Student Work

Student Work #007 – Book Covers with Christopher Barzak

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Christopher Barzak, Crawford Award-winning YA author and Professor of Creative Writing at Youngstown State University, provided two unpublished short stories to my EMAC classes last Spring, and after the success of our vector-based "book cover" design project, I decided to give the project to my current Fall 2016 students as their final vector project. I think the results speak for themselves. Once again, I just want to offer my personal thanks to Chris for making his work available for this project.

Click on the gallery below for selected project submissions.

Student Work #005 - Illustration Creation

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On the second day of instruction in vector and Adobe Illustrator, students were directed during a class exercise to find an image on the internet and, using it as a reference, illustrate it by hand using the software. For homework, students were instructed to seek out and incorporate a second image into the first, either interacting with or incorporating it into the original illustration.

Student Work #004 – Vector Portraits

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Students were directed to choose a selfie as a reference and create a vector self portrait in Adobe Illustrator using individually-created shapes filled with sampled colors. These images were created without the use of filters or automated tools during the third day of instruction in the software.

Student Work #003 – Book Covers with Christopher Barzak

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Students in my Spring 2016 sections of Electronic Media & Culture at MICA were treated to a special project to conclude our section on vector illustration.

Christopher Barzak, Crawford Award-winning YA author and Professor of Creative Writing at Youngstown State University, sent along two unpublished short stories—The Blue Egg and The Flood—and I directed my students to choose one story and create a “book cover” for that story. It's always a great pleasure to work with colleagues across academic institutions, and more importantly, to have students engaging with professional makers outside of the MICA bubble. I want to thank Chris for participating in this project and for giving my EMAC students this opportunity.

Click on the gallery below for selected project submissions.

Former Student Wins Award

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Very happy to share that one of my former students, Tameka Shelford, just won 1st place in the Intermediate category in the Johns Hopkins National Arts Program contest with a photo of her brother that she took for my Digital Darkroom class, and hers is the first photo to ever win Best in Show. Just great news. It's always wonderful to see students put their work out there and get recognition for their efforts. Tameka was an amazing, dedicated student in my class, and I suspect this isn't the last time her name will be called at an awards ceremony.

Takeil by Tameka Shelford

Takeil by Tameka Shelford

Student Work #002

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We had a productive Spring semester in both of my Basic Digital Photography 141 courses at Stevenson University. My students worked hard, and though none of them are pursuing the photographic arts as a profession, they had the opportunity at the end to experience both the pressure and the excitement of developing a photography project from scratch. I gave them a month and only this prompt: "Anything you want." The rest was up to them. Here are my selections of the very best work produced during the SU Photo 141 ON1 and ONE2 Spring 2015 Final Project.

Student Work #001

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During Basic Digital Photography at Stevenson University on Tuesday, we focused on faceless portraits. I kicked the energy up a notch, and once we added in a prop room, a construction site, a studio and a Larry Light, we really got some magic going. These students are all basic photo, all of them are shooting with their cameras set to manual mode, and many of them aren't even pursuing the arts as a career, so it is encouraging to see them exploring and experimenting and getting these kinds of results during just a practice session.

SU students featured in 'Baltimore Jewish Times'

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I was pleased to get an e-mail this morning sharing a recent article in the Baltimore Jewish Times which features work and comments by one of my Photo 480 students, Michelle Canvisser. Her work and the work of other SU students is now showing in "E3: Exploring Eastern Europe" at Stevenson University’s St. Paul Companies Pavilion at 1525 Greenspring Valley Road in Stevenson, Md., where it will be exhibited until May 22.

Halt! Stoj!
Michelle Canvisser