How do you learn a new computer program? Do you start with the Read Me file and then the manual and go step by step by step?
Me? I plunge right in. The manual and help files are a last resort. Most computer programs follow fairly predictable conventions in the way you use them, so experience helps, but curiosity is your best tool. Try everything--every button, every menu. If it doesn't make sense right now, it will later. Explore, experiment, try different tools to see what each does. Play with possibilities. Then read the manual.
Now, obviously part of this is simply differences in learning style, but I think there is something much more critical at stake here. When you follow the manual or tutorial what have you learned? What is in the tutorial. That is it. You haven't learned to apply it to another situation or discovered any other possibilities. It is like following the directions for a quilt pattern. When you get done, that is all you have--a quilt pattern translated into your fabric. And a lot of quilts get made in exactly the same fabric as the pattern...
Frankly, this scares the daylights out of me. We are becoming lazy thinkers. It is much easier to just let someone lift our lids and pour it in--no work, no muss, no fuss--Instant Learning.
One of the things I have learned in the past few years (and that will be another story) is the incredible power of pattern. If you think of a pattern (whether it is a computer program or a quilt pattern or any other "Proper" way of doing something)as being something to be followed exactly or you will have made a mistake or done something wrong, then you have immediately set yourself up for the possibility of failure. No wonder people get scared of learning or taking classes.
If on the other hand we can think of a pattern as simply a starting point, then a whole world of possibility opens up. Technique becomes a tool, not an end in itself. You can play with ideas and learn techniques when and if you need them. Curiosity and "what would happen if...?" become the keys to creativity.
To be continued...later...
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Following Directions
Tips for following directions:
1. Read the directions very carefully. Look for what it doesn't tell you as well as what is specified.
2.Now you have 2 options--
a. If it isn't required or prohibited, you can do anything else you can imagine doing.
b. You _always_ have the option of choosing to modify or ignore the requirements.
I just did this for a little quilt I am making as a challenge for my art quilt group, Uncommon Threads. It is a triptych (3 panel quilt.) I decided to push the definition of "triptych" as far as I could--the definition doesn't specify size or shape of the panels. The panels are intended to be hung as a unit, but doesn't specify placement or positioning.
My quilt ended up being three sinuously curved panels that hang separately from a common rod, but their hanging points overlap and the panels intertwine and interlock.
I call it "I Lead Three Lives" because as I was ready to choose fabrics I realized (as so often happens for me) that the image I had worked on as simply a design problem had also acquired a profound meaning for me.
The three panels represent three significant areas of my life -- pastor's wife and mother, artist and teacher--often separate, but always intertwined. The fabrics I chose were a fairly traditional floral print, and gold and bronze lame, which also then acquired meaning--and no, I'll let you guess which fabric I used for each.
The mind is a remarkable thing!
1. Read the directions very carefully. Look for what it doesn't tell you as well as what is specified.
2.Now you have 2 options--
a. If it isn't required or prohibited, you can do anything else you can imagine doing.
b. You _always_ have the option of choosing to modify or ignore the requirements.
I just did this for a little quilt I am making as a challenge for my art quilt group, Uncommon Threads. It is a triptych (3 panel quilt.) I decided to push the definition of "triptych" as far as I could--the definition doesn't specify size or shape of the panels. The panels are intended to be hung as a unit, but doesn't specify placement or positioning.
My quilt ended up being three sinuously curved panels that hang separately from a common rod, but their hanging points overlap and the panels intertwine and interlock.
I call it "I Lead Three Lives" because as I was ready to choose fabrics I realized (as so often happens for me) that the image I had worked on as simply a design problem had also acquired a profound meaning for me.
The three panels represent three significant areas of my life -- pastor's wife and mother, artist and teacher--often separate, but always intertwined. The fabrics I chose were a fairly traditional floral print, and gold and bronze lame, which also then acquired meaning--and no, I'll let you guess which fabric I used for each.
The mind is a remarkable thing!
Computer Art
Using computers to make art? Of course! My first computer back about 1990 was a 10-year old DOS dinosaur, one of the early portables (at 35 pounds, more like transportable.) I was a total beginner at computers but it had a graphics program on it and I was hooked--irrevocably hooked! I was also very glad when my son gave me another hand-me-down and I could forget DOS!
But let me emphasize--the computer is only a tool just as brush or pen or rulers and fabric are. The computer doesn't make the art--I do! I draw the lines, set the experiments and make the choices. The computer is more accurate and faster than pen and ruler for making patterns--and no ink smears ever. I can do things to photographs with a few clicks that used to take me hours in the darkroom--and then go far beyond that. I can paint pictures--and no little fingers will smear my paint. And I can get effects in minutes that are impossible with brush and canvas. I use a drawing pad and stylus and the strokes on the monitor respond to my touch just as a brush or pastel would. I can play with more variations of an idea than I would ever have time to do otherwise.
But don't mistake me, I still do things traditionally--sometimes. It is just that the computer allows me to explore things I could not have done otherwise--and many more of them. I like that!
I use drawing programs (mostly CorelDraw,) painting programs (mostly Photoshop and Painter) and fractal generating programs (Ultra Fractal and Apophysis and more) I also use several image modifying programs (like PhotoShop and Kaleider.)
Do I use computers to make art? Of course. That is how http://QuiltUniversity.com got started. Carol Miller and I have never met, but we brainstormed via email and we have talked on the phone just twice. We plan to meet in Houston this fall when QU celebrates its 5th anniversary with a special student quilt exhibit. In many ways, I consider my teaching to be the finest art of all!
But let me emphasize--the computer is only a tool just as brush or pen or rulers and fabric are. The computer doesn't make the art--I do! I draw the lines, set the experiments and make the choices. The computer is more accurate and faster than pen and ruler for making patterns--and no ink smears ever. I can do things to photographs with a few clicks that used to take me hours in the darkroom--and then go far beyond that. I can paint pictures--and no little fingers will smear my paint. And I can get effects in minutes that are impossible with brush and canvas. I use a drawing pad and stylus and the strokes on the monitor respond to my touch just as a brush or pastel would. I can play with more variations of an idea than I would ever have time to do otherwise.
But don't mistake me, I still do things traditionally--sometimes. It is just that the computer allows me to explore things I could not have done otherwise--and many more of them. I like that!
I use drawing programs (mostly CorelDraw,) painting programs (mostly Photoshop and Painter) and fractal generating programs (Ultra Fractal and Apophysis and more) I also use several image modifying programs (like PhotoShop and Kaleider.)
Do I use computers to make art? Of course. That is how http://QuiltUniversity.com got started. Carol Miller and I have never met, but we brainstormed via email and we have talked on the phone just twice. We plan to meet in Houston this fall when QU celebrates its 5th anniversary with a special student quilt exhibit. In many ways, I consider my teaching to be the finest art of all!
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