Thursday, November 8, 2012

Micrography project

Sometimes called calligrams or concrete poetry, students use text to create an image. In this project, we are using an author and their work!

Students pick an author and a text.  One of the reasons we are doing this project is that a lot of students are already reading books in other classes, and this activity reinforces what they are reading and makes them investigate at least a little deeper the author of their books.

We start by going to the computer lab and searching for an image of their author.  Once they find an acceptable image, they save it and email the picture to me.  I take the picture and manipulate it with photoshop or microsoft word.  Its printed with 2 values: Black and white.  High contrast.  The black areas will be filled with text, the white areas left blank

Back in the classroom, students trace the edges of the black shapes on drawing paper LIGHTLY.

Then they open up their book and start writhing with pens.  The smaller the text, the darker the area.

This is a magical project where the image of an author is created using the words that they wrote.  Art inspired by art, crossing from language to visual and back again.