Mathematics and Digital Art: Update 1

I have the pleasure of teaching Mathematics and Digital Art again this semester!  Since I’m largely following my outline from last semester, biweekly reports aren’t really necessary.  But every month or so, I’d like to provide an update regarding changes I’ve made from the previous semester, as well as provide examples of student work.

There are no significant content changes yet — although I’ll be discussing L-systems rather than polyhedra this semester, and there will be more to say when we get to that point.  But as far as the delivery is concerned, there have been some alterations.

First, I’m emphasizing the code more right from the start.  You might recall that in their mid-semester comments last semester, students asked for more details about the actual coding.  So I take more time in each lab explaining Python.

This change has already made an impact; I’ve noticed that students are getting more adventurous with coding earlier on.  They really seem to enjoy experimenting with the geometry.  The example I use for the Josef Albers assignment looks like this — just rectangles within rectangles.

But Collette took the geometry quite a few steps further.  In her narrative, she discussed working with figure and ground, trying to make each geometrically interesting.

I am pleased to see students playing so intently with the geometry.  At first, after a detailed discussion of using two-dimensional coordinates in Python, some students just tried randomly changing numbers to see what would happen.  But I encouraged them to be a little more intentional — that is, spend more time in the design stage — and they were largely successful.

The second change is that I spent an extra day on affine transformations at the beginning of our discussion, slowing down the pace a little.  Last semester, I recall that I needed to go back and review ideas I thought I covered in sufficient detail.  Hopefully, slowing down the pace will help.

In addition, I put together a summary of commonly used affine transformations, such as reflections:

This seemed to be helpful — I used it for the linear algebra course I’m teaching as well, and students responded positively.  Feel free to look at it; just go to Day 6 on the course website.

The third change involves using discussion boards more deliberately on Canvas (which is our University’s content management system).  For each digital art assignment, I have students post drafts of their work, and have their peers comment on them.  Since I have a small class this semester (six students), it is not a problem to have each student comment on every other student’s work.

Students really seem to enjoy this, and I participate by writing comments as well.  But because everyone works at a different pace, some students lagged behind.  So now I’m being more formal about using the discussion board, and making it an assignment.

For example, the next assignment involves creating three pieces, and I have assigned students to upload drafts on Canvas by the beginning of class next Friday.  We’ll use Friday’s class so students can write and read comments; the assignment isn’t due until a few days later, so there will be time to incorporate new ideas into their drafts.

These changes are making a positive impact, and are making the course even more enjoyable this semester.  And I am also fortunate to have Nick Mendler as my course assistant again this semester, meaning there are two of us to work with students each day.  Students are really getting individual attention with their work.

Now let’s look at some more examples of student work!  For the assignment to create a color texture using randomness, Lainey worked to create an image which resembled a piece of fabric.

For the Josef Albers assignment, Peyton (like Collette) also experimented a lot with the geometry of the individual elements.  She chose a color palette which reminded her of a succulent, and so created geometrical objects which represented spikes on a plant.

And for the assignment based on my Evaporation piece, Karla chose a pink palette.  She looked at various values for the radius and the randomness in the radius so as to create a balance between overlapping circles and white space between the circles.

Stay tuned for the next update!  In the next installment, I’ll let you know how the work with L-systems went.  One of my favorite topics…..