Catching Rock Bass

Inside/Out. Two portraits (self) in the same program (illustrator) with vastly different results. One made only out of type and one with all kinds of colorful goodness. The typography portrait was pretty straightforward and is made up completely of sections of (you guessed it!) type. I used a section of dialogue from Les Miserables, the novel by Victor Hugo, to fill in sections/planes of the image to create dark and light. This, in turn, gives the illusion of depth and shading The color piece is also created in Adobe Illustrator. I began by building the image with a series of shapes made with the curvature tool. I built them up piece by piece to make the basic shape of the face and neck- but with two separate pieces I was able to create a shadow under the chin. The whole piece is mostly built out of shapes created with the curvature tool. I built up varying colors of skin tone on the face for some dimension on the nose, cheeks, chin and forehead. The paintbrush tool wa...

You, too, can fuel the corporate machine! Dear Diary, Am feeling v cynical after Prensky’s talk. Are all ppl involved really so shallow and simple? Have we, as parents, truly underestimated our children and alienated them for generations and we are just now finding out that they are capable of doing stuff?? And who-in the history of the universe- ever EVER thought that “in the old days you could engage kids with a good lecture”?? DUUUUUDE. Talk about your oxymoron: good lecture. And for children, no less. IF a lecture ever was good it likely would remain so, even for today’s preprogrammed brains. Anyway there is a lot to disentangle: facts and numbers and truths (his) need to be separated from discouragement and bad attitudes (mine).  Grown people would be wise to stay curious and thoughtful regarding children (students of all kinds) and ask questions. Rather than seeking to GET kids to engage- how about engage with them ourselves?? If we are interested in them as fellow h...

Thinking about thinking The first half of this video I was consistently checking the time to see if it was almost over. That was a real bummer. I felt like the talk was spiraling in tiny circles. It was challenging to not have access to all of the images he was projecting on the screen. Here is a list of terms I found myself grappling to put into context: Public Pedagogy Critical Pedagogy Culture Jamming Visual Culture Cultural Condition Actuarial Gaze Neoliberalism Impossible Possibilities My mind was swimming, searching for a firm footing to put down some understanding. At about the halfway point in the talk I realized that the presenter was actually doing the very same thing: laying a foundation in order to move forward. Basic definitions of media and Visual Culture came together to form the premise of some fundamental, but quite complex, concepts. We, as art educators, are teaching students how to see . Are we reinforcing or challenging dominant (default) ...

After a whirlwind introduction to the possibilities of Adobe Illustrator I am a wealth of insight. Prepare to be amazed. As I was. And am. It’s a holy mackerel. It is NOT a vector image. Boo. Holy mackerel! Vectors R U L E. You can make them tiny or so BIG without sacrificing a smidge of image quality or integrity. I’m overwhelmed. To get started just open a new document. See? You can DO this! So then there are the art boards. They are like big tables with all of your artwork laid out neatly. Not the big old mess you have on your desk IRL. Tut. Digital art boards rule. Shapes. Option->click the corner widget inside each shape to tinker with it; size and dimensions can be changed. What does “chamfer” mean? BRUSHES!!! Paths can be styled with paintbrush appearance. I’m gonna need to practice this. Color (stroke + fill). Of the two little boxes in the corner one is for fill and the other for stroke. Which one is on top is for changing of color. Shift + click the color mi...

Dude! My pix don't show how GREEN it really was!!! 1. How do digital images play a role in your day-to-day life? Digital images have been seamlessly integrated into everyday life. At this point in the timeline of photography and ubiquitous imagery, every-single-thing is digital. It is a miraculous spectacle to have film, prints or (impossibly!) unretouched photographs.   2. In your personal life? I n my very own personal life, digital images are the constant. Not a day goes by without utilizing a phone-camera. Besides the taking of pictures, digital images are constantly (constantly!) employed in the form of gifs, ads, banners, online shopping pictures. Emojis? Anyway. Constant. 3. In the way you experience your world?   Upon reflection, I have to admit that I'm more or less jaded and indifferent to the vast majority of digital imagery that blasts by my eyeballs. I'd like to think that I tune out the garbage but there's no way that all the trash gets filtere...

May I knit you a sweater? Steel Wool A spectacular tool for scrubbing pots and making wild zap-burning swirly-fire photographs! But what kind of sheep does steel wool come from? To make this mashup of a sheep made of steel I used a conglomerate of a steel scrubber, some horse armor and a riveted steel panel. All of these blend gently together make a practical and beautiful coat for a taxidermied sheep in the Irish countryside.  1. Grab that Ireland background and clean up the bits which give away its stolenness (this is a screen grab) by clone stamping over the corners and a little industrial bit in the background. Name the layer "steel wool" 2. Use quick selection tool to scoop up the sheep and leave the background behind.  **KEEP THE SHEEP OUTLINE SELECTED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!** 3. Copy sheep and paste onto background via Layer->Duplicate->Destination Document "steel wool". Now the sheep is in the countryside.  4. Use transfo...

Which is the REAL me? Which is the BETTER me? All the steps to a new and better me! Here’s a friendly note: in the hopes of being organized and clear I arranged these steps in a Numbers chart. That was totally awesome and grand until it came time to zap it into this post. It looks a little wacky in the flow of the post but is actually very lovely and easy to read if you click to open it like a picture. Click to see the beautiful chart!

Self portrait whilst relearning Photoshop I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop for years using my own (often made-up) methods. In some ways I have developed a sort-of fluency but after watching a handful of tutorial videos I have to look in the mirror and admit I know next to nothing! That’s exciting because it opens up a universe of possibility! Firstly it became evident that my workspace options have not been maximized. I see now that there are ways of organizing my projects which are intuitive and very user friendly. Next I learned some silly secrets about the selection tools: holding the Shift key constrains an ellipse to a circle: Life. Changed. Additionally I agree that it would be wise (or “best practice” as the video suggested) to name my layers rather than rely on my working memory to keep them in order. Once I viewed and notated the requisite videos I took some time to explore on my own. I had never heard of layer masks before 😳 so I dug into that by watching the fi...