on the ART CAREER TRACK
Combining SE
I n his Feb. 3, 2014 New York Magazine
article, art critic Jerry Saltz called
Parmigianino’s Self-Portrait in a Con-
vex Mirror, possibly the first “selfie”
ever created. Saltz argued that all the
attributes of the selfie are present in
the Parmigianino canvas: “...the subject’s
face from a bizarre angle, the elongated
arm, foreshortening, compositional dis-
tortion and the close-in intimacy...”
We have witnessed the birth of a
new genre of art. Unlike digital SLR and
point-and-shoot devices, almost
everyone is carrying a smart
phone with a built-in cam-
era at all hours of the day.
Is this the first “selfie” ever
created? Parmigianino
(Italian; 1503–1540).
Self-portrait in a Convex
Mirror, c. 1523–24. Oil
on poplar wood; 9.6-inch
diameter. Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna, Austria.
32
T Y P O G RA
Each can reverse its field so that it can
take a self-portrait, or “selfie” and can
instantly broadcast the image across
impossible distances in real time.
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS see their
phone as part of their identity and
as most teachers can attest, we do
battle in class with cellular technology
every day. As much of a nuisance as
it is to monitor students, the benefits
of having a smart phone in a design
classroom clearly outweigh the
negatives. Every student is
able to search data, find
images to use as drawing
references, and can use
their phone’s camera
to record difficult ges-
tures for sketching.
My grade 11 graphic
design students recently
completed a project that
o c t o b e r 2 0 1 6 • 84 Y E A R S
Go to artsandactivities.com and click on
this button for related resources.
combined their creative use of a selfie
and an important typography lesson in
letter spacing. Students were asked to
set their first and last name in serif and
sans serif samples we studied in class.
In order to provide as much contrast as
possible, 160 point Bodoni, with its con-
trasting weights and hairline serifs and
Monotype’s Franklin Bold Condensed
were used as tracing references. The
class was shown the traditional rules of
letter spacing, which place the greatest
space between two vertical letters and
the smallest interval between curved
letters. They were advised that all
curved and pointed letters must be
placed slightly below the baseline for
optical spacing reason.
We also examined the ligature—a
situation where letters must be joined
see GRAPHIC on page 44
[ www.ar tsandactivities.com
LFIES with
PH Y by Irv Osterer

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
High-school students will ...
• understand the traditional rules of letter
spacing.
• recognize the difference between serif
and sans-serif type.
• integrate type and images in creative
compositions.
• render type in black ink in an accurate
manner.
• expand their type vocabulary.

NATIONAL ART STANDARDS

• CREATING: Conceiving and developing
new artistic ideas and work.
• PRESENTING: Interpreting and sharing
artistic work.
• RESPONDING: Understanding and
evaluating how the arts convey meaning.
• CONNECTING: Relating artistic ideas
and work with personal meaning and
external context.

MATERIALS
• Sketchbooks, tracing paper, pencils
• Alphabet handouts
• Pen and ink
• Black acrylic paint, paintbrushes
• Smart phones
• Epson sticker paper for Inkjet printers
(laser-printed versions are fine if your
school has this option)
• Mayfair cover stock or Bristol board

www.ar tsandactivities.com [ 84 Y E A R S • october 2016 33

 together to pre-
GRAPHIC serve optical spac-
continued from page 35
ing and the fact that
many computer programs have special
ligature characters that are automati-
cally set when letter combinations like
tt or ffi are entered.
It’s rare for students to get the
letter-spacing problem right the first
time, but doing the exercise on tracing
paper makes it easy for the instructor
to assist each student with his or her
issues, and since all the names are dif-
ferent, no two solutions are the same.
When students were satisfied with
their tracing-paper samples, they were
asked to arrive at a playful scenario that
would marry their first and last names
with a selfie in their sketchbooks
It took little convincing to get this
part of the exercise done. The class
was advised that photos taken out-
doors would probably serve them bet-
ter as while the virtual quality of these
images are fairly good, the print quality
can vary from phone to phone, and
deteriorates significantly under low
lighting conditions.
The selfies were emailed to the
school server, and then printed on
44
Epson inkjet sticker paper according to
the layout plan each student prepared
in their sketchbooks.
It was then just a question of care-
fully positioning and transferring the
tracing-paper lettering samples to the
10" x 13" Mayfair cover surface using
a light table. After the type portion was
completed, the selfies were adhered in
the proper position.
A LITTLE BIT OF EACH STUDENT’S PER-
SONALITY came through in this assign-
ment and it’s impressive how well
these grade 11 students were able to
manipulate type and image and man-
age the often difficult task of correctly
spacing letters.
While this exercise was done
entirely by hand, it will serve students
well when they switch to the digital
environment, as graphic designers rou-
tinely make decisions about letter spac-
ing, kerning, tracking, ligatures and
the position of images on a page. Q
Arts & Activities Contributing Editor
Irv Osterer is Department Head – Fine
Arts and Technology, at Merivale High
School in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
follow us on
o c t o b e r 2 0 1 6 • 84 Y E A R S
eager to work
WEGMAN on creating their
continued from page 22
own anthropo-
morphic photomontages. To prepare for
this project, I found and printed a good
selection of animal photos (dogs, cats,
rabbits, etc.) from Pixabay.com, a web-
site with free, public domain pictures.
The students neatly cut out the ani-
mal heads and glued them to their
papers. They then used a variety of
media—watercolor paints, Kwik Stix
paint sticks, colored pencils, markers,
etc.—to create the bodies, accessories
and background.
The kids had all kinds of fun ideas
for their animals, including a birthday
party, badminton game, dance studio,
... students
learned what
“anthropomorphism”
means and enjoyed
discussing examples
in Wegman’s work.
restaurant scene and wedding. I got
a kick out of seeing all the ways they
made the animals anthropomorphic.
WEGMAN WORK COULD BE USED as a
launching point for many hands-on art
explorations, and his extended post-
card paintings would be an interesting
challenge for advanced students.
Older students could create picture
books for younger kids, using a simi-
lar painting technique with magazine
images. Or, kids could create digital
photomontages using Photoshop® or
iPad apps. To connect with language-
arts studies, students could respond
by writing a story about one of Wil-
liam Wegman’s artworks, or they could
write and illustrate their own story.
William Wegman’s rich array of cre-
ative work is just waiting to be mined
for some great to many art lessons and
activities. Have fun exploring them in
your classroom! Q
Marcia Beckett teaches K–6 art at
EAGLE School in Madison, Wisconsin.
She shares art and teaching ideas on her
blog: www.ArtIsBasic.com.
[ www.ar tsandactivities.com
Copyright of Arts & Activities is the property of Publishers Development Corporation and its
content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email
articles for individual use.