Digital Maestro Magazine

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 4

Cover image ...... 6

Organizing Illustrations ...... 20

Dragon’s story ...... 22

Thought Balloon ...... 28

Change shapes ...... 31

Google Slides ...... 35

Book covers ...... 41

Social media ...... 43

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Introduction

The lessons in this issue originated with a request. Teachers needed a way for students to access an application like ComicLife. Students in our district have one to one access to . ComicLife is not available for Chromebooks. They wanted an alternative.

I had already used Drawings for very presentation centric . I wanted a tool that graphic organizers . I had also used some could be used for a variety of projects . tools in Slides to create interactive stories . I combined both ideas and lessons for use The illustrations we create in these lessons with Google Drawings . will be assembled in . They can also be assembled in a Google Doc . Proj- I choose Google Drawings over the other ects like book covers, posters, and social Google applications for a few reasons . media are images by themselves . We have is not designed to be used for the option to export our finished product and desktop publishing . There are several good share it . Better yet, we can share the finished tools but they can be difficult to use in a word product without exporting to a static image . processing environment . Google Drawings is part of Google Suite . It Google Slides works very well with graphics is found in the app launcher with the other and interactive stories . I wrote an issue that apps . The tools in Drawing are easy to use . uses Google Slides for interactive stories . The products possible are amazing . In this I didn’t choose Google Slides because it is issue, we will explore Google Drawings for

Page 4 Digital Maestro Magazine Digital Maestro Magazine language arts . There are a variety of ways to Illustration ideas use the application with reading, writing, and vocabulary . I have a short list projects for use in language We will create a few basic illustrations in a arts . I’m sure you have many more . short story . The lessons will show how the basic tools work . I will also include some 1 . Illustrate a short story graphic design ideas and concepts . This all ties into STREAM . Lots of emphasis on Tech- 2 . Illustrate a book they have read nology, Reading, wRiting, and Art . 3 . Illustrate a book of poems

4 . Illustrate a comic book

5 . Design a movie poster

6 . Design a greeting card

7 . Design a holiday card

8 . Design a PSA poster

9 . Design a flyer

10 . Design a social media message

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Cover image

Our first project is one most elementary school teachers can use as part of any lesson. The lesson can be adapted for middle and high school students. I will be using the words drawing and illustration a lot. The drawing will often refer to the application product from Google Drawings. The illustration will refer to the content we create in Google Drawings.

Create a new drawing . The application is in This is my title . Feel free to you one of your the Apps launcher . You might need to find own . it under the More option . The artboard has a checkered pattern . This pattern is used in graphics to let us know that the background is transparent . The background is transparent to allow us to create illustrations with trans- parent backgrounds . Some of the images we will use will have transparent backgrounds .

Let’s begin with the title of our illustrated story . The text is placed onto the artboard with text boxes . Click the Insert option in the menu . Select the option to insert a Text box .

First things first . We should name our drawing . Click the Untitled drawing field . This field is above the menu . Title the drawing “Dragon’s Love Tale” . Don’t include the quotation marks .

We need to select where to place the text box . The mouse pointer will change to a plus sign . Move the mouse pointer over the artboard if you don’t see it .

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Click once anywhere on the artboard . Font library

Before selecting a font, it would be nice to find a font that is decorative . Google hosts a library of font services . This font repository is available for anyone to use . The font repos- itory is available at https://fonts .google .com .

We don’t need to go to this repository to use A rectangular text box will be placed to the one of the fonts on our cover . Access to the right of where we click . The box is ready to repository is available through most Google accept our text . Type the title of our story . It’s Suite applications . Click the font selector . The the same as the name of our drawing . font selector is in the button bar .

The text box uses the default font, Ariel . Let’s Select the More fonts option . change the font, font size, and text align- ment .

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A font’s selector box will open . There are Click once on a font family . Fonts are called hundreds of fonts to browse . families . Fonts often have more than one form . There are fonts that are thick, medium, thin, and italic . These are all part of the font family . A font that has several members in its family is the Nunito font . This font has Extra Light, Light, Normal, Semi Bold, Bold, and so on .

Why so many fonts? Long publications like magazines need a variety of font styles that There is an easy way to browse for a font we look similar . The Black font in the Nunito want . Click the Show all fonts selector . Fonts family might be used for large titles . The are grouped into categories . Most of these normal form is used for paragraph text . The categories are used for writing letters and light form might be used for captions or illus- stories . We want something more decorative trations . Semi Bold might be used for subti- for our title . Click the Display category . tles .

Font is actually a term used to define the file . The lettering or style of the font is referred to as the Typeface . Most people usually use the term font . Designers use the term typeface .

Fonts in the display category are more deco- rative . Decorative fonts are not designed to be used on long text like paragraphs . Adding fonts to use in our projects is easy .

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Thank you for reading these sample pages.

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