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.

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.

#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.

Maier Museum iPad Camp: A Success Story

Five afternoons in mid-June, the Maier Museum at Randolph College in Lynchburg, Va hosted eager and dedicated iPad artist between the ages of 8 and 13 for the first iPad camp of the summer. Surrounded by art treasures from the Maier Museum collection, what better location to inspire students to be creative.

My objective in organizing these iPad camps is to encourage students to become content creators not just content consumers. When I asked the students how they use their iPads, I heard a lot about Minecraft and Youtube. We all know how easy it is to become addicted to the wide range of media at our fingertips with our mobile devices.  My mission: convince students to use their own creative energies and expertise to become animators, storytellers and developers too. Few things make me happier than to see this mission accomplished as successfully as it was that week.

Olivia's wonderful cat with a view of the Flip Boom Cartoon interface.

Global Storytelling, iPad Camp and Publishing Student Authors/Illustrators

Kristin Reiber Harris

I joined Geeta Raj of Global Sleepover on Monday, July 28th at Howard University in Washington, DC for the Digital Storytelling Workshop at the Startup Summer Institute

at Howard University's Middle School of Mathematics and Science. This program provided a group of students with the opportunity to explore app design as well as storytelling and interactivity.  I arrived for the second week of the camp on behalf of Demibooks to help the students produce interactive books on iPads. The first week of the camp, Geeta worked with the students writing stories with a focus on global adventures. Each story that took place in different countries with characters from that country featured in the stories.

I was very impressed with the campus. Undergraduate Library, Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Lessons Learned from Seven iPad Camps

This camp was my 7th iPad Camp of the summer but my first specifically as a trainer for Demibooks. Emboldened with a wealth of experience working with students 8 to 13 (some adults too) I had a grasp on what could be accomplished in this short period of time. Earlier in July, I spent two weeks working with students at Linkhorne Middle School in Lynchburg, Virginia. Our sessions were only 3 hours long for four afternoons a week. The students had been able to write, illustrate and produce stories that incorporated a variety of interactive components and animation. I appreciated that we would have a lot more time with the students at this camp and I saw the benefits of this extra time.

Kids, Art and Old Technology

When I was a kid, my father set up a temporary darkroom for us in an extra bathroom.
As I watched my first photographic images become visible in the developer I was mesmerized.  I thought it was magic. Children these days have much easier access to taking and manipulating images with digital cameras and cell phones. However, nothing quite compares to the excitement and magic of the dark room and working with film.

My cyanotype #2.  It's a branch from the  ginko maple tree...

Old photographic technologies have a place today. The Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College offered a family workshop recently, "Sun Prints" for making cards for Valentine's Day.  The workshop was organized by Mac Cosgrove-Davies as part of the Maier's Love at the Maier holiday celebration.  It was also in conjunction with their current exhibition, Modern Movement: Arthur B. Davies Figurative Works on Paper from the Randolph College and Mac Cosgrove-Davies Collections.  

Mac explaining the process of making cyanotypes while my prints are being exposed.
photo Lisa Cosgrove-Davies

Mac is Arthur B. Davies' great-grandson and an artist, photographer and woodworker himself.  So it was a natural fit for him to offer a program about sun prints, or cyanotypes for the Maier community.  One of his cyanotypes is included in the exhibition. This is a wonderful way to introduce children to the chemistry of photography and the concept of photo sensitivity in a very accessible activity. I am particularly attracted to the color blue or Prussian blue that is associated with cyanotypes. They are frequently associated with botanical imagery which is another reason I am attracted to the genre. 

When I met Mac I told him I was considering doing a similar workshop at the Daura Gallery at Lynchburg College. Mac was very helpful in explaining this process.  I was excited to jump in and make my own prints. The process is relatively straight forward and very similar to the photo silk screens I had made years ago. Equal amounts of potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate are mixed together. This photosensitive solution is brushed on paper and left to dry in a dark place.  Mac did this before the workshop. 

The prints are assembled in the Maier storage room.
photo Lisa Cosgrove-Davies

He arrived with a lovely selection of dried leaves and flowers that were arranged on a table for easy selection.  Another table was set up with wooden frames, glass inserts and clamps to hold the specimen down during exposure. A piece of the paper that had the photosensitive emulsion was placed on the back of the frame, a plant or other objects were placed on the paper and carefully clamped into the frame. The frames were then taken outside to be exposed to sun light.  Those areas of the paper that are covered by the plants keep that paper from being exposed to the UV light. After exposure, in my case about 20 minutes, the print is put in a solution to be developed and then washed is a running water bath. The uncovered or exposed areas of the paper experience a chemical reaction which results in a vivid blue reversed image. You don't get the fully saturated color until the print has dried.

Prints drying outside the Maier Museum.
photo Lisa Cosgrove-Davies

This process was discovered by English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel in 1842. It was his friend Anna Atkins who incorporated this procedure with photography and is considered to be the first female photographer. She make a series of cyanotype books and documented ferns and her seaweed collection. I find her work very inspiring.  

Anna Atkins from her 1843 book, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions
Courtesy of the New York City Public Library

As I mentioned Mac Cosgrove-Davies is a photographer and he was kind enough to share some of his own work with the participants of the workshop.  Here are a few samples.

Mac Cosgrove-Davies, Three Knives and a Pear

Mac Cosgrove-Davies, Rwandan Children

In researching this old photographic process, I discovered that there is another similar process called anthotype, using fruit and vegetable juices that are made into dyes and coated on paper.  What kind of old photographic techniques have you used?

Wild About WWF Together

Why do I love this app so much?  Is it that I was just at the National Zoo in Washington, DC and watched pandas eating bamboo in the Panda House?  Is it because everyone loves animals? Is it because it is engaging for both kids and adults? Or just that WWF Together is one of the most beautifully designed, clever apps I have seen for the iPad?

The World Wildlife Fund just released their first US iPad app, WWF Together.  It is free and available for download.  Together features endangered animals that WWF works to protect, including giant pandas, marine turtles, tigers, bison, polar bears, snow leopards, whales and elephants. More species are to be added.

When an animal is selected, you are greeted with a large portrait and text that describes a prominent characteristic of the animal. The sections are based on the mobile magazine model of accessing pages vertically and  horizontally. A grid is superimposed on the screen at touch to diagram the options.  It is usually two or three pages vertically and 3 or 4 pages horizontally.  As you move around the app, you get visual cues as to where you are. Each animal has a fact sheet with population numbers in the wild, habitat, weight, height, distance from your location (when location is enabled) and a cute revolving 3D model of the globe that shows were the animal lives in the wild.

Have I raved about the photographs and video clips yet?  They are so compelling.  WWF obviously works with some of the best photographers in the world to get such intimate portraits that tug at our hearts and minds. I am watching a panda eating bamboo right now in one of the video segments.

A design element or rather a concept element that ties this app together is origami.  This is so brilliant. Origami appeals to kids and adults alike. At the end of each animal section you are prompted to go to instructions about how to make the animal by folding paper. You see an animation of a piece of paper folding into the specific animal you have just learned about through text and images. There is a link to instructions for the origami as well as links to share on Facebook, Twitter or to email a friend.  I suspect these links will be used often and play a major role in how effective this app is to advance their mission helping save endangered species. WWF has truly integrated this app with social media and their message.

All of these features are presented in a document that is designed for clarity and accessibility. The photo galleries have the standard icon of an i in a circle to indicate additional information.  The succinct text is placed over the image in white full caps to insure it can be read.  Any extraneous design elements are not frills but used to support clarity and access to information.  It is a beautiful example of a well designed document.

I am really looking forward to sharing this new find with my iPad buddies of all ages. 

NYC: Art on the Streets of Bushwick

Last weekend I was in Brooklyn visiting my daughter who recently moved to Bushwick. She is starting a graduate program at CUNY. My primary objective was to visit her and see her new digs, but hoped that I could talk her into a visit to The Century of the Child at MOMA. (next post)

Raised subway track over Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn.

A wonderful surprise was the discovery of the mural at the corner of Knickerbocker and Woodbine right by her apartment. A little research informed that it was painted by professional artists and students in 2007.  It still shines.

Mural runs right to left along two streets around Bushwick High School

Cities are composed of neighborhoods that transition and Bushwick has a history of changing populations. This mural was conceived to help the present kid-population see a bright future for themselves and get a feel for the history of their neighborhood.  

"Let's take a Walk through time."

Joe Matunis, from Los Muralistas de El Puente spear-headed the project with twenty students from the Academy for Urban Planning in Bushwick. Enjoy the images that add such color and energy to the neighborhood.  I was very pleased to see how pristine the mural is so many years after it was made (2007).

 We were lucky to have bright, warm sunny weather for our visit.  Bushwick is a bustling urban environment not at all devoid of color and visual appeal.  However, that said it all paled in comparison to the vibrant color and imagery of this wonderful mural that stretched along a wall two blocks long.

Bushwick was heavily damaged in the riots and fires that followed the blackout in 1977, as this part of the mural documents. What followed was even greater hardship and poverty in the area.  The last 10 years have seen investments by the City and State of New York in the area through the Bushwick Initiative.

The objectives of the creators was more than just decorate the neighborhood.  There was a real interest in not only referencing the strong Latin tradition of murals but to also inspire the viewers of their work.

This view of the corner give you a good idea of the impressive sweep of this mural in two directions.

Corner of Knickerbocker and Woodbine

This last snippet invites us all to express ourselves, something done quite eloquently in this mural.