June 6th, 2008 by Karen Bonaker
Step into the lab and experience a completely new way to learn! The Painter Idea Lab is not a standard, run-of-the-mill class, but instead a completely organic, social learning experience. To put it in simpler terms - there is no set lesson plan. The class evolves week to week based on the needs of the students (with a few surprises added in to keep it interesting, of course).
This course is all about creativity and applying that creativity in Painter to learn the software “as you go.” The course is participation driven, so for the class to be a success, students must be willing to contribute questions, share their work with everyone, and HAVE FUN!
So how’s it work?
Each session begins with a set of random resource materials — these could be photos, sketches, incomplete paintings, custom brushes, fonts, short tutorials, videos, short music clips and basically anything else. These are to give the students a jump start and to get the creative juices flowing. The easiest way to get over the fear of Painter is to actually use Painter. Of course, my normal rule of, “Just do it — it doesn’t matter if the end result is ‘pretty’ or not. The key is to sit down and play!” applies to this entire course.
With resources in hand, students are released “into the wild” to conduct their experiments in Painter. Some students may choose to “paint in the sketch,” while others “complete the painting,” or “paint a set of photos.” As students have questions, comments, etc, they post them to the classroom’s forum. With the questions posted, the direction of the class starts to form and the instructional materials begin to materialize. The instructor will provide information and tutorials based on the interests of the students (Lab Reports), provide constructive critique, demonstrate techniques in video and more. The possibility for a variety of topics per class is limitless!
To keep things interesting, there will also be specific challenges for each week of class as “extracurricular” activities. These are simple suggestions that focus on different parts of the whole Painter experience and encourage the students to think outside the box. For instance, one week’s challenge may be, “What can you do with this photo and 15 minutes?” or “”Don’t touch that Cloner!” Of course, these may spur more questions and more topics to discuss as a class.
At the end of the class, all “Lab Reports,” important shared information and samples from throughout the weeks of class will be packaged and available for download by current students. Of course, students are also encouraged to save anything they wish from the classroom itself for their future reference.
Due to the nature of the class, a minimum enrollment of 10 students is needed (and the maximum is set at 60).
Also, each session will be completely different, so if you come in for the first session (Session 4 @DAA) and again for the second session (Session 5 @ DAA) - you’ll have a completely different experience each time. This is going to be one exciting class!
