Computing and art

In our November meeting we explored at how we could use the visual programming language Scratch to create interactive art. One of the key approaches to computing is to remix and reuse, rather than always start from scratch, so to speak, and so there is much to be gained from modifying existing computing projects.

Helen shared this collection of coding and art Scratch projects that we explored in the session.

Screen Shot 2014-11-09 at 15.31.20We also looked at resources from Barefoot Computing on drawing crystal flowers and thought about how these might link with analysing Rangoli, Islamic or Celtic patterns, as well as with aspects of the maths curriculum.

Screen Shot 2014-11-08 at 13.47.07Other webtools that can be used alongside this theme include the online image generator Mutapic and the interactive art tools Weavesilk and Beautiful Curves.

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Screen Shot 2014-11-09 at 15.48.35Alongside these we looked at some of the amazing projects created using digital technology by artists that were featured in recent exhibition at The Barbican, Digital Revolutions.

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Digital art outdoors

Spice up a learning outside the classroom experience with a digital treasure hunt. Set a series of artistic clues and ask the children to go on a photographic journey to explore their environment.

Artistic things to look for: Finding a tonal scale of different clouds: brown, green, yellow.. Discuss the darkest and lightest colours- Dark colours are shades of a colour, light ones are tones. Collect your objects en-route and turn them into natural sculptures.

Give each child an unusual word to explore texture: Spiky, Wrinkled, Coarse: collect 5 photographs to represent your word.

Use pic collage to document your journey, swap iPads and ask the children to articulate the other persons story, use their imaginations to re-tell the story from a particular characters point of view.

Extend the concept in to film productions using i-movie to capture your outdoor experience.