There
used to be much suspicion, bordering even on fear, of new digital
media, especially among older artists trained in the pre-digital
era. As little as a decade ago, one spoke of 'computer art' as though
it were the product of mysterious robotic processes altogether different
from what goes on in the mind of an artist. In reality, digital
tools are no more than that: tools - aids to the processes of composition
and design familiar to every artist. Digital tools won't automatically
make you a better artist, but they can be immensely liberating,
allowing a freedom to experiment, to duplicate, recombine and resize
visual elements, work on multiple layers, manipulate and control
colour at will. You make the design decisions you choose, but at
infinitely greater speed - and with the inestimable advantage over
traditional media of being able to UNDO! (How many times have you
taken a painting too far, added one brushstroke too many and regretted
it!).
There
were two major drawbacks to digital tools.
1)
As a way of originating imagery, they were and are pretty terrible.
For example, if you've ever used one of the paint programmes that
come bundled with your computer, you probably played with it for
ten minutes and gave up in disgust. Even using a graphic tablet
(indispensable) you will find the marks you can create within a
graphics programme have a fraction of the expressivity possible
with a child's crayon. Even dedicated image creation programmes
such as Illustrator leave a lot to be desired, compared with traditional
media. But as a way of editing and developing imagery, they are
something else.
2)
The second disadvantage was the limited options available for getting
out of the digital domain - i.e. printing. But with the most recent
top-quality Epson printers, offering colours with a life of over
between 80 and 200 years, depending on conditions of storage, a
favorite image can be source of innumerable variations, and (un)limited
editions, if you so choose - or can remain
on your computer hard drive or a DVD, to be printed only when needed.
In this course we
will explore ways in which you can take your artwork, originated
in your favourite non-digital medium, bring it into the digital
domain by scanning or photographing it with a digital camera and
develop it further using image editing software. Once the design
process is complete, you can choose to render the image using the
same traditional medium in which it began, or simply export it from
the computer as a digital print.
Other
Options available:
2.
Cartoon Animation with Flash (or free shareware equivalent
to be provided as part of the course).
3.
Film editing with Adobe Premiere (or free shareware equivalent
to be provided as part of the course).
Fee
for all digital courses: €75 per day
(excludes
accommodation and food.)
