Welcome to Springappalooza, the blog series with some simple tasks and challenges to bolster your app skills. If you complete all challenges by Friday, May 3rd, you’ll be awarded a special Springappalooza 2019 badge and sticker to help you strut your stuff.
So many pictures…
What happens when you can’t find a free-to-use image for a project? This is where a little creativity comes in. Today, we’d like you to use Sketches School to make your own copy of a copyrighted photo.
Start with a definitely copyrighted photo. The general rule of thumb is that if an image is not explicitly marked as free for reuse, there is a copyright holder somewhere in the world. (That being said, Wikimedia Commons is a great starting point for free reuse images.)
Sketches allows you to add images, but it’s a little tough to find. In a new drawing, tap on the import icon (looks like a reverse-sharrow). You can move your photo on the canvas and then start drawing. Trace the colors using whatever tools you want (I’m a big fan of watercolors). When you’re finished, you can remove the photo, leaving you a self-created copy that is free to use in your work.
Here’s a quick start-to-finish example using a portrait of yours truly.
Put Into Practice
Digital Literacy is more than knowing how to use something. A great intro lesson idea is to have students create a diagram or picture for themselves. Once everyone is done, they have to let anyone in the class use what they made without giving credit. This activity usually draws groans and protestation, but it’s a good model of what it really means to save photos from the Internet without the correct usage rights.
What other ideas do you have? Share yours below in a comment to complete this week’s challenge!
Thanks Brian! This tip might actually be really helpful to some of the GENESIS students. Now that they are online, pictures have become essential and I have been stressing copyright. Perfect timing!
There are a lot of other places to find free-to-use stock photos (more on that in an upcoming post) but this is a good way to add some style to a post or project. I like using Sketches, but you can do the same using Keynote or Slides and drawing on top of a photo.
I had students use this same process for a recent art project. I wanted students to show me the different types of drawings and get experience working in color and grayscale before our large-scale value drawing.
We took took this concept a bit further and used a different app that allowed us to add multiple layers and more drawing tools/features. Each student had to draw the same apple using 6 different drawing techniques.