Shopping

MANIPULATION: The kids have a show and tell type night at their north end school next week. For the two event last year, they made some Yoshi statues and wrote and illustrated some really great books ("Gingy and the Windy Day" and "Lolly Learns a Lesson").

This go 'round we kept it simpler. They are just doing a 'Fun with Photoshop' display. They had a couple of things they've created in the past to show - including this cute composite Annabelle did of her Pillow Pet bumblebee and some flowers - which we'll be using.

But most of what will be displayed is brand spanking new. Not surprisingly, most of today's creations were inspired by video games. Perhaps you noticed Donkey Kong atop the Space Needle leading today's blog post? In the first version the kids were working on, they were using an animated DK image they found online, but none of us liked the way that looked, so we ended up doing a photo shoot of a stuffed DK toy they have. Annabelle posed the toy around one of our kitchen lamps.

Then, CJ had to eliminate Annabelle (sorry, Sis!) and the rest of the background, isolating DK, and move him over onto a stock Space Needle shot we had.  

During all of our Photoshopping, the kids used either a track-ball or a Bamboo tablet. CJ MUCH preferred the track-ball. The pen and tablet gave him fits.

Once Donkey Kong was done, we worked through a number of other photos, including this 8-bit dog from the first video game Rick and Ken ever played: "Duck Hunt." Instead of being in an 8-bit field like he is in the game, CJ inserted him into a real world field.

We also had some fun with one of CJ's favorite Internet memes - the Troll Face. CJ found a face that was a big enough file, then we found a Fremont Troll photo that would work.

CJ isolated the Troll face and put it on the Fremont Troll, but it just didn't look cohesive enough. I suggested CJ experiment with some of Photoshop's filters to make the two images fit together better. He settled on a "Stamp" filter that was bold black and white, like the Troll face, and fiddled with the settings a bit to make it acceptable to him.

And last but not least, ever since we saw a silly sign outside a pet shop saying something about "Raiders of the Lost Bark" CJ has wanted to do a composite of Kirby on that movie poster. Well today was the day!

CJ was the one who thought to change the headline on the poster. Before his work, it read "Indiana Jones - the new hero from the creators of JAWS and STAR WARS."

CLASSY: The kids had music this morning. We always get there a few minutes early so they can play around on the instruments.

In LEGO class, CJ continued to work through a kit that's actually a collection of projects (building small animals ranging from a fish to a seahorse and more), while Annabelle put the finishing touches on her rescue helicopter. 

Before class, the kids had a half hour of fun in the gym, where they played prison ball (sounds fun, eh? It's every-man-for-himself dodgeball) and scooted around on square skateboards. Good times!