Mr. Sherwood's Blog

Art Department Purchases New Equipment

Three new MacBooks will be a digital darkroom for students to edit and prepare their images.

After months of fund raising, which included some inventive approaches and plenty of hard work on the part of students, the art department was finally able to purchase a new digital SLR camera, 3 MacBooks and a mobile lab cart.

The addition of a new Canon Rebel XTi now brings our total to 2 fully adjustable SLR cameras

The opening of a student co-operative art gallery in downtown Wingham for the month of December was the final stage in 6 months of fund raising efforts to help equip the digital photography class to meet the challenges of the new media generation.

Although we still have a long way to go to fully equip our classroom we are certainly headed in the right direction!

New Semester Starts

Things may have been a little delayed but semester two will start- eventually!

This semester we start the new AWQ 4M Digital Photography course. Our fundraising efforts have been successful and we were able to purchase some equipment for this class!

We will have 3 new Macbook laptops and a second digital SLR camera as well as a secure mobile lab cart to store everything. This is a wonderful start to equipping our photography studio, but we will continue to raise money for more laptops, cameras and additional supplies such as different lens, lights and tripods.

You will notice that links to individual classes are in the column on the right. Here you will find pdf versions of our student workbooks, course information and due dates for assignments. Good luck with second semester arts courses!

Photography Club Captures Fall Colours!

The photography club took time on Thursday morning to head out to Wawanosh and record the colour of the season.

Club members meet each Tuesday and Thursday at lunch- new members are always welcome.

If you would like to see all the photos taken check out the [PHOTO GALLERY].

Start Spreading The News- Arts Trip To New York Meeting

The arts trip to New York is fast approaching! Madill students can look forward to the hustle and bustle of Manhattan as they explore galleries and museums, visit architectural treasures, join acting or life drawing classes, watch Broadway and off Broadway shows or find their way on a cross city scavenger hunt!

There will be a final meeting after school this Thursday, October 4th in the art room at 5:30 to 6:00 PM to discuss the final itinerary last minute details. Parents are welcome to attend! There will be a question and answer session after the general meeting.

Animation Workshop Details

Those that signed up for the animation workshop are in for a real treat! But be prepared to work!

Come with drawing materials to room 305 at 12 noon next Monday, September 17...( you may bring your lunch if you wish). You will have 3 full hours to work on basic character development techniques and skills with a professional animator. You will also learn basic concepts for animating in traditional and digital media.

Mr. Daryl Graham has worked in the animation industry for over a decade in North America and in Europe and has worked with many prestigious clients including Disney, Warner Brothers and many commercial companies. His original training was in classical animation but he has worked in all aspects of the industry including directing and digital animation.

Daryl will start with a quick "show and tell" that highlights the various roles/ jobs that are involved in the business using work from his portfolio to illustrate, (some he cannot share with us due to copyright restrictions).

After that I have selected a task for as young animators to complete during the remainder of the afternoon and Daryl will be your instructor- guiding you through the process.

You will work in groups of 4-5 to brainstorm and present an idea for a new animated cartoon that will be for a North American pre-teen to teen audience. You will be given "carte blanche' to create the type of animated series you think can be successfully "pitched" to Daryl. You will of course consider aspects of setting, character traits and basic story line ideas.

You will pitch your idea to Daryl for quick feed back ... if the idea gets a go ahead each team member will then have time to develop their version of one of the main characters. Daryl will give some overall instructions before you start then work with each of you one-on-one to help you fully develop your character.

Towards the end of the session Daryl will show you the steps beyond character development that would take character sketches to a fully animated state using examples to illustrate the process.

At the end of the day Daryl has agreed to stay for a Question and Answer session for those that may want help with portfolios or who just have questions about the profession.

Please inform your afternoon teachers that you will not be in class that day!

Direct questions to Daryl from the page that has been set aside for him in the link under guest artists.

Animation Workshop Now Booked

The animation workshop scheduled for September 17 is fully booked! Those students that have signed up will enjoy a full afternoon learning character development and the basics for animation in a hands on 3 hour workshop with an industry professional!

The office has agreed to release these students from their regular afternoon classes to participate in this experience. Check back with this blog to get details later about time, location and what materials to bring with you for the workshop. There is no cost involved!

Art and Photography Club Meeting Thursday

The art and photography club will hold its first meeting this Thursday, September 6th at lunch time in the art room.

If you have an interest in photography or art and would like to take part in trips to galleries, photo shoots, workshops and to help us fundraise for our new mobile digital photography lab then plan on joining us for this first meeting. Bring your lunch and enthusiasm.

See you there!

Animation Workshop September 17th

Attention future animators! Are you interested in learning more about how to animate? If so then you are invited to attend a full afternoon workshop with a professional animator Monday, September 17.

This artist has worked with Warner Brothers, Disney and is now working with Tim Burton- so you will learn from the best!

This will be a 3 hour hands on workshop that will teach you the basics of traditional animation. See me right away to sign up as space will be limited!

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to school! I hope you had a great summer. I will use this blog to keep you up to date on arts events and classroom happenings. You will find links to course pages in the Typelist to the right.