by Gregory Schmidt
The computer's many applications opens a world of undiscovered skills and functions that we barely have time to investigate. Luckily, our youngsters are eager to learn what they can get out of some of these challenges.
Photo Shop, for example, is an ingenious process by which you can enhance your family pictures. Before your student(s) venture into the more professional/career aspects of photography, they'll want to have fun with the basic elements of re-illustrating the image.
Let's go back to when black and white pictures were converted to color. If you have any old black and white family photos, run off a few copies of them (so you don't have to ruin the originals). We're going old school by getting out the colored pencils for the older students and crayons for the younger ones.
Yes, it's time to bring the faded black and white family portraits into the future. If Hollywood movies from the 1930s and 40s can be colorized (frame by frame), then your student can spend some fun time bringing life to those beloved nostalgic images. They can create from their own design the depth of the hues and the contrast of colors to put life into the history of your family. Some sets of colored pencils offer student artists a wide variety of color selections. Its important that they work at trying to be as detailed as possible and change colors often with each small item on the picture.
After your child has taken their first attempt at this, suggest they try their hand at calligraphy by designing even the letters of the words that serve as captions of these finished "works of art." For this they'll want to utilize a different tool, such as a felt tip with an edge or an ink pen that allows them to work the edges of the letters. If you Google 'calligraphy' you and your student(s) will witness a new world of historic artwork.
Don't discourage the younger ones , who attempted this challenge with crayons. If they are drawing on a standard xeroxed copy of a black and white photo, they'll find that the more they continue to work the same area with a certain color it brings more gloss to that portion. It will simulate the professional technique of glazing, as in brush painting.
One side-line benefit of picking older family photos for this exercise is that your children will take more interest in the subject matter, and will probably have a whole new set of questions about the people and places in each picture.
If you don't care what they use for subject matter, they could first experiment with the newspaper and colorize a few b&w photos on newsprint. This would be a good warm-up exercise before trying to tackle the exacting skill of color illustrating family photos.
When they've finished one of these projects that you think is unusually good, go the next step and get it matted with a backing or even framed. Let them know their is a permanence to work well done.
Gregory Schmidt worked with the child actors in his Bueno Gang Kids movie series for 18 months before putting them into their original production on camera. The first two movies in the series have earned the Dove Foundation stamp of approval. They can be purchased by contacting greg@festint.com. The two Bueno Gang movies are also available at ChristianCinema.com.
The computer's many applications opens a world of undiscovered skills and functions that we barely have time to investigate. Luckily, our youngsters are eager to learn what they can get out of some of these challenges.
Photo Shop, for example, is an ingenious process by which you can enhance your family pictures. Before your student(s) venture into the more professional/career aspects of photography, they'll want to have fun with the basic elements of re-illustrating the image.
Let's go back to when black and white pictures were converted to color. If you have any old black and white family photos, run off a few copies of them (so you don't have to ruin the originals). We're going old school by getting out the colored pencils for the older students and crayons for the younger ones.
Yes, it's time to bring the faded black and white family portraits into the future. If Hollywood movies from the 1930s and 40s can be colorized (frame by frame), then your student can spend some fun time bringing life to those beloved nostalgic images. They can create from their own design the depth of the hues and the contrast of colors to put life into the history of your family. Some sets of colored pencils offer student artists a wide variety of color selections. Its important that they work at trying to be as detailed as possible and change colors often with each small item on the picture.
After your child has taken their first attempt at this, suggest they try their hand at calligraphy by designing even the letters of the words that serve as captions of these finished "works of art." For this they'll want to utilize a different tool, such as a felt tip with an edge or an ink pen that allows them to work the edges of the letters. If you Google 'calligraphy' you and your student(s) will witness a new world of historic artwork.
Don't discourage the younger ones , who attempted this challenge with crayons. If they are drawing on a standard xeroxed copy of a black and white photo, they'll find that the more they continue to work the same area with a certain color it brings more gloss to that portion. It will simulate the professional technique of glazing, as in brush painting.
One side-line benefit of picking older family photos for this exercise is that your children will take more interest in the subject matter, and will probably have a whole new set of questions about the people and places in each picture.
If you don't care what they use for subject matter, they could first experiment with the newspaper and colorize a few b&w photos on newsprint. This would be a good warm-up exercise before trying to tackle the exacting skill of color illustrating family photos.
When they've finished one of these projects that you think is unusually good, go the next step and get it matted with a backing or even framed. Let them know their is a permanence to work well done.
Gregory Schmidt worked with the child actors in his Bueno Gang Kids movie series for 18 months before putting them into their original production on camera. The first two movies in the series have earned the Dove Foundation stamp of approval. They can be purchased by contacting greg@festint.com. The two Bueno Gang movies are also available at ChristianCinema.com.
