Moving on to Illustrator

Changing over from Photoshop to Illustrator in my computer graphics class midway through the semester was a bit of an adjustment for me. I had just come off the cookbook exercises and the poster ad project, both of which had been very immersive experiences with Photoshop. The abruptness of the switch coupled with the fact that my online technical writing course started October 19 and ran through December 19 kind of cramped my style or at least stalled my momentum in my graphics class. When I started Illustrator, I guess I felt like a fish out of water. I was lost for a while even though I was not unfamiliar with vector graphics. In fact I had used vector graphics tools before I had used raster graphic tools in my computer career. In the late 80's through the 90's I used MacDraw and Word and Excel Drawing tools to do charts and system documentation. I knew about grouping and rotating and drawing shapes. Only when digital cameras came along and I started "developing" my photos in Photoshop (and more recently in Lightroom) - did I develop basic familiarity with bitmap graphics tools - and then only to develop photos.

So, even though I'd used (sometimes intensely) basic vector graphic tools first, I found Illustrator to be challenging. Of course it helped that some of the commands from Photoshop carried over to Illustrator. Two of our projects in Illustrator were to design a super-hero logo and a cd jacket for a band of our choice. I chose Sailor Moon as my super hero and combined two images to make it look like she was sitting on a moon (sort of like Betty Boop actually).

For my band, I chose Monkey Puzzle, a postmodern "rockapella" type group out of Bloomington, Indiana. I had heard them perform as the lead-in group for another singer at Lafayette's Long Center in the 90's. I don't know if they are still actively performing, but at the time I was so impressed, I bought both their CD's on the spot.

The CD cover project in particular was an excellent project to challenge me and help me to focus. I had to do a lot of research to find images and inspirations that fell within my ability to actually do something with them in Illustrator. Unfortunately, the approach suggested by our instructor - that of coming up with two drawings at the start - just didn't work for me. That was too top down - at least for this assignment. Instead I needed to search for bits and pieces, and try different things with them, and in the end was fortunate to put something together that worked. My instructor offered lots of helpful guidance to get my muse going. I also pulled the group's CDs out of my library and listened to all their music. I think that helped.

In the end, here's what I came up with:




I have to give credit to 6 wonderful resources I found on the web which served as my inspirations:

• the Biffy Cyro Puzzle Album Cover
• the wonderful family tree drawing (for which alas I can no longer locate the website)
• the yellow sky image
• the labyrinth graphic
• the gemfonts failed font
• the hanoded photography fancy rainforest font

Also, apologies to Monkey Puzzle for changing the name of their CD to one of my favorite songs on it.

Reflecting back on the semester, I am still struck by the strong psychomotor component involved in learning how to use Photoshop and Illustrator. Never has that been so apparent in my other computer classes - but then again, while art and programming both involve design, the root of art lies in actually being able to take a pen, pencil, brush, or some artistic tool and render something amazing. So why should that be any different just because the process now takes place on a computer?

JuneBug

Photoshop Ads and Posters

My previous posts have sported a series of assignments in Photoshop effects from the Photoshop Cookbook for my computer graphics class this fall. I had lots of fun with those. The next assignment in that class was to design a poster ad on a product or service. I chose to feature our mules Kate and Annie, who have appeared on these blog pages before. Benny hitches Kate and Annie up almost every day during the spring, summer, and fall and takes them for a ride up and down our county roads. Sometimes instead of hitching them to the wagon, he and Bonnie saddle up and ride them. So now that the neighbors have seen them do their thing, Benny gets invited frequently to give hayrides for local outdoor events. Hence, this series of posters (click on each image to get a larger view, if desired):

Woodcuts, oils, and water colors

Continuing on from my previous post about my computer graphics class this fall, following are some Photoshop Cookbook effects that make photos look like oil paintings, water colors, and woodcuts. You can click the thumbnails to get the full-size image - in many cases doing that will help you distinguish the effect from the original photo more clearly. In some cases I tried different effects with the same photo.

Water Color Effect	Original
	Original
	Original

Following are oil effects:

Oil Effect	Original
	Original
	Original

The following effect converts a photo to a woodcut (remember doing those in art class?)

Woodcut Effect	Original

In many cases these effects aren't necessarily an improvement on the original photo, but they were fun (and sometimes frustrating) to do!

JuneBug

More Photoshop Effects

Continuing from my previous post on my computer graphics class this fall semester, here are some more fun Photoshop effects from the Photoshop Cookbook. This first one is called Summer to Fall (click on images to view larger version, if desired):

Effect	Original

The following photos demonstrate a vintage hollywood glamour effect:

Effect	Original

Stay tuned for more Cookbook effects!

JuneBug

Back to Beginnings

When I first started this blog in 2006, it was with the intent of chronicling my job search, after losing my job of 21 years. I hoped to connect with others in similar circumstances to perhaps find and share encouragement along the way. I also thought it would be fun to share my interests as a hobbyist photographer. Well, as time passed, I found a job, and branched out in other directions. I wrote about my family and the Cafe Rienzi, my great aunt Firma Phillips who was a local scenery artist, and several other other noteworthy personalities and topics. Then last year I lost my job again. So this spring I went back to college through Ivy Tech's Senior Scholar Program which allows people over 60 to take classes for free. Recently I have been blogging about that experience as it ties in with my interest in instructional design.

With this post I'd like to get back to the blog's original intent, my interest in photography. This past semester I had a wonderful opportunity to take a computer graphics class at Ivy Tech. The first half of the semester we worked in Photoshop and the second half we spent on Illustrator. Having played around with Photoshop version 7 for many years, I enjoyed this formal class immensely and thought it would be fun to share some of the products in the next few posts.

Our first series of projects were from the Photoshop Cookbook. I especially enjoyed the out of frame effect as shown in the following series of photos:

Effect	Original

Effect	Original

Effect	Original

More effects to come! Stay tuned ....

JuneBug

Reflections of a Senior Learner - IT Job Outlook

This past semester I had a wonderful opportunity to take an online course in technical writing through our local community college where seniors can attend for free after they turn 60. The course was an 8 week course - offered through the English department for full credit. It started October 19 and ended December 19, and so was extremely fast-paced. Our final project was to research and write a formal technical report on the job outlook in our field to other career consultants in our imaginary firm. The fields varied among the students taking the class. Some were majoring in business administration, others in the medical field, and so forth. I am a dual career person with training and experience in both the fields of information technology and instructional design (education), so I chose to write about the job outlook in information technology.


I have to say that this was an excellent assignment - I really learned a lot about online resources for this topic, if nothing else - such as the Bureau of Labor Statistic's Occupational Handbook and its accompanying O*Net website. It was also interesting and kind of fun to get to "triangulate" my own perspective on the information technology field with all its transformations and permutations over the past thirty years.


I invite you to peruse my report: Occupational Outlook for the Information Technology Field: An Informational Report for Career Consultants. It defines the field and lists various occupations under its umbrella as well as common duties, functions, and activities. It briefly discusses educational requirements for various occupations in the field as well as occupational outlook, placement opportunities, and personality fit. It also includes some crystal-ball type predictions on new opportunities coming down the pike. Finally the references and appendix at the end offer some nice resources to researchers and job-seekers alike. 


JuneBug

Reflections of an senior learner - A Blackboard Organizer

For the last 6 months I have been a senior learner - at age 60 I went back to college while unemployed to catch up on changes in my field and to get certified. Since then I have thrilled on these pages about the joys of learning and groaned and moaned about the challenges. But now the semester is through, we are almost past the holidays, and I am taking the opportunity to put my money where my mouth is. One of our projects in my online Technical Writing Course was to write a set of instructions to accompany a new product of our own invention for the company of our choice. Borrowing from lessons learned in simplifying whilst designing the Report Tickler System at Bauer Family Resources (where I served as Grants and Compliance Specialist), I imagined an enhancement to the Blackboard product used in distance learning by many institutions. Essentially my enhancement was an interactive student organizer that would take the place of all the different course syllabuses. It would help students and teachers keep track of courses, assignments, projects, and exams all in one place. In short, it attempts to address one of those pesky and persistent human problems that I imagined technology was meant to solve.

So without further ado, here are links to my imaginary Blackboard Organizer (and prerequisite cover letter):

Blackboard Student Organizer Instructions
Memo to Ray Henderson, Blackboard Inc.

JuneBug

Thomas Durant

I promised more to come in the way of my eulogy, when I wrote of my Uncle Tom's passing a few months ago. Uncle Tom was one of the co-founders of the Cafe Rienzi, and an artist in his own right - only one of his many accomplishments. He originally hailed from the suburbs of Chicago, and as a young man, roamed a sales territory in Indiana for his father's business. Uncle Tom knew just about everything and could do just about anything. He and my Aunt met in the labor movement in Detroit after he served in World War II. He followed Aunt Joan back to New York, her roots, and they lived on the outskirts of Greenwich Village for over 60 years until he died. I remember him taking me to his studio in the fifties and teaching me about abstract art. I was maybe eight or ten years old. He let me paint a picture. It remained with me for a while, I even took it to classroom show and tell as my parents moved around the hemispheres in pursuit of my Dad's geology career. It eventually disappeared into my distant childhood.

Uncle Tom and Aunt Joan were fabulous cooks. They tended to fight for control of the kitchen. Uncle Tom cooked me many a wonderful meal ... I still remember steamed mussels, seasoned with a sauce, probably consisting of garlic, olive oil, fresh parmesan cheese, and I don't know what all else, when I brought my girlfriend to New York back in the early 70's.

Yesterday I was visiting with my Aunt Joan on the phone to find out her and my cousin Anna's Christmas plans this year - their first Christmas without him. Aunt Joan gave me quite a few tidbits about Uncle Tom (and the Cafe Rienzi) that were new to me. So here they are:

The Cafe Rienzi was located in what was an old macaroni factory, with a grocery store in front. Uncle Tom, with his architectural affinities, designed the Cafe out of the existing facility - and all the founders worked to turn it into a reality. Aunt Joan has been a prolific writer in her life (not just poetry). I look forward to the day when more of her work is published, because I believe it is a great gift to future generations. Anyway, for a period she wrote plays for Off-Off Broadway, and Uncle Tom built all her sets. Many of Aunt Joan's plays were performed in Theater for the New City currently located at 155 First Avenue, New York 10003-2906.

image courtesy of bike snob nyc blog

This current location was originally an indoor market with vegetable stands and such. Again Uncle Tom provided the architectural drawings and plans to convert this area into a theater. Aunt Joan says the artistic director Crystal Field still provides her with complimentary theater tickets as a thank you.

Uncle Tom also played a key role in assisting a long time (albeit younger) friend of the family artist David Maurice of Star Metal in setting up his metal works business. Star Metal does decorative and architectural metal work for downtown New York buildings among others. 

Well, I will close for now, but I am pleased to add these new details to the online record. One of the fond images I have of Uncle Tom - in addition to all the wonderful family discussions over the dinner table, and growing up with his inspirational paintings decorating my Aunt and Uncle's New York apartment is as master gardener. Uncle Tom brought his midwestern roots to New York. He put out garden every spring. For years he had a wonderful roof garden in Manhattan, complete with a fig tree, which we all enjoyed. He even grew sweet corn up there. And wonderful little strawberries and all kinds of vegetables. Even after the roof became unavailable for gardening, he continued to grow tomato plants on their tiny metal window seat balcony off the back bedroom.

I hope some of the folks who have purchased Uncle Tom's paintings will eventually find these writings and perhaps provide photos of his work. 

JuneBug

Reflections of an Adult Learner - Learning from Final Presentations

In my Visual Basic Class we had our choice of a gradebook as a final project - either as a database exercise or as a sequential file exercise, but using advanced controls. We had the options of adding enhancements for extra credit. So I tried to do a blended "animal" between the two assignments, something that would give me experience with the best of both. And it was a good exercise. I came up with a fairly decent design and working program. But oh how I learned from my classmates the day we did our final project presentations.

I often get compliments from my instructors. Some have even commented that they wish all students put forth the effort they see me putting forth. But when I hear this, I think, "Well it kinda all depends on where each student is in life ..."

A senior learner vs a young learner - since I went to college at both stages of life (and points in between) I can make the comparison firsthand.

Recently I was chatting in the cafeteria with my friend who had told me about the community college's Senior Scholar Program. She was recounting with relish the unknown role of women in the French Revolution, the topic of a research paper for her history class. She and I often share our journey ... What's different about this stage of life, we decided, is that we are able to be more focussed (oddly) about our education. That's because we have fewer distractions (again oddly). When you go away to college out of high school, your whole life tends to be about education and being a student. But the difference is that so much of life is unknown at that age, whereas at 60 so much of life has been lived. We know who we are, we know who we've been, we know, more or less, what we want, we have ideas about how to get there, and we have a lifetime perspective. We also have our challenges - like being unemployed and bumping up against the specter of age discrimination in our job hunt. We have aging health issues - like arthritis and bifocals. We tend to want to integrate new learning into our life experiences - which slows the learning process for us. The shelves of our memory tend to get a bit overcrowded, and sometimes things fall off. But we aren't trying to go to school, work full time, and raise a family (usually). That enables us to look at the educational process with a whole new eye and to see things about it we never saw when we were younger - things such as learning is a joy and a privilege, however traditional learning processes and institutions aren't necessarily laid out to optimize that aspect ... even though they still get the job done.

But I digress - back to the vb class final project presentations. I chose the database project out of curiosity and practicality. And I more or less stuck with the design suggested by the textbook exercises - which was pretty much having everything on one form but greatly simplifying the design for the user (uncluttering it). As a result of making that choice, I ran into many more challenges than if I had given each function or option its own screen. This was a fact I didn't realize until the final presentations. My solution was probably okay as an academic exercise. But as a viable solution that gives the best product to the user and requires less bending over backwards to make it work (which would make an employer happy), it comes in second to that of my very original thinking classmate. She came up with a nicely designed and friendly vertical screen. It had a greeting and a neat column of five buttons. Each popped up a screen for that function. So simple for the user. And less complicated for the programmer, although I'm sure that design also presented challenges.

Then my other classmate, a c++ programmer, showed me something I always wanted to be possible since the inception of databases as I knew them - back in the dBASE days.

He went through it pretty fast, so I'm going to write what I think I saw. He popped up a screen in VB 2010 that had two datagrids - a parent table and a child table. I believe if he added a student to the child table, the application created a record in the parent table - to maintain referential integrity. This worked both from Visual Basic and in Access 2010 itself. All without programming the first line of code, for the most part. Simply by setting the relationship and letting it do the work for you...

All in all our day of final presentations was a real eye-opener!

JuneBug

JuneBug's Final Project Presentation