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 Page 3 Digital Maestro Magazine Digital Maestro Magazine 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 Chromebooks. ComicLife is not available for Chromebooks. They wanted an alternative. I had already used Google 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 Google Slides . 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 Google Docs 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 Page 5 Digital Maestro Magazine Digital Maestro Magazine 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 . Page 6 Digital Maestro Magazine Digital Maestro Magazine 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 . Page 7 Digital Maestro Magazine Digital Maestro Magazine 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 . Page 8 Digital Maestro Magazine Digital Maestro Magazine Thank you for reading these sample pages. Purchase the full issue at… digitalmaestro.org/shop Digital Maestro Magazine.