Dabbling
I call it Dabbling, Tinkering, but it is mainly
how I came up saying
I
know how to do anything, if I set my mind on it… I have remodeled my
whole house from skills I gained in my BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts)… yeah, from being an Artist. I
will give you an instance. Plumbing, ha! I learned how to make a Silver
ring in my Jewelry Class where we sweated silver pieces together with flux,
solder, and a torch… Plumbing is sweating copper pipes with flux and solder.
Tile a bathroom, ha! Sculpture class combined with Ceramics…
Taking previously learned knowledge and twisting it to fit another need.
The same thing comes up with being a Graphic
Designer. Graphic design, I know animation… How hard is Graphic Design? I had art & design classes, I
know Photoshop, I taught myself Illustrator… Graphic design, done. I know
that statement just seemed that Graphic Design is below me, but I
really love Graphic Design doing it. I am very proud of the things that I
can do with it. Just proving being a Dabbler isn't bad. I pick
up so many things get pretty good at them and move onto the next "THING"…
Now I wasn't always great at Illustrator, I had to teach it...
Dabbling in ILLUSTRATOR
Before teaching, I was only pure Adobe Photoshop
user, and never ventured to anything else… Why should I… Adobe
Illustrator was for purposes I never truly needed. When I can to
Olathe, I had to teach Illustrator the first year in the e-Communication Department. Now that was a
huge venture… I knew Vectors/Vertices from 3D animation. I kept
telling myself I know 3D, 2D is just one less D, it should
be easier. Right… I/it was horrible; I ran to another teacher
every few hours/minutes for help. Over time I did get better at it, but
had numerous failures along the way…
With teaching students it is just not giving a
project and telling them to get to work. Students do a lot more than
that, the as I say, "adventure clicking." They will press every
button and every key along the way, and about 5% of the time knows how to get
back. The other 95% of the time they get lost in the clicks, meaning
they get backed into a corner with no where to go. That is when I get the
Hand in the air… I have to figure out how to get back to point "A"
without knowing if how many clicks it took them to get to point
"Z". It would take me an entire class period for one issue.
I would get stumped if a student got into the Outline View instead of the
Preview View… If you don't know what I am talking about, open an Illustrator
File, press ⌘Y…
I can now fix a student issue across the room
without even looking at the computer.
To get good at any computer program it just
takes a whole lot of practice and knowledge of the program. The main
thing that you have to keep in mind is being patient, and never be afraid
to start a project over. With teaching Illustrator you need to mainly
become a master problem solver, and I think that goes for teaching any computer
program to a mob of teenagers.
I tell students once you learn the Pen Tool in
Illustrator you will understand the entire program. That is for the
most part true… I say for the most part because with the endeavors of
learning the uses of this single tool, you will end up going through every
other tool available.
With mastering Illustrator, I have designed a
few logos and a few books,
all of the e-Communication paper goods (brochures, bookmarks, programs,
posters, business cards, etc.) and an onslaught of other ONW (Olathe
Northwest) things…
Being a Dabbler is always good… The only bad
thing about being a dabbler is that you are not necessarily outstanding in
any particular area. Thus...
"I am a
Jack-of-all-Trades… Master of none"
I feel that I can always get better at everything
that I dabble in, which everyone can always learn and improve.
Time to go Dabble in something…
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