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Learning how to draw means learning to see. A good art lesson teaches us not only to create but to look at, think about and understand our world through art.

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Sunday, April 5, 2020

Digital Art and Animation on a Chromebook: Transforming your drawings


Yes it’s actually possible to teach digital art remotely on a Chromebook without expensive software.


Assignment for my Digital Art classes periods 3 and 8, due after Spring Break


1) You are going to create a series of digital illustrations, that tell a visual story with a beginning, middle and end.

2)Your images must have color.

3) You must include a foreground, middle ground, background and overlapping.

4) Your story must have characters that you either create from your own drawings or from your own photographs. 

5) The characters can be people, animals or imaginary beings.

6) You may look at images online to inspire your backgrounds and characters, but I am expecting you to create your own drawings or to use your own photographs.

7)You may submit the images as a series of high resolution PNGs or you may use the website Storyboard That to present your artwork.


8) You already have everything you need to know in order to be able to create beautiful, professional quality work. All you need for this assignment is a Chromebook, access to a cell phone and a Sharpie Marker.


9) Any student who cannot get ahold of a Sharpie Marker, please send me a note in Google Classroom. I have a few extras and can mail you one.


10) You may use your own drawings and your own photographs, including the ones you created for the 'Switch Zoo' assignments.

All the information you need to be able to complete this assignment is posted below.

The GIF is extra credit.


Students do not need a drawing tablet or stylus. Both the animated GIF and colorful digital image below were created using only some copier paper, a Sharpie Marker, a cell phone with Adobe Scan (a free scanning app), a Chromebook and the free website Photopea.






The video below will explain how to scan your drawings using any cell phone and use them to create magnificent digital compositions.


After you watch the video above, the video below will explain how to use your newly created digital artwork to create an animated GIF: 




Since I was planning to create both an animation and digital illustrations, I created the wings for the bird, on a seperate piece of paper, in three different positions...



...to create a flight cycle:








Movement cycles, such a flight cycles, walk cycles and turnarounds are useful to animators because they repeat themselves over and over again and can therefore be used to depict continuous movement. 




Assignments: 
for all my students (Digital Art, Visual Design and Computer Animation):

Read my blog posts on walk cycles  and turnarounds 

Next, watch the video below, The video explains how to create a walk cycle using only paper recycled from a food package, a Sharpie Marker, a cell phone (with a free scanning app) and a Chromebook to create a high resolution original walk cycle animation.

All students are to create a series of drawings  or photographs of the same character in different positions. You are to to create either a movement cycle (such as a walk cycle or flight cycle) or a turnaround.

If you have already created a turnaround or walk cycle for me, earlier this year, you must create a new character that is not human. Use this book as a resource.

This isn't as difficult or intimidating as it might seem. If you are not comfortable drawing, you can even use a stuffed teddy bear or a small toy, photograph it against a blank wall, turn it around slightly and photograph it over and over again until you have a complete 'Turnaround'.  6-8 photographs should be sufficient. 

You may not use a turnaround or walk cycle from any previous assignment.

If you do decide to use photography instead of drawing, remove the backgrounds of your pictures, (using 'Background Burner'). If you created a drawing and outlined it with Sharpie,the magic wand tool in Photopea  will get rid of the background. The video explains how you need to rasterize the layer and copy the image into a new file before the magic wand will work.

This video (also embedded above) explains exactly how to use Background Burner and Photopea to combine images and remove backgrounds.
You will use your series of  original PNG images both to create story illustrations and to create an animated GIF.

You can even have a family member take 6-8 photos of you, with their phone, to create a walk cycle or turnaround and then remove the background. Background Burner even lets you save PNGs with transparent backgrounds.

If you decide to use photographs, try to have the character pose in front of a blank wall and then remove the background using  Background Burner. 




Save each image as a PNG with a transparent background and upload it to Google Classroom 


You may want to save a layered file in Photopea so you can keep working on it the next day. How do you do that on a Chromebook? This tutorial shows you how.

Unfortunately the size limit is 10MB. If you have a larger file, I suggest you save each layer separately as a PNG and then reassemble the PSD into layers the next day. Not idea, but that is the best workaround I can think of.

If you decide to create drawings (instead of photographs), consider making moving parts on seperate pieces of paper so that you can digitally cut out and combine your drawings to create the illusion of movement:

It will be far easier to digitally cut out and reassemble your drawings if they have a clearly defined edge, so use a Sharpie marker to create outlines before scanning your work with your phone. 

Below is the drawing that I created for my walk cycle puppet:

You don't actually even need to use drawing paper. I recycled a box from some frozen food to create my puppet drawing. 

 I then used a scanning app to create a PDF of my drawing, uploaded the file to Google Drive, downloaded it to my Chromebook and opened it in Photopea. 

I created this video to show you how to use Photopea to turn your drawing into 
a digital file, ready to be animated, like this one:

If any of my students do not have some copy paper or a Sharpie Marker, please send me a note through Google Classroom. I have a few extra Sharpies at home and I can mail them to your house.

Upload all the PNGs with transparent backgrounds that you have created to Google Classroom before proceeding with the next step.

Here are my PNGs:




After you are done uploading your images to Google Classroom, create an animated GIF of your character and upload that to Google Classroom too.

Here is mine:

 Again, this video will show you how to create a walk cycle, while this one shows you how to create a flight cycle.

Once you are done creating your GIF, 
Create a series of digital illustrations*,  that tell a visual story with a beginning, middle and end. Your images must have color. This video  will explain how to create these illustrations, using your drawings as a resource, in Photopea.

You must include a foreground, middle ground, background and overlapping.  Watch the video below to review the elements of a landscape:


Your story must have characters that you either create from your own drawings or from your own photographs. The characters can be people, animals or imaginary beings.

You may look at images online to inspire your backgrounds and characters but I am expecting you to create your own drawings or to use your own photographs.

If you are planning to draw your characters, use this book as a resource. If you are planning to create a  character that is an animal, use this book as a resource.

You may submit the images as a series of high resolution PNGs or you may use the website Storyboard That to present your artwork. 

Don't forget that I have a teacher's account on Storyboard That. You will need to log in through my teacher account, by following the instructions in Google Classroom, so that you have full access to all the website's features.

For this assignment, you must primarily use imagery created by you and
not the graphics from the Storyboard That website. 

I do understand that not all of my students are 100% comfortable drawing characters, which is why I am allowing you to use your own photographs instead.

Full membership to the Storyboard That website enables you to upload and manipulate your own images and download your work without a watermark. The video below will show you how:




Requirements for your digital story:

All images used in the final project, must be your own. It is your choice whether you wish to use your own photography, your own drawings or a combination of both to accomplish this.

While I do understand that not every student has a cell phone, every single student of mine does have access to one through a member of their household (and the portion of this assignment requiring use of a cell phone is minimal)

Here is a list of all the cell phone apps you will need to use (all free and available for both Android and iPhone):


Google Drive (logged into your school account) For Android or iPhone.


Taking the photos (or scanning your drawings) and sending them to Google Drive should only take a few minutes and then the rest of the assignments should be done on your school chromebook.


*I strongly suggest that any student who is developing an art portfolio, for college submission or AP Studio Art, start this project immediately and work on it during Spring Break 





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