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.

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.

iPads and Engaging Kids in Art: App with Museum Assets

Kristin Reiber Harris

Art Museum Apps for Kids
Independent Developer's Art Museum Assets Apps for Kids
Free Solution Anyone Can Use

I just returned from the Virginia Docent Exchange at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Va. Two other docents and I were representing the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College. At the conference I had the opportunity to present a session about iPads, kids and art museum related apps.

Chrysler Museum

This was my first visit to the Chrysler Museum which was recently renovated. It is beautifully situated on a body of water known as the Hague in downtown Norfolk, VA. The museum was originally founded in 1933 as the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences. It changed names in 1971 when industrialist Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. donated his extensive collection to the museum.

We arrived at the museum early on Sunday afternoon so we would have a few minutes to visit their collection before the conference started. I was pleased to find this in their collection.

Standing Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Guanyin Pusa), 19th century, China.
Chrysler Museum Photo credit: Kristin Harris

Art as a Window on the World

Kristin Reiber Harris
www.KristinHarrisDesign.com

Play art and celebrate world cultures!

Get a sneak preview of soon to be release app I Can Do That! A Kids World Art Game 

After many months in development, our new app "I Can Do That! A Kids World Art Game" will soon be released. The lengthy development time is due to a number of factors. 

Kids, Art and the World

Kristin Reiber Harris
www.KristinHarrisDesign.com

I Can Do That! A Kids World Art Game

(updated 12.1.14)

 

Inspiration

This summer I participated in a Digital Storytelling Workshop at the Startup Summer Institute at Howard University's Middle School of Mathematics and Science. As a trainer for Demibooks, I was helping students use their app development tool Composer Pro to publish animated interactive stories for iPads. I came to assist Geeta Raj. She is the founder of Global Sleepover and brings years of experience in international development and humanitarian assistance with USAID. She has lived in Afghanistan, Columbia, South Sudan, Albania, the UK, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has degrees in Creative Writing and International Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Check Out These Student Authors and Illustrators Published on iPads

Still feeling the glow of the recent Digital Storytelling Workshop at the Startup Summer Institute at Howard University's Middle School of Mathematics and Science. This program was a collaboration between Global Sleepover and Demibooks to help students develop global awareness and produce interactive books on iPads. Representing Demibooks, I joined Geeta Raj of Global Sleepover for the second week of the camp. The first week she focused on helping the students develop their skills as storytellers and illustrators. She worked with them to craft stories about different countries around the world. I assisted the students with Demibooks Composer Pro. This app for creating apps, let them load their text, illustrations and audio files and add animation and interactivity to their stories and publish their work.

Isaiah King's Cover Artwork

What We Learned at iPad Camp

Kristin Reiber Harris

I am in the middle of a new series of iPad camps for Lynchburg City Schools. Here are a few thoughts about what I learned during 4 sessions of iPad Camp sponsored by the Daura Gallery at Lynchburg College in June. You will see lots of samples of student work and get an idea of what they learned. Some students came with some experience with animation or video, but many did not.

iPads As Creative Tools
I am even more convinced iPads are incredible tools for stimulating creative problem solving and critical thinking. The students at the four sessions at Lynchburg College ran the gamet from kids as young as 8 (by just a few days) to a retired college professor. There was a broadcast media professional, an artist, four sets of parent and child and high school students. This rich tapestry of participants produced an wide variety of work, as you can imagine.

These creative experiences with technology reinforce the value of being a content creator, not just a content consumer. 

Artist Nugent Kos used Procreate to paint this beautiful spider web for her interactive Composer Pro project.

iPad Camp Lives!

Kristin Reiber Harris

We are in the middle of the last week of our 4 session iPad Camp at Lynchburg College, sponsored by the Daura Gallery. It's been a blast. Each week there are two sessions offered, one for kids 8 to 12 in the afternoon and a second session for teens and adults in the evening.

I am helping Ryan and Callie work on Composer Pro  Credit: Lynchburg College

Why are we doing this?

My objective with the camp is to demonstrate what a great tool the iPad is for stimulating creativity and give the students an opportunity to play and experiment. I introduce four apps that I have found to be very accessible to kids and adults and get them rolling on creating their own media projects. The apps we are using are FlipBoomCartoon (animation), iMovie (video productiton), ComposerPro (book/game apps) and Procreate (art). It is very gratifying to see the students just take off and jump in.

Play and Inspiration: SEEC Part 1

Kristin Reiber Harris

Last week I spent two days at the Smithsonian Castle immersed in exploring play, preschool children and museums. The event was the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center's Play: Engaging Young Learners in Object Rich Environments seminar. The pilot event was attended by 24 educators from both preschools and museums, primarily from the Washington, D.C. area. I arrived with great enthusiasm to both present information about my app development for preschool kids with museum assets and be inspired by other educators working in both museums and early education centers. I was not disappointed.

Smithsonian Castle  Photo:KH

SEEC has been around since 1988, but I only learned about it this year. I have been a frequent visitor to Smithsonian museums my entire life. It was my current involvement as an app developer with museum assets that put SEEC on my radar. A very fortuitous discovery for me. I contacted Betsy Bower, Director, Center for Innovation in Early Learning, SEEC as soon as I learned about them. I wanted to introduce myself and invited her to download the apps I am developing. Thus began the dialogue that brought me to Washington for this event. 

Kids, Art and Motion

I am still feeling the glow of spending the afternoon Sunday helping kids make mobiles. We all had such a good time. I have been leading monthly art workshops for kids at the Daura Gallery at Lynchburg College for 4 years. The workshops are turning into family programs. It's fun for everyone. Sunday I had almost as many adults as kids, including mothers, god-mothers and grandmothers. It takes a village as they say. The kids get more help than I can provide alone and it really is a party.  Originally I was concerned about parents micro-managing their kids projects. Only once has this been a problem. I try to gently make it clear the kids are the creative instigators, the parents are their to help, not direct or criticize.

We used paper clips to chain the drawings the kids made to a paper disc or branches. Sadie took a cue from my sample project with birds and made her own bird mobile. She had a wonderful time, can't you tell? I adore the pride these kids take in their work. It's pure pleasure to cultivate their makers mentality.

iPads, Flip Books and Animation

Kristin Reiber Harris

I Love Animation

I love watching it and I especially love making animations. Some of the coolest people I know are animators. I have enjoyed sharing this enthusiasm with others for many years. iPads add a twist to the process with a new set of tools and great portability. I recently did an animation workshop for elementary age kids using FlipBoomCartoon. Now I have a chance to offer this same opportunity to my students at Lynchburg College.


What Tools Will We Use?
My Drawing 1 students will be using iPads next week. This is a first for me to be able to offer beginning drawing students access to art making tools on an iPad. The college just got 30 iPads last semester. They will be using FlipBoomCartoon to make animations and Procreate for drawing. If we have time, I'd like to see them bring gesture drawings from Procreate into iMovie to create an animation of stills.