Adobe Photoshop Bundle: 3 Robust Introductory Lessons

This bundle includes 3 robust introductory digital art lessons for Adobe Photoshop: Visual Autobiography, Digital Surreal Collage and Digital Painting. I typically teach these three lessons in this order at the start of my semester long digital art course.

Visual Autobiography:

In this introductory Adobe Photoshop lesson students will gain confidence with the basic tools of Photoshop: Image resizing/cropping/free transform, color adjustments, white balancing, selection tools, layer masks, dodge/burn, clone stamp as well as concepts like layering, blending and creating focal points.

This is the first lesson I teach to my students each semester in my Digital Art class and it is structured to be project based, meaning the skills are learned through jumping directly into the project.

This lesson includes:

• A 51 slide PowerPoint Presentation that covers: teacher guide, sample schedule, Photoshop basic tools/menus, project prompt and brainstorming/journaling questions, artist inspiration, step by step procedure including 6 video tutorials, reflection question and guided critique discussion, and beautiful student examples.
• Link to a Google Slide version of this presentation (please make your own copy before editing, instructions for this are on the slides)
• Links to 6 very thorough video tutorials hosted privately on YouTube so that students can learn at their own pace.

Digital Surreal Collage

This Digital Art lesson is a fantastic (and fun!) way to teach basic skills in Adobe Photoshop and guide students through creative problem solving in digital applications. In this lesson students will explore the work of Surrealist artists looking to both Art History and Contemporary art sources. Students will learn the Surrealist Strategies and how to employ them in their own surreal compositions! This lesson also reviews basic tools, panels and shortcuts in Adobe Photoshop.

This Lesson Includes:

• 60 Slide Powerpoint Presentation with a Day by Day planning guide, review of Photoshop Basics, Introduction to the history of Surrealism/ Key artists, Studio Activity ideas to check for understanding and offer students practice, Surrealist Strategies, Contemporary art examples, beautiful student work examples and Critique Discussion outline.
• Links to 6 Video Tutorials privately hosted on Youtube for you and your students to access
• Link to an editable Google Slides version of this presentation (Please make your own copy before editing!)
• PDF Handout of Photoshop Tool bar to print and pass out to students.

Digital Painting:

This Digital Art lesson is a fantastic (and fun!) way to teach basic digital painting skills in Adobe Photoshop and to introduce working with a tablet/stylus. In this lesson students will explore digital painting through a series of studio activities (smaller projects) and one larger project, to paint a flower. This lesson also reviews basic tools, panels and shortcuts in Adobe Photoshop.

This lesson includes:

• 50 Slide Powerpoint Presentation with a day by day planning guide, review of Photoshop Basics, Introduction to the Digital Painting and contemporary artists for inspiration. It also includes, two studio activities designed to check for understanding and offer students practice- working files included, step by step instructional video tutorials and beautiful student work examples.
• Links to 8 Video Tutorials privately hosted on Youtube for you and your students to access
• Working files that for the two studio activities: Brush Tool Practice and Painting a Sphere that can easily be brought into photoshop and edited. I had students download these from Google Classroom.
• Link to an editable Google Slides version of this presentation (Please make your own copy before editing!)
• PDF Handout of Photoshop Tool bar to print and pass out to students.

I hope your students enjoy this fun and playful lesson! To see this resource (and others!) in action in my classroom follow me on Instagram @artfulideasclassroom