Hello everyone, my name is Yarmiler Lopez. I'm a student at UCAP. I'm doing an internship at AS220 Youth in both photo mem and fabertory.
Today I walked around the block of AS220 and took pictures of the city. Miguel showed me how to take pictures using shallow depth of field. When you make a picture with shallow depth of field, you are focusing on one part of the whole picture, making the rest blurry! I always wanted to take pictures like this but never knew how. These are some samples of shallow depth of field that I took. CHECK EM OUT!
If you haven't checked it out already "5th Moon," a show of artwork by AS220 Youth members Eugene Petty and Kenneth Norman is up at the AS220 Youth Gallery on the second floor of 115 Empire. These two dudes have been busting their behinds all year in Visuals, Photo, and Fabratory classes and have a ton of 2D and 3D artwork to show for it.Eugene's scenes of the natural world will meet Kenneth's alien beings from dark regions of space!
This week in AS220 game design news, Kenneth Norman has some amazing concept artwork up in the Youth Gallery. His opening was Sunday the 6th, and if you weren't there then you missed out on a great time. Eugene Petty was also there. He's not that into game design so he doesn't count. Nice kid though. :)
Over at the RBC we're still making a new WW II boardgame in which the players escape from a concentration camp. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the game turns out.
Downtown classes were a hoot. We're getting into overdrive on projects. I also found out halfway through the term that our kids from Juanita Sanchez who are here as part of the HUB ELO program are going to present their work in front of a panel including myself, their teacher of record, and people from the community. The kids have to show what they've done, talk about it, and also teach it in front of this panel. This came as a surprise to both me and the kids. Its a neat plot twist to the overall game.
-Matt
Not too long ago Nick's drawing class went to one of the coolest places in Providence, RISD's Nature Lab, to check out its of thousands of taxidermy animals and weird specimens in jars. Raul finally got to draw from a real skeleton instead of taking favorite-artist OG Abel's word for how they look; Sasha and Sharon drew exotic feathers; Kiara drew weird seed pods in beautiful jars; Patricio drew a crow to match his look; Janayzia drew a coy fish, a swan, and some weird bacteria under a microscope; and last but not least Simcha drew a very impressive rendering of a red fox's skull.
These sketches will serve as a great resource for future drawings, cause nothing compares to drawing from life! Get off the computer, go draw something!
AS220 Youth invites you to join RI Kids Count for a community presentation of 'Data in Your Backyard' exploring Juvenile Justice in Rhode Island. Discussed will be information that reflects the recent and rapid move towards community-based correction. As a dramatic drop in the number of incarcerated youth has been seen in the state, there has been increased numbers of youth referred to residential placements and probation. While data suggests that community-based corrections benefit youth and improve long-term outcomes, local providers are challenged to provide the intensive services that many of these young people require.
A panel discussion will follow. Probation officers, community providers, youth, and families will come together to discuss their experiences with residential programs, probation, court-mandated treatment, and transitioning back to school or work.
Time: Thursday, May 3rd, from 3pm - 5pm Place: AS220 at 115 Empire Street, first floor
Presented in partnership with RI Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF).
For more information, contact Anne Kugler.
Naruto Generations is a fighting game that is suitable for anyone, especially for anime lovers. It is a multi-player game that gives you a variety of characters to choose from. You can vary because each character has its own unique moves and specials. Not only that but unlike other fighting games, you can move around and you don't have to wait for your turn to attack. The backgrounds are detailed, and look like they were illustrated using a medium such as, water colors.
Naruto Generations is a good game that brings out your competitive edge and allows you to have fun. You can play against each other in a team or, if you just feel like playing by yourself you can just put single player. Don't know how to play? Don't worry, you can practice before you actually fight against another player or the computer. There is also story mode or free mode to choose from; depending on which character you choose, you'll unlock different rewards. Naruto Generations came out of the creators imagination, which also happens to be a Japanese TV show.
-Kenya
For the past few weeks, students in my 3d Modeling class have been working on modeling their own heads in Blender. This started with a collaboration with Scott Lapham's photo class, taking front, side and back photos of our student's heads. These photos were then aligned in Photoshop and imported into Blender as background reference to model from. This week we took a trip over to the Fab Lab where Josh, one of the Fab Lab students did 3d scans with some bleeding edge technology. We had an XBox Kinect hooked up to Josh's laptop and used a program called Reconstructme to generate high poly models of everyone's heads. These models aren't entirely perfect and they're a very high poly count, so in the coming weeks the 3d class will learn a technique called retopology, which involves reorganizing 3d geometry into a cleaner and more manageable mesh. The end goal of this is two-fold. Students will hopefully walk away with their own video game avatar in Unreal Development Kit. They will also be able to return to the Fab Lab and print their heads on the 3d printer and take home their own likenesses immortalized in ABS plastic.
For the last six months, AS220 Youth has been offering IC3 digital literacy classes to high school graduates at the Rhode Island Training School. The classes cover the basic foundations of computers including hardware, software, and networking. We are so proud to congratulate the latest group of students who have passed their certification tests in Microsoft Office! Not only did they pass, but they are the first people to take the exams at the Training School AND they received the highest test scores that we have ever had. Big ups, no doubt.
TAKE A PRACTICE TEST HERE! SEE HOW WELL YOU DO!
Jesen Tenadi, a local artist and printshop key member, is teaching the Youth Studios' screen printing class about drypoint. We have learned how there are many different ways to print more possibilities on printing. We learned the basic methods of dry point on Plexi glass and how much labor and patience you need to have. Something that really impressed me about the class doing something completely new is that we finally get to print in a different style. I would have never Known that you can print such a beautiful picture from just scratches on a piece of Plexi glass. This new collaboration between the Youth Studio and the AS220 Community Printshop has just been pretty spectacular because we are actually seeing how our lives is going to change right after we graduate from the Youth Studio and off to our journey called life with a bigger knowledge on printing.
Oh Yes, it is true! One of the rights of passage of a RI Artist is the annual application for to the Rhode Island State Council of the Arts individual Fellowship award. This award is meant to support the best work of RI artists in the visual, performing and written arts with a first and second place designations. Winning this fellowship provides artists with cash awards that help support their art practice. This year we are proud that Norlan Olivo, Miguel Rosario and James Sawyer will be applying for the Photography fellowship for the first time. Each of these students have worked to produce strong photographic portfolios in AS220's youth photography program called Photo Mem. Their portfolios show more than simply a collection of photographs, they show engaged young people with a point of view, young people who have reflected on their experiences and their community.
Congrats Norlan, Miguel and James!
Once hearing that the dish of the day was greek salad with pan seared Tilapia ( a mild white fish) two of our students turned their noses up saying "No Fish!". Nicole Sanchez said " I thought it would be nasty, cause I never tried it (it being fish)". Kassy Cardona said " I thought it would just be ok but not great." This kind of skepticism is common at the start of cooking class, but this does not deter our master chef Ricardo Ferrer (aka Dingo). He routinely changes hearts and minds with his flavorful cooking.
What did Nicole have to say about the fish? " I liked it a lot!" When asked if she would recommend it to a friend she definitively said "YUP!". Kassy said " I didn't think I 'd go for seconds, cause the salad had olives and I don't like olives. There were other weird ingredients, like mustard in the salad dressing and capers on the fish, but I would give this meal an eight or a nine out of ten. I would cook this at home, I hope I don't burn it!" Well......it doesn't get much better than that. My stomach can't wait for our next cooking class.
ZUOLOGY HIP HOP SHOWCASE hosted by DJ ShureLive is poppin off next *THURSDAY April 26TH from 7-10PM (doors open at 6PM) *
AS220 Youth 115 Empire Street Downtown Providence
This show is going to be LIVE! We have a Live Band, MC Battles, Dance Cyphers, Live Beat Construction and featured performances by Milez Grimez, Chris DaGreat, Fa Raw, and many others like Project 401, the Boys and Girls Club of Pawtucket, 2Legit Dance Crew and more!!!!
For more information about this show or if you'de like to enter the MC Battle, hit me up!!
Anjel@as220.org
This week we tried something a little different at the training school. We played Candyland. And it was awesome. Up to this point we've been trying different things like designing characters and 2d sprites on paper for video games. But once I finally realized the location we were working at didn't have access to enough laptops, the video game plan got scrapped. The backup plan was to redesign a deck of cards. The interesting thing about modern playing cards is that they're derived from Tarot cards. So the idea was to take their own symbols of power for the four suits, design the numbers, the royalty, and the pattern on the back of the cards. They would have ended up with everything they needed for their own custom deck of cards. I thought it was a cool project but I'm not a kid in the training school. That plan eventually failed as well.
Race to the End Game. That's what this exercise is called. Its a little less incendiary than Race Game. 2-4 players get from Point A to Point B, just like Candyland. It seemed like a good idea when I was looking at it in Wal-Mart. Back in the studio it slowly started to sink in I might just get laughed out of the RITS. The tension built.
All of those nerves were for nothing. This is the power of games and why game design is worth teaching and learning. Something as simple as Candyland provided a momentary escape from the quotidian. One kid said it was stupid and didn't want to play. Eventually even he joined in and got as competitive as the rest of them. I don't think Candyland was ever played with so many F bombs.
There was a point to all of this. I wanted to get them to design their own Race to the End Game. So we brainstormed, drew and made lists until we ran out of time. Some of them worked alone, while others actually teamed up and collaborated. Hasbro had better watch out because these kids are good. We'll see how the rest of the plan comes together.
For four weeks our photography students at the RI Training School created this car race demolition animation. First they split into two teams to create the competing vehicles. Once the each car was properly detailed ( with rear view mirrors, shift sticks and speed gauges) the race was on. Once started no one knew who was going to cross the finnish line first. Our normally super competitive students worked not just to win, but to entertain. Each car crashing incident and pit stop was brainstormed while photographing for comic effect. Please picture the Benny Hill them song while watching this, and enjoy!
Thursday, April 26, 2012 AS220 Youth 115 Empire Street Providence, RI 02903
Zuology Showcase is a Hip-Hop Show and Open Mic Dedicated to getting young performers on stage. We want everyone to get up and have a chance to Rock-Da-Mic. Come Early as the list fills up quick! Also open to b-girls, djs, producers, poets or any one else who has a talent they would like to share.
For information about this event or if you'd like to be added to our list of performers, please contact me, Anjel Newmann at 1-401-467-0701 or at anjel@as220.org
" Rap is something you do, hip hop is something you live" - KRS- One