TechIntersect

One of the things I most enjoy is discovering relationships between art and technology, and one such relationship exists in Pointillism. Each year I do a Pointillism project with my students , with some pretty cool results as they discover the process by which a digital camera makes a photograph by recording thousands of tiny little dots of color.

I really think it is fascinating that Georges Seurat explored the possibilities of optical blending of color in his Pointillist paintings over a hundred years ago, and our most modern of technologies, the digital camera, uses a similar concept.

I will never forget standing in front of the “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” painting by Seurat at the Chicago Art Institute staring in amazement. It is so big, and powerful; it sucks you in. It is posted online, and they have a tool with which you can zoom in to have a closer look, but you really must see it in person to fully appreciate it.

I do my best to convey a sense of appreciation for the past while exploring technology in these Pixel Pointillism projects. When we make these pictures as a class, it is always fun to watch the students as the pieces come together and they attempt to identify who or what is in the picture.

Marilyn and Mt. Rushmore were drawn by hand with paper and pencil, while Elvis and Jack Nicholson were printed on a laser printer from a computer. All projects are composites, with multiple students contributing a piece of the work, not knowing what the end result would be. I think the paper and pencil ones are more distinctive and interesting because while each person has an individual style and interpretation of how the pixels should be drawn, when all of the parts are put together, it still works out nicely.

Tags: art, digital photography, Pointillism

One fun project I like to have students do from time to time helps them to understand both how a digital camera captures pixels of color to create digital photographs, and also how that technology relates to Pointillism paintings from over 100 years ago. If you look at a Seurat painting close up (go ahead and click on the example, I’ll wait…)

Georges Seurat – The Side Show – 1888

Source: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/S/seurat/paradetl.jpg.html

… Ok, you’re back… (That was pretty cool, wasn’t it?) you will see thousands of little distinct colored dots of paint. That is Pointillism. Painting with dots. Working with the example of the Impressionists who did not completely mix colors on their canvas either, Seurat knew that the viewer would mix the discrete colors optically when viewing from a distance. The same thing happens today with our digital displays. The computer monitor you are viewing this on uses discrete dots of color called “pixels” in order to present an optical illusion of color. Check out the zoomed in version of the above image. (Go ahead, click it to enlarge it too.)

Digital images are actually a combination of three colors, Red, Green and Blue. Just as we mixed paint or crayon colors together in elementary school, we mix dots of red, blue and green light together to achieve millions of possible color combinations. The pixel is the smallest graphical unit that can be recorded or displayed, and each will be a variant of red, green or blue. A digital camera sensor records the pixels, and later we can view them on a computer display device or print them on paper.

To simplify things for my lesson, I like to eliminate color information altogether and simply have students record different values of light & dark pixels. I have done this exercise with computers and also using only paper and pencil. I create a pixel puzzle in which each student will recreate a portion of the final picture. The end result looks something like these two examples. (Click to zoom)

How to make the puzzle

Simply take your source image you want to base your puzzle on into Photoshop. On PS CS2 I use Filter->Pixelate->Mosaic, then adjust the square sizes so they are large enough to create pixels, yet small enough the image is still recognizable. Then I print this pixelated version and cut it into numbered squares. It helps to print a key, with corresponding numbers so you know how to reconstruct the image from the puzzle pieces.

If I’m using the paper & pencil method, I also like to print pages with square outlines in which my students can shade in the different values with a pencil. Have them squint at the puzzle piece to get an accurate reading on how dark or light the individual squares are. Then have them shade in the corresponding squares. If students reproduce their puzzle piece fairly accurately, you can reassemble a compelling and recognizable image of the original.

I am always surprised at how even though students can use a different stroke or shading style, yet the image manages to come together quite nicely.

If I’m using the computer graphics method, I still print the puzzle pieces for them, but instead of a pencil, I let them use Adobe Illustrator to draw the different value squares, then print their work out on a laser printer. Same idea, but less mess and usually less time to complete.

Hope you like this idea… my classes seem to enjoy the activity and they appreciate learning a bit of art history and it’s relevance to modern technology.

Tags: art, Art History, digital camera, drawing, education, Impressionism, Pointillism, technology, value study