kid. I remember copying comic strip characters and asking my Mom to help me draw a horse. I am very fond of this photo of painting in our yard as a four year old. I was lucky my Mom indulged me, I'm quite sure I made a big mess.

I am a big fan of keeping that four year old mentality as much as I can.

Lady Bug

Wish On A Dandelion

Creative Ways to Share Art with Kids: Every Picture Tells a Story

Edgar Degas   The Dance Lesson, c. 1879  National Gallery of Art

Engage Kids with Art: Help Them Find the Story
This concept is a great way to share art with children. As human beings we are hard wired to love stories and actually depend on them for our survival. It's how we share information and cultural values. Degas's The Dance Lesson is full of stories. As a docent at the Maier Museum at Randolph College, helping kids see stories in art is something we do all the time.

Finding the Digital Stories
In developing the app ABC.DC: An Art Alphabet, I selected 26 works of art from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. that are kid-friendly and created an animation for each work. With this piece, I wanted to add delicate lines to show her dancing. This simple animation brings the scene to life and encourages a deeper level of involvement with the image. Does this help you find the story in this painting?

  

Robert Peckham's The Hobby Horse is a slice of 19th century American life children will find amusing and curious. Who are the girls? Who made the hobby horse? What's it like to ride that hobby horse?  My toys don't look anything like that. Some kids may never have seen a hobby horse, especially one like this. The time and place may not interest a preschool child, but what will is imagining the fun of riding such a wonderful wooden horse. This master artwork is courtesy of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Jump-Start Your Kids' Creativity in this Garage

Victor Reyes USA

Kids, Creativity and Imagination
I am reading some interesting articles about kids and creativity. Imagination keeps coming up as an integral component in nurturing creative children. That's not all of course, but something we know kids are innately good at doing. One of the wonderful things about parenting is all those "teaching moments" that arise continually during the day. The real challenge is having the energy to deal with all of them.

Museum Studies Students Share the Love @MaierMuseum

Lynchburg, Virginia is very lucky to have the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College. This is an exceptional college art museum with a very interesting collection, provocative exhibitions and active arts education programs for the Randolph students as well as K-12 students in the area.

One selection of supplies for making Valentines at the Maier.

Yesterday the Museum Studies students hosted a family event for making Valentines, part of their annual two-part celebration of art and artists, centered around the mood and aesthetics of Valentine’s Day.  This year’s Love at the Maier was held in conjunction with the current exhibition, Venetian Visions: Selections from the National Gallery, London, on view through March 31, 2016.

5 Features of ABC Apps

The first book I bought for my daughter, all those years ago, was an ABC book from the Brooklyn Museum. She is now a PhD candidate in Art History and lives in Brooklyn. 
Probably not a direct correlation, but a nice coincidence.

ABC Egyptian Art from The Brooklyn Museum by Florence Cassen Mayers

After many years producing fine art and linear animation, my media production for kids turned to apps. An interactive, animated ABC book with images from museums was the first project I wanted to develop. Soon after that the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. released 20,000 images into the public domain and I was off to the races. ABC.DC: An Art Alphabet was released in February, 2014. I has just been updated.

Here are 5 reasons I think the alphabet is a great structure for children's media.

10 Things to Know About iArt4Kidz

iArt4Kidz is a new brand of Kristin Harris Design. We pulled our preschool media products out to rebrand with a name more reflective of our products. We are focusing on iOS apps with a special interest in art and nature.

1. Our Talent

I am an artist. I have been making art for over 40 years. The last 25 years I have worked with some amazingly creative people to produce animated media for preschool kids. I'd like to introduce my team, provide some samples of our work and talk about why we do what we do.

Art for Kids on the Streets of Brooklyn

I was really lucky. I grew up on an old farm outside of a major city, Washington, D.C. I live in a small town now but get to big cities as often as I can. One reason is I love to be inspired by the art I see as I wander around.

Art in the City 

 

I just spent 6 days in Brooklyn. I discovered this mural at Union and Fifth Ave, just a short walk from my hotel. This is the work of Kate Wilkes. On her website, brooklynbelltower.com you can see her collection of artwork about Brooklyn.

Renewed Faith in Humanity: Short and Sweet

 

The last two days I have spent time on the Washington, DC Mall visiting the National Gallery of Art and the Freer/Sackler Smithsonian Museums of Asian Art. This is not unusual for me. I visit these wonderful art museums regularly.

  

I came to see Power and Pathos, the exhibit of Hellenistic bronze sculpture at the NGA and the art of Japanese artist Sotatsu at the Sackler.  I can recommend both exhibits.

Black Broadway on U: A Living History Experience

I recently had the opportunity to hear Shellée Haynesworth, creator and executive producer of Black Broadway on U speak at Randolph College. Her talk was part of the Sara Driver '77 Digital Filmmaking and Lecture Series, funded by Martha Driver '50 and Al Driver.

 

This fall I had reconnected with Shellée, a fellow member of Women in Film & Video (DC) and was very excited to hear about this new venture. I was very curious to learn what had sparked this multi-platform project to connect today’s audiences to the contributions of prominent and pioneering Black Washington entertainers, educators, civil rights activists, intellectuals, musicians and culturists. What I was to learn is that not only was there a family connection for Shellée, a third generation Washingtonian but also national significance of this community in Washington DC that was centered around U Street.

#MetKids: Robust Resource for Families and Schools

It is hard, I will reveal my prejudice, not to consider the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC the ultimate art museum. It is the largest museum in the United States and one of the most visited in the world. There are more than 2 million pieces in their collection. In September, 2015 they launched a new digital web-based product, #MetKids. Come with me as I explore this new resource designed for kids between 7 and 12 years old.

Photo Credit: Arad, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Here is the relatively simple interface for what promises to be a broad and deep offering of treats for families.

Tough Gig: Creating Meaningful Media for Today's Classroom

Fairfax County Public School Digital Media Producers

Many of us grew up with a tradition of lecture based instructional media with little or no interactive engagement with students. All this has changed dramatically, thanks to the internet, YouTube and more sophisticated approaches to how students learn. How do all the pieces fit together in one of the largest school systems in the country?

To set the stage, the Fairfax County public school system is the number 1 employer in Virginia with 188,000 students and 24,000 employees. They move more people a day than the Greyhound Bus system. FCPS Digital Media Production has 14 full time employers with 800 projects per year, ranging from PSA's to hourly programming. The subject matter is educational, public information and professional development with some content for broadcast while other programming goes directly to the web. Fairfax Network is the distribution arm for educational programming that is grade level or curriculum specific. The FCPS's YouTube channel has 1238 videos.Their work is 93% grant funded and some of their many educational partners include the Smithsonian, National Archives, Library of Congress, Mount Vernon and NASA. These partners may provide funding but always provide subject matter expertise.

American Academy of Pediatrics New Report on Kids and Screentime

Kristin Reiber Harris
KristinHarrisDesign.com

I love my afternoon visits to Elizabeth's Early Learning Center. I stop by Yellow House once a week to spend time with the 3 year olds playing with iPads. I am sitting at a small table with three kids at a time. That's my perfect scenario for this technology. I am right there all the time providing guidance and limiting choices.

Our protocol for each session of three kids is 15 minutes each. One reason is so more of the kids in the class can participate each week. However, it is also a great idea for kids to get used to the idea that there will be limits on access. As a long time media producer for preschool children I have been aware for years that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended kids under two have no screen time at all. For a variety of reasons this just didn't happen in most households with screens. My spin on this, again as a media producer, is to make the best content I could to provide quality screen time when kids were watching. I am working on that now as an app developer.