In the first semester of this year I'm on a new art style called Pixel Art encountered I was sitting in one of the classrooms at Bassendean Primary School listening to a presenter. As I looked around the room, I saw a few Pixel Art-Self-portraits on the walls. After looking closely at the students' amazing work, I did some research on them Pixel Art-Niche.
Before I explain how I Pixel Art in my classroom, I have to issue a warning.
Don't let your students blindly follow the internet Pixel Art search. You may accidentally *cough* come across inappropriate content. Search Google Images for “Pixel Art” and you will know what I mean.
I strongly encourage you to upload appropriate images and website links to Connect or any other platform that allows you to securely distribute digital content to your students. Set rules on what they can and cannot look up and make sure they and their parents have all signed an ICT Code of Conduct form.
Don't let these precautions stop you from Pixel Art perform in your classroom. There is some amazing content that students love to recreate and that will help provide inspiration for their own original creations.
So let's get into “Like you Pixel Art teach successfully in your classroom”.
What is Pixel art?
Pixel Art is a form of digital art that focuses on one thing, the humble square pixel. Your computer monitor, smartphone and even the old Nokia 3310 have a liquid crystal display (LCD). LCD screens are made up of thousands of pixels. Pixels are the small squares that change color in response to the image displayed on your screen. If you blink hard enough, you can probably see them on the device you're currently reading this blog on.
When video games became popular in the 1980s, computer game developers had a limited number of pixels and colors to work with. These technological limitations are the reason why the 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation video game characters looked "blocky". But the kids (and adults) who played video games back then didn't care about the graphics, and I'd argue that their original design is a big part of why video games are still popular today.
I can't imagine the original version of Mario, Sonic or Mega Man looking any different.
Pixel art paper
First, you need graph paper; however, the graph paper that you order from Office Works may not be suitable. The needs of your classroom will depend on what type of Pixel Art you want your students to create. The good news is that there are many websites on the internet that can fulfill this requirement. Here is a list of websites that can generate the graph paper templates you need for Pixel Art require:
- Incompetech (recommended)
- Print free graph paper
- Print graph paper online
To recreate the original block feel of Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari 2600 and even the latest generation of games with a retro feel, you need larger squares (1 - 0,75 cm) of graph paper.
As newer video game consoles (SNES & Mega Drive) were released, the pixel count of character sprites increased. In this case you may need graph paper with smaller squares (0,5 - 0,25 cm). This type of graph paper is also useful for students whose Pixel Art contains many details, such as backgrounds, characters, trees, etc.
When creating your graph paper in Incompetech, I recommend setting the number of squares to 300 across and 300 down. I recommend using this setting for three reasons:
- This maximizes the space students can work with.
- When students their Pixel Art- Want to cut out pictures, use the leftover paper for smaller ones Pixel Art-Pieces are kept.
- This also prevents graph paper from going to waste.
Pixel art ideas
Now that we have the paper, it's time to get the ideas started!
My 5th/6th grade classroom class loved it Pixel Art-Create sprites based on popular culture and video game characters. Examples include:
- war of stars
- Pokémon
- adventure time
- Terrariums
- Minecraft
I polled what my students wanted to replicate on paper and then took a screenshot of theirs Pixel Art-Requests. My students asked for characters like Luigi, Pikachu, Steve from Minecraft, Charizard, Finn, Jake, Princess Bubblegum, Bowser, Ralph from Wreck It Ralph, etc.
Having an impressive collection of Pixel Art-images on my computer, I then uploaded those images to Connect. I've been very strict about ensuring that my students only use Connect to access these teacher-approved images. As a side note, Google's kid-friendly search engine Kiddle has all images from Pixel Art blocked. Unfortunately, this search engine, which is usually very useful, does not help.
After my students recreated some of their favorite pixel art images, I got them brainstorming ideas for their own original creation. I kept this particular assignment open and allowed my students to choose what they wanted to create (provided it was appropriate, of course). They had to have a digital version of theirs Pixel Art-picture up PixelArt123.de create and create their art form with graph paper.
As soon as the digital version of their Pixel Artpictures was ready, the students sent me copies of theirs Pixel Art by email. We created the Assessor and Assessee protocols and then rated the quality of each other's work using a jointly created rating rubric.
Here are some examples of what my students have created.
