back to school

Yesterday began the new semester for me. New classes that are all art classes...WOO HOO! This morning I attended my first Computer Art and Illustration class. The whole focus of the class is developing an artistic style, doing fine art that's computer aided. The instructor showed us slides of other artists' work, and I felt so inspired and excited about what I will be doing this semester in this class. I saw some really amazing pieces, many of which were traditional art pieces with canvas and paint, as well as computer generated pieces. We're to keep a sketchbook as part of our requirements for the class. I think my art journal will work just fine.

I sat in the wrong seat in this morning's class, however. As I took my seat the teacher said, "You'll be driving for me if you sit there". I responded, "No problem!", since I pushed the buttons on the computer for the instructor a few times last semester and it was easy. Dear Tom would say, "now push this, do that,", nice and slow and mellow. Yeah. Not this gal. She's one of those computer folks that's so familiar with the programs that I think she forgets we don't know what we're doing. So it was like, "hit command D, command D, command D, COMMAND D!!!", and my brain and fingers tried desperately to accommodate her request. When I learned Illustrator last semester, Tom didn't focus on keyboard commands, we worked mostly with the mouse. This gal is all about the keyboard commands. Sigh.

The above piece is by an illustrator by the name of Daniel Chang. His images are line driven, whimsical with a touch of menace. Pretty cool. Check out his site!