Artrage

This is a wonderful program, which provides lots of options for student exploration and yet is easy for them to navigate and use. It can be used in conjunction with other software programs, providing more creative options in the making of work.

Two key aspects of the program which students need to be made aware of is:
 * The 'best' way to save files.
 * To change the dpi to 300 for better printing outcomes.

Students must ensure that they **'Export'** the file if they want their work saved as a JPeg file. Many students get confused with this.

The task below provides some visual material which may assist you understand some of the functions available in the program but remember there are many more 'creative' options available.

Students should be encouraged to work with layers.Working this way makes it much easier for students to build on drawings, change aspects of their work and generally be more experimental as layers enable changes to be easily made without compromising the work that has already been done.

Visual reference material can assist students enormously when trying to draw something. This can be easily created in Artrage by clicking on the tracing icon at the bottom of the Artrage screen. Students can select anything from their documents.



A colour picker is really important for students to use. Each time they use a colour it should be saved on the colour picker, which will enable students to easily re-use colours when required.

Here, you can see several layers in action. This has enabled me to do things like add highlights to the apple and move the paint around without impacting on the colours already layed down. It is a little bit like working on top of colours that have completely dried. If the student continued to work on the piece without the layers, then the colours work into each other which can be frustrating.



I used the ruler tool here to create the horizonal line in the background. This tool can be found in the stencil section at the bottom of the Artrage screen and has the clever functions of being able to be extended, shortened, moved around and made completely horizontaly with the simple click of the mouse!



Here I am using one of the stencils over the background colour I have already created. //(Once again the stencil is on a new layer, so if I do not like it I can just get rid of that layer!!).// The stencils can be increased and decreased in size and you also have the capacity to create your own stencil. Any picture the student wishes to change into a stencil must be made into a PNG file before this can be done.



Now I am adding a colour to the 'ground' area. Once again this has been done on a seperate layer so that I can easily make changes to this area. The layer also enables me to get the colour right up to the edge of the apple. As I am working on a different layer, I coloured over the edges of the apple and erased the colour from the apple surface once I had finished laying down the colour. //(The apple being on different layers wasn't effected!)//

When working on Artrage students can enlarge the image, so they can work on specific areas more easily. Enlarging the image and moving it around also enables students to consider the compositional aspects of their work and maybe consider making some changes. For instance, this composition is visually more interesting than the original one!

Adding a shadow can assist in creating the illusion of 3-dimensional space.



Artrage enables students to import images onto layers. This opens up lots of exciting possibilites as students can enhance their designs by incorporating all types of images or features.
 * Each image can also be 're-sized' so it fits with the students design.
 * Any area which isn't required is simply erased!





Images can also be rotated which can make areas much easier to work on.