The AC Blog

Digital Artists Learn to Use a Cricut Machine

Allendale Columbia’s Digital Art Lab is now home to a Cricut Air Explore 2 and students are loving it. Students taking the Digital Art elective in Middle School, seventh and eighth graders, started off the semester with an intro to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to learn about the difference between the kinds of files each program makes.

Vector images are infinitely scalable while raster images are pixel-based and lose their clarity when enlarged

From there kids were able to create two designs. The first was a vinyl sticker cut out of permanent adhesive that could be applied to a car, laptop, mug, etc. The second project was to design an iron-on vinyl decal to be applied to a piece of clothing. Each student created designs using Adobe Illustrator and the Image Trace process.

Students then set to work creating two designs. The first was a vinyl sticker cut out of permanent adhesive that could be applied to a car, laptop, mug, etc., and the second was to design an iron-on vinyl decal to be applied to a piece of clothing. Each student created their designs using Adobe Illustrator and the Image Trace process.

Many of the students’ designs needed to be modified, due to the fact that the Cricut is mainly a cutting machine and not a printer (although you can insert pens and draw onto the vinyl), so they learned how to adjust their designs and make them 1-3 colors. Once their designs were complete, we sent their .svg files to the Cricut Design Space for processing. Some designs were returned to Adobe Illustrator for edits, and some were ready to be sent to the machine via Bluetooth.

Below you can see some of the steps involved, from sending and cutting out a design with Chloe, Lorelei weeding excess vinyl, and Alex ironing a design on.

The possibilities of creation are endless with this new skill! I am excited to see how these creative students can become entrepreneurs and create items that can be customized or sold.

Empty Bowls 2019

Last Friday, December 13th, the Middle School ceramics class presented The Willow Center of Rochester with a donation of $1,368, which they raised at their fifth annual Empty Bowls event at Allendale Columbia School on November 26th. The class made a lot of ceramic bowls and worked with AC faculty and students to help them make items for the fundraiser. They also wrote letters asking local artists to donate items to the raffle.

Roxy Reisch (class of 2020) did a live demo at the event showing attendees how she creates pottery on a wheel.

Empty Bowls is a worldwide grassroots movement to fight hunger and provide items for basic needs. The Willow Center is a nonprofit organization in Rochester that offers a variety of services to families and children. The AC ceramics class was happy to donate all of the proceeds from the event, in the amount of $1,368, to the Willow Center.

Students from the Middle School elective, Ceramics, meeting with representatives from the Willow Center to present their donation

International Dot Day

Guest post by AC Art Teacher, Mrs. Amy Oliveri

2nd Graders Create Stop Motion Animation Projects

Allendale Columbia Second Graders created stop motion animations based on an inquiry based learning unit on video games. The children used clay robots they built earlier in the school year as characters in their animations that travelled throughout their backgrounds and encountered an obstacle. Second Graders worked in teams to photograph each shot and used the SAM Animation software to edit their work.

http://youtu.be/Ea93p0BYUGs