Shouldn’t It be Faster, Easier?

Posted on January 19, 2012 by SusanG

Do you think that something you do without a computer, when you do it with a computer, do you think it should be faster, easier and take less time? I sort of knew I felt this way but I didn’t really think about how it impacted things I do.

There are some things that, yes, are faster, easier and take less time with a computer. Making a complete fool of oneself comes to mind, one ‘reply all’ to the wrong set of people comes to mind. And I don’t think I would want to turn in a typed term paper having done it any other way than on a good word processing program. Cut and paste, auto correct and spell check take what was a major and painful undertaking in school and make it just another homework assignment.

There are somethings that just take as long as they take whether you do it manually or on a computer. Learning a musical instrument, for example. While it can be helpful and with the Internet there are an amazing number of tools and tutorial sites, there is no real substitute for repetitive practice. And it just takes as long as it’s going to take to learn forms and progressions and rhythms and scales.

Another place where using a computer, while an incredible tool, does not lessen the time it takes to do something is art. Some types of art it does make easier and yet somethings it does nothing for other than change the medium being used to create the art.

For example, if I take a photo that has elements that I think would make an interesting piece of art, I may not want to just enhance the photo I may instead want to render the scene using the photo as a reference. Just as I would if I wanted to re-image the scene manually in water-colors, or oil paints, or markers or whatever else. While there is the opportunity to more directly use the photo as reference, it will still take as long as it is going to take to re-interpret that scene digitally just as it would if it were being done manually.

So, I know that a portrait done in pencil is going to take me a certain amount of time. I’m a bit out practice, it will probably take me longer. Yet if I sit down to create that same portrait digitally for some messed up reason, I expect it to take less than half the time. Forget that I am using a medium I have only recently really started trying to create in, so it has its own learning curve. I seem to think it should take hardly any time at all. The nice thing is, when you mess up, it’s fairly easy to correct. And it is a little easier to experiment with a color or texture without potentially ruining all the work you’ve already put into it.

This all comes to mind because I have lately been contemplating why I don’t seem to be getting much work done on  my digital art projects. I have a couple started and several that need to be done and yet I find I don’t work on them.

When I realized that part of the reason I wasn’t working on the art pieces was because they were taking longer than I thought they should, I decided that I needed to make a piece of art manually. So I have chosen a photo I took many years ago and I have set out to make a rendering from it using graphite pencil on paper. I only started it last night and I can’t say that I have sat and diligently worked on it for long stretches at a time. Even so, already I have ideas as to what I’m going to find.

Though I am rendering the scene as a scene and with more detail than I would have previously, I think I will find that many years of practice at rendering figures and objects in pencil means that that is still a more comfortable and efficient medium for me.

I think having the physical piece of art laying out where it is visible and it is visibly unfinished creates a draw to sit a moment and work on it. Walking by it and seeing it regularly keeps it in my conscience and so a part of me is always thinking about what bit to work on next. This doesn’t happen with digital art. You save the file, close the program, turn off the computer and it becomes out of sight and therefore out of mind.

There is also the part where, though I am familiar and comfortable with computers, and I am enthusiastic and in awe of some of the amazing digital art I have seen, it doesn’t negate the fact that I must still learn how to use the medium, just as I had to learn how to create with water colors after years of using pencil.

I suspect that this pencil drawing will take me much less time than I expected, though it may take several days of 30 or 45 minutes here and there. In the end, I will have gotten in some much needed drawing practice and come to a decision point. Do I admit defeat, so to speak , and decide that I am not interested in persuing a technological medium for creating art, or do I recognize that my frustrations with creating digitally are simply a lack of practice and experience with the medium and plow ahead and approach it as I did with pencil art. Start creating anything and everything that look even remotely interesting, using digital media.

Now that I have the problem identified, you might think I would just make a decision and start with it straight away. And since I am already fairly certain of the path I will choose I suppose that would be the most efficient approach. However, life and art are not always at their best when done in the most efficient manner. Besides, there’s this piece of art, sitting on my coffee table, that is shaping up quite nicely and it needs to be finished.

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Waffles!

Posted on December 11, 2011 by SusanG

I had not had waffles at home for breakfast in well over three years, probably longer. And I know it had been even longer since I had waffles not made from a mix, at home for breakfast. That is until this morning.

It all started about two weeks ago with a text from my mother asking if I had a waffle iron. I did not. So she said she was getting her a new one, would I like one too. Wow. I have not had waffles in a long time, yes.

Now I need to find a good waffle recipe because I do not really want to use a mix. The why’s of this are another story. Mom asks if I still have the old ‘Breads’ cookbook, which I do. She says the best waffle recipe is the one in that book, it is the ‘Sunday Supper Waffles’ recipe.

So this morning I had just that for breakfast, Sunday Supper Waffles. As I was making them I looked at the ingredients of one cup of melted butter and thought that was an awful lot of butter. We can argue the merits of butter another time. It was a lot. As I read it closer the recipe actually called for, butter, margarine or salad oil. I used salad oil, canola oil to be specific, instead.

After I finished making and eating my waffles I got to thinking about that term, ‘salad oil’. How many of today’s cooks would recognize that as vegetable oil?  I did, and I am not a cooking aficionado. I grew up cooking and baking with my mother. We made cakes and cookies from flour and sugar and butter, not from a box. And my mother still uses recipes that call for Oleo, for those of you that know what that is.

It is so interesting how things like that change over time. I have several ‘old’ cookbooks and I have looked up some items in them. It is wild to read how you may have trouble finding a particular ingredient because, at the time, they were not always readily available at the grocery. Today so much is available at the regular grocery. And yet there are some things that we might be hard pressed to recognize from an old recipe.

I think it is great to have so much diversity food wise. I like that I can go into a grocery and find hot peppers for my salsa and ginger for the sushi all in one place. Some conveniences of modern life are great. However, I do not think they should get in the way of enjoying good old fashioned, made from scratch, Sunday Supper Waffles.

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Driving Distractions

Posted on December 3, 2011 by SusanG

It looks like all the trees, whose leaves where going to turn colors and drop off, have finally gone bare. At least for the most part. There are a few trees with brown withered leaves still hanging on, not many though. The trees and leaves show coming to an end should bring relief to local drivers, though they may not realized it, for I will no longer be a road hazard.

Yes, I was a road hazard, distracted, while the leaves were changing colors. This was not so much because I was ogling their beauty and the beauty of the colors, though some were stunning colors. As a whole Autumn colors are not my favorite. Some individual colors that occur in Autumn are pretty. But I digress.

The real reason I was a road hazard is because I was fascinated looking at the trees and how the leaves had changed or dropped off or both. It has been a long time since I lived anywhere that the leaves changed in enough quantity to be noticeable. This year is different. This year I am someplace where the leaves change and drop from all but the pines and evergreen varieties, and maybe a few bushes. At least from what I can tell. The variety of colors has been quite amazing, from vivid pale yellow to deep fire brick red and so many in between.

Just as fascinating as the colors has been the structure of how the leaves changed. They did not all change at once. No, they changed from the top and outside and worked inwards. I realized that the outer leaves protected the inner leaves from the cold as well as the inner leaves likely being warmer and possibly hardier due to being closer to the trunk. So as the temperatures would drop, the most exposed leaves were the first to change and as they were less protection more leaves would change. In some cases it depended on how cold it had gotten and for how long. The colder and the longer it lasted the more leaves were effected.

Artistically this is all very interesting and important. To render an Autumn scene accurately I need to take this into consideration. If I want to depict something as early Autumn I want to make sure not to go overboard with the oranges and rusts and reds. The farther into Autumn the more of those colors I want to use. And the closer to Winter the more the branches will be bare.

Yes, this all makes sense. People who have lived in an area that the leaves change and drop  are probably intuitively aware of this. All the more reason to get it right in art.

And you would think I would have caught on to this from the dramatic impact a single cold snap could have on the foliage in Central Florida. However devastating the impact was very rarely did it result in such a display. There would be a cold snap, leaves would be damaged, within a couple of days things would be warm again and all those damaged leaves would already be dried out and brown and falling off or ready to be trimmed off. This did not really serve to study how nature notes the change in temperatures on a continual and gradual basis.

Now, with this particular show from Mother Nature nearly over the roads a slightly more safe, at least from me. Then again, with the leaves gone, I am often surprised by the businesses and building that have revealed.

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Plan For It

Posted on November 25, 2011 by SusanG

Have you ever set out plans for doing something, started making great progress on those plans and then due to some impulse found them completely off track and you are starting over? It is kind of frustrating is it not.

Yes, I know we have to be open to changes in our plans in order to take advantage of serendipity. However, I do not  think serendipity is going to help me learn C++ or SQL. Ok, maybe understand bits. But…Oh, FINE! That’s not really how I mean for this to go. I was going to write about how often I had just ended up frustrated by having to start over yet each case I thought to write about turned out to have worked out well resulting in some gem or blessing. So here we go.

One case has to do with the surfboard. Originally I had been saving up to take scuba lessons. My husband at the time was already scuba certified and this would be something we could do together. That same summer my plan was to go to the beach often and rent a surfboard while I learned to surf and then the next year I would  maybe buy my own board. I do not remember all the details. I do know that that summer I found myself carting around my own 9 foot surfboard and not learning to scuba dive. Getting the scuba and surfboard plan totally screwed up turned out to be a really good thing. Not because of all the fun with the surfboard, which is a given. It was more because of all the anxiety that was avoided by not trying to learn to scuba dive. It takes a lot of effort and concentration just for me to be able to snorkel. I do not think I could get past that to get to the rest of it. As an example, my first snorkel trip I had to concentrate so intensely on breathing that I do not remember anything we saw on the reef.

Another occurrence had to do with a new guitar or, ultimately, three. I had started playing guitar again heavily. I found the acoustic I was playing to be challenging and I did not like the sound of the ABS back. I knew I wanted a new one. I was moving soon and did not want to move one more guitar. So I decided I would wait until I moved. In the interim, I figured it would be a good idea to start trying out a few guitars so I had an idea of what I might want. I also came to the conclusion that I wanted a new electric guitar as well. I found an electric I liked and so I had an idea of what that was going to cost as well as the amplifier that I decided would go with it. The plan for the electric guitar and amplifier was to wait for Christmas. I also happened to find another electric guitar that was a dream to play and cool to boot, and a limited release. Part of my plan for the acoustic was to not go over a certain amount. The only part of the whole plan that I managed to keep to was the part where I waited until after I moved. I moved and the very next day I went to the music store. This is where I found out that that cool guitar was a limited release and they had only one in the right color. So, I decided to get it. But I still needed to do something about the acoustic. So, off to have a look and try a few. I found one that, contrary to my preference was the same price, or maybe a little more, as the cool electric. I spent 3 to 4 times more than I intended that day. The other electric I got a month and a half later and the amplifier about a month after that. Had I stuck to my plan I might have missed out on an opportunity to get to play out live, in public  with other musicians. That first purchase set up a chain that has resulted in my getting to play at this great monthly blues jam.

There have been other cases where I set out with one plan and found myself totally sideways to the whole thing and it has ultimately worked out much better than anticipated. A couple have been even fairly recent.

At this point I am starting to wonder if perhaps the way to make things happen is to make a plan to do something. Not so that you can rigorously stick to the plan to the end result. Instead, I think the plan attracts serendipity. Make a plan, work it, be flexible enough to deviate if needed, and recognize opportunity when it presents itself.

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I Have Learned Something

Posted on November 12, 2011 by SusanG

Over the last couple of weeks there has been a flood of comments to articles on this site. I have diligently sorted through them and tried to weed out ones that might, accidentally be legitimate. I’ve probably approved a bunch that were not.

I had wanted to allow discussion on articles on this site. Unfortunately I do not think I can do that. Too many of the comments are suspicious and when the analytic evidence does not support the volume I know something is not right.

So for all future articles, provided I have figured out how to do it, I have turned off the comments option. For anything that is already posted, once it reaches 14 days, hopefully, the comments will close and you should no longer be able to post a comment.

If you are truly a legitimate reader, I know I have a handful, thank you for reading. Please continue to share the site with others and come back often. If you were hoping to comment on something in particular, I apologize.  I would enjoy your feedback, please contact me another way.

I have really learned something very interesting that I will have to keep in mind.

Thank you for understanding.

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