This week, I thought it would be fun to have the students tackle traditional versus digital art. As a warm-up exercise, students constructed cubeecraft figures made from paper. Cubeecraft figures are small block designs based on a variety of pop culture characters. For our assignment, we focused on the characters Ray: Star Wars the Force Awakens and Ness: Earthbound. Working meticulously, students had to cut out the individual parts of their character and assembled it together.
The students were then tasked with constructing a blockhead figure in 3D using the software Google SketchUp. The blockhead figures are similar in design to the cubeecraft figures: they both consist of three cubes stacked on top of each other with two rectangular arms sticking out the side. The blockhead assignment was a self-portrait exercise. Students created a blockhead avatar that uniquely represented them. The students were able to add small details such as clothing or glasses to their blockhead to give it more character.
DIVAS (Digital Interactive Visual Arts Sciences) for Social Justice aims to bridge the digital divide by combining media literacy and cultural awareness along with a vast understanding of technology to encourage young women in under served communities to pursue careers in computer science and new media.
