ACX - KIDS - Stories

ACX Kids class Inventors’ Workshop teaches students problem solving

February 1, 2021 by
Photo of Nas Oh, (BFA 2011 Illustration)

Think of three ways to brush your teeth without using your hands, sketch those ideas, and then turn them into products.

That’s a prompt alumnus Nas Oh (BFA 11 Illustration), a production designer for movies, music videos and commercials, uses in his ACX Kids class Inventors’ Workshop. In the class, students learn how to develop concepts, boost their visualization skills and create products.

“Creativity doesn't just help designers and artists,” he says. “Once you know how to brainstorm and creatively solve problems, you can use those skills in your everyday life.”

With Fall 2020 ACX Kids classes being taught remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Oh has focused Inventors’ Workshop on industrial drawing techniques and problem solving, using sketchbooks, a ruler and Prismacolor pencils. Students are shown video and photo examples of existing products and are asked to critique them as both a designer and a consumer. Then, they redesign those products according to what they think they could improve.

One past student who liked cooking wanted to forgo using two different spatulas (a soft spatula and a hard spatula) when cooking fried eggs and meat. To solve this problem, he created a jointed spatula, whose stiffness could be mechanically adjusted from loose to tight using “+” and “–” buttons. “It was a very cute idea based on his personal experience,” says Oh.

Oh also prepares his students for working in the real world by teaching them how to speak with future clients and negotiate peaceful resolutions.

“Working on different types of productions, there are always issues that you never think will be a problem,” Oh points out. “You must figure out how to solve the problem you’re facing within a very short period of time. In my mind, there’s always a way for everything.”

Cartooning Technique

May 12, 2021 by

Work by ACX Kids Summer 2020 student Trent Chung

ACK-011 01
Sun 1:00PM–4:00PM
Feb 28 - Apr 18
Steven Weissman
0.0 Units $275

Learn step-by-step essential skills and techniques involved in comic-strip creation and comic book production. Develop your ideas from rough sketches to thoughtfully composed drawings, rendered in ink. Add tonal values by applying adhesive screentone—a favorite technique employed by manga artists. Have fun while engaging in improvisational, timed and collaborative exercises and spend time perfecting your own personal style.

ACX Kids sparking children’s creativity at home and beyond

September 28, 2020 by
Photo of Gail Howland, BFA 2004 Photography, Faculty, ACX Kids

Alumna Gail Howland (BFA 04 Photography and Imagining) teaches ACX Kids classes Photography and Photography Book Workshop with an eye toward exploration, imagination and discovering the incredible possibilities of making a photographic image.

Traditionally, in her Photography class, students learn about imagery and composition, basic printing processes and how to print from their own negatives in a traditional black-and-white darkroom. In the Summer class Photography Book Workshop, students examine the power of photography to tell stories by creating a personal art book of images based on a theme that sparks interest and inspiration.

So when her Spring 2020 Photography class switched to being taught remotely, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the darkroom became an online video chat room, and she and her students quickly adapted to outside-the-box forms of creating and communicating.

“How oddly wonderful that this time of crisis has necessitated new ways of engaging students online for our classes,” says Howland. “Our kids are so smart and savvy with technology. I would have never believed that a black-and-white lab class could be translated to a great online studio like this.”

After one particular portrait shoot, without being prompted, students started sending her their images through links in their online video chat or to her ArtCenter email. “None of them required any assistance from either me or their parents,” she says.

As students look around their homes and neighborhoods for savvy solutions to assignments, and connect online with their communities and the world at large, ACX Kids faculty are approaching teaching remotely with the same passion for innovation and making. Howland, who has photographed for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Architectural Record and other publications, says a creative skill set can inform the rest of a child’s life as both a creative and a human being.

“Taking an art class should be as essential as taking a math or science class because it teaches you how to build a perspective,” she says. “Giving young people the tool kit necessary to forge their own creative point of view is truly gratifying.”

Architecture from the Inside Out

May 12, 2021 by

Work by ACX Kids Summer 2020 student Oscar Pfleeger

ACK-015 01
Sun 1:00PM–4:00PM
Feb 28 - Apr 18
Delbar Shahbaz
0.0 Units $275

Investigate personal and shared space, especially in relation to yourself and your friends. Use cardboard, glue and paint to construct one project that reflects your world from three different perspectives: the near (things we touch), the middle (the spaces that hold us) and the far (the settings we live in).

Inventors’ Workshop

May 12, 2021 by

Work from ACX Kids Summer 2020 Inventors’ Workshop

ACK-008 01
Sun 1:00PM–4:00PM
Feb 28 - Apr 18
Nas Oh
0.0 Units $275

Product designers invent and design the things you buy: watches, bicycles, shoes and even toothbrushes. Learn how to come up with original ideas, create real products and then bring them to life. You'll learn industrial drawing techniques, concept development and visualization skills.