Virtual Christmas Designs: Into Cards

 

The design shown left is a Christmas card created by a student in Y4 (eight years old).  We have been detailing this process recently where the focus has been on to complete a virtual creation - in this case using Tinkercad and crossing it with Pic Collage.

We detailed this process with the creation of our virtual Christmas trees and also previously using the designs to show a song.   In this instance the next step is to reapply the design process and the students using their iPad to create a material art project.

The snowman inside the globe has been created using Tinkercad with the student creating it as part of a Christmas Challenge.  They have then AR/VR the design into the classroom setting to remove the background and used the PicCollage app to take a virtual image.   The virtual image uses the shapes in the background to create a raft of festive themed images.

The students have then taken this image and reintroduced it to Pic Collage - here they have then added the Merry Christmas heading which you can see in the picture.  We actually used a range of designs from other locations (a extended font search) and looked at printing out these fonts and adding the lettering onto the original picture the students opted to include it with the original.

The next stage was to look at the cover - the students as they were using the iPads to screenshot an image had a couple of watermarks to discuss, and look at options to potentially cover them.

Finally the message that was placed inside the card was a seperate writing lesson, the details were fairly standard but a combination of the card shape, the original design an image on the front and then the students message on the inside of the card proved to be effective.

This extended the lesson out further and included a written element which took it from a standard Tinkercad design into something with a range of layers to it.     We also looked at the composition of the card and whether the original design suited a portrait or landscape design and what else could be created.

This also sent the students back into their Tinkercad accounts- looking for previous designs that they might be able to apply a filter to.   An example is the Santa figure shown in the image left - this was a previous design created and turned into a 3D Print that featured earlier on this blog.  The student felt the image would benefit from being put through a filter so they added additional features to the design (the body) which they felt the filter would then pick up and add details to (which it did).

The last potential stage would how else could we use art techniques with the card? We considered the applying of dye to form a border around the image on the cover - and how the rest of the inside of the card might be decorated, as well as the overall size.

By utilizing Tinkercad in this way the students were able to take an original image, apply the filter and rework and represent it into something completely different, unique and using their iPads and two apps to do so.   They worked independently as seven and eight year olds to complete the task without any teacher input.   They also used 3D modelling to make something that did not require 3D Printing or another technology to be applied to it.