Anne Reed's Page

For your differentiated instruction for art students, how about encouraging them to get active in online artist social sites? They will be able to connect up with artists that enjoy communicating about methods, tools, and critiques of artwork.

There are many such sites on the net ...

Deviant Art. I have to admit that the site's name really put me off when my young teens asked to join up. I researched it and spent a while browsing around. When I told my kids yes, I also signed up for an account as well. Some of the advantages I saw in this site is that there is a lot of youthful energy for art. The social and portfolio tools are excellent. Occasionally, the tone of individual members were not quite what I was comfortable with but that is a reality at almost any open social site. I found that my kids gravitated to others there that were serious about art and could talk intelligently about it or were others that my kids gave a hand up to.

Another artist site is Wet Canvas. It has a higher percentage of adult members and therefore a more mature feel than DA, but it doesn't have the energy of DA either. It is a busy place though and the members there are very passionate about art and alll are quite serious about perfecting their skills.

For your students that are serious about computer, game, and animation art, there are several sites with that speciality. Most of these sites seem to have a very high level of analysis and critique. There is a high percentage of professional computer artists present and active at the sites.

If access to these sites will not fly with 'tech portal gaurdians', can you find a way to connect the student up with professional artists more directly? Maybe you could find guest speakers with some follow up consultations/tutoring offered by the artist? If there are no local artists at hand, try using a free 3-seater Elluminate room which you can get from LearnCentral. I have had guest speakers come in this way and it works very well. We have had a a cartoon artist in when we were on a comic and graphic novel unit. It was amazing and the kids were really inspired. I have held open office hours while working on portrait commissions where the students and the client could drop in to actually watch it being painted. This works well if your artist is using digital tools but with the use of a good web cam perhaps even traditional media could be shared this way.