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.

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

New App in Development: New Workflow

Kristin Reiber Harris
KristinHarrisDesign.com

I am fixating on bird these days; little birds, big birds, silly birds and even realistic birds. My new app project is all about birds. Birds that will make three year olds giggle and hopefully a lot more.  I am combining some of my favorite old and new tools on this project as well as getting back to my roots as an animator.

 

Step One: Textures in Procreate

I start this process of creating a menagerie of birds by developing textures in Procreate on my iPad. I became familiar with Procreate teaching students how to use it working with Demibooks Composer Pro, a development tool for iOS apps. The beauty of Procreate is the artwork is created on the iPad which facilitates import to Composer Pro.

Demibooks: iPad App Development Solution

Soon to be released first app in artEpants series, Duck Takes A Ride

One on my dreams for many years has been to animate great master art works. Not all of them of course.  It still sounds rather ambitious. In fact when I started my work in animation over 20 years ago, the very first projects I worked on were animating my own art. It was a natural segue into the kids educational media that was to become the heart of my animation career. The culmination of that work was my wonderful relationship with HBO Family and the series of interstitials I worked on with them and the bilingual animated DVD I produced after that experience.

 

                         sample from "I Want to Be" series for HBO Family

Fast forward to today's technology landscape and iPads have significantly changed the way children access media. This has been a very exciting development that drew me back into the media production after spending a number of years focusing on my own fine art work. What followed was the search for the right tools for this new landscape of tablet delivered interactive media. Flash was the obvious choice for me because of my long history as a user and teacher of the software.  My skills as a programmer are limited and the requirements for iOS development with Flash were limited for me IF I wanted to be directly involved in the programing.

First Flash Project: ABC Art programmed in Flash with associate Heather Larkin

At first I didn't really understand why it was so important for me to be doing the programming.  I was working with my good friend Heather Larkin, talented animator and skilled programmer.  In our months of exchanging files I realized that my creative process for developing was really limited by not completely understanding how the code was written. I realized it would actually facilitate the creative process to think in code as I was conceptualizing my project.

Enter Demibooks with it's suite of app development software.

Demibooks

I read a post by Lisa Goldman of Women in Animation about Demibooks Composer. Demibooks had done a presentation for the group. I checked out their site and was very intrigued. 

What Demibooks offers is a book related format for developing iOS apps that allows for the inclusion of both animation and video but that has simplified the programming for even kids to use. (a theory I will test this summer) Predefined scripts are available in easily accessible language.

They also distribute books made on Composer through their own curated store, Demibooks Storytime.

 

The biggest initial stumbling block for me was that the iPad is the production tool.  I am used to working on my Mac Pro tower with 2 monitors, etc. This just seemed wrong. However, it didn't take long for me to realize the one major payoff for this arrangement. With the tap of one button I am proofing my app real time on my iPad.  None of the foolishness of Provisioning Certificates, etc that were required when I was working with Flash.

After about 6 months of working with Composer and getting to know the company and developing community I am very happy to have my eggs in this basket. Demibooks has been extremely responsive to users questions and requests. There is a forum through GetSatisfaction for communicating with other users and the Demibooks staff.

First in my app series Duck Takes A Ride as seen in production mode on Composer Studio

As I mentioned previously, an understanding of the capabilities of the software and how it "thinks" are really pivotal in using it to best advantage. I have reached a comfort level now where I can explore possibilities that will enhance my creative process. It's very much like a puzzle or understanding a system. The more simple processes are combined the potential grows exponentially.

Interest in Demibooks is growing fast. Lynda.com did a documentary about Stacey Williams, illustrator, publisher and educator about her work with Demibooks and her e-publishing course at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD).

I am indebted to the crew at Demibooks for what they have made available to media producers. They have been accessible and very responsive to adding functionality that their users would like. The upgrades I have seen since I have been working with Composer have been frequent and significant. The new app Composer Share, which allows me to send a Read Only version of my working document to beta testers and clients is a huge plus and really necessary for the software to be a viable production tool.

If you are working in Composer Studio, please share your experiences. 

Book Review: Seeing Symmetry

Seeing Symmetry
Loreen Leedy

Holiday House

This book for kids 4 to 8 years old is about the overlapping of art, science and math through the lens of symmetry. 

I recommend this book because:

1. it helps kids “see” what is going on around them and how interrelated life forms are to each other

2. it explains some of the reasons why organisms evolved in certain ways, i.e. symmetry facilitates motion

3. it demonstrates that math and science can be introduced to young children through art

4. it starts a conversation about looking carefully at what populates our world

5. it helps kids build skill and confidence in identifying a particular phenomenon

 Kristin Reiber Harris, Sea Fantasy #6, graphite on paper, 1972

Radial symmetry has been an interest of mine since the 70’s with my introduction to Islamic art.  Seeing Symmetry, written and illustrated by Loreen Leedy is the first book I have found that introduces the concept of symmetry to young children.

Kristin Reiber Harris, Dogwood Stone Circle, 42" x 53", mixed media on paper

Symmetry is all around us.  If one half of an object exactly mirrors the other half, it is symmetrical.  What a wonderful conversation to have with a young child.  Let’s find examples of symmetry right here, right now.

Many animals’ bodies are symmetrical. Even animals as diverse as scallops and whales have being symmetrical in common.  Numerous animals are illustrated in full color and as a simple silhouette. A line drawn down the middle of the silhouetted shape demonstrates the symmetry.  It gets even more fun when you can discuss with your child that our bodies are symmetrical too.  But why?  Animals and humans use symmetrical body parts to facilitate movement; i.e. crawling, walking, flying and swimming.

Even letter forms can be symmetrical (depending on the typeface), some vertically others horizontally. Even words can be symmetrical; mom, wow and aha.  Other words can be symmetrical either horizontally or vertically like hid or cookie (again depending on the typeface).

For me the most visually exciting kind of symmetry is radial symmetry.  Flowers and snowflakes come to mind immediately.

Beyond looking at the symmetry all around us, Leedy suggests that symmetry is of additional significance because it is an important concept in mathematics.  Mathematics is more than numbers; it is also a study of patterns, order and comparisons.

The scientific discussion of animals and machines symmetrical attributes is followed with many examples of symmetry in fine art, architecture, folk art even furniture.  A few art projects are included at the end of the book along with a glossary.

Seeing Symmetry

Loreen Leedy

Holiday House

©2012

978-0-8234-2360-6