App Review
REVIEW SAMPLES
LESSON PLAN
REFLECTION
I really enjoyed using this app, I've been using it long before I did this assignment so making the review was honest and simple. I'd say the most challenging part of this assignment was the lesson plan portion of it. I'm not an art education student and I've never done a lesson plan before, so I had a difficult time with it. Overall I did enjoy this project and did learn from it.
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DOTPICT REVIEW
I am a part of a fan community on an app named Amino. One of the users that had their pixel art featured on the front page of the community used dotpict to create the work. I downloaded dotpict the same day and have been using it to create pixel art ever since. Dotpict is an app in which you can easily create pixel art, be it complex or simple. It is 100% free, and I believe it is available on both android and iOS in their respective app stores.
I learned how to use dotpict from the tutorial provided by the app and from practicing on my own. It was a little difficult to get used to at first, but once I got the hang of it, it was simple to create beautiful pixel artworks. The tutorial was easy to understand. I believe new users should be able to learn it quickly, especially with practice. Since the app itself is user friendly, I see this app being suitable for middle school students and up. Maybe even some elementary level students since there are simpler canvas sizes and options for beginners. I see issues arising from the way the app draws marks on the canvas; it is different than most drawing apps that use one touch of a finger or stylus to draw lines. For dotpict, one thumb or finger controls the cursor, and the other thumb or finger presses the “dot” button which is what creates the pixels. The user will be using both thumbs or two fingers at the same time instead of just one. The biggest advantage of using this app in the classroom is that it would allow all students to create something fun with ease even if they have little to no drawing experience. Since it is pixel art, replicating pre-existing pixelated characters could be a good way to get an idea of how the app works and what the user could create on their own. Possible skills gained from using dotpict are a sense of spatial understanding and the ability to work with the limited space the user is given. Also, the user learns how to create objects on a structured grid. This leads to resolving issues when translating once-3D or smooth 2D forms into pixel form. The limitations of pixel art serve a good lesson on problem-solving. For example, how can the user make a tree look like a tree when all they are given to work with are little square pixels and not the soft lines of a pencil tool? Or how can the user recreate a complicated object or person in a simplified pixel form? Freedom to use any and every tool and color may be ideal to create something wonderful, but limitations also bring out the best of us. I have created several pixel artworks using dotpict, but I can share a couple of the recent samples I have created for this review. They didn’t take long at all to create since dotpict is simple to use. I didn’t even have a clear idea in mind before I started drawing it, the idea became clearer as I kept drawing pixels on the digital canvas. |