Hey, give me a break, I'm working on it!

You want to venture into the graphics world and being a free radical, you choose Linux as your platform of choice. Despite all the clamor and acclaim Macs and MS have in graphics you proceed down the proverbial "road less traveled."

Being a graphics person requires a basic understanding of art in general. A good sense of composition, color and some drawing skills, puts you in the park. It requires impressionable visionary skills but not to the extent of a photographic memory. For now a good enough mind set is OK, you can obsess and be a perfectionist later. Now if you are wanting to be a digital graphics person add to this the patience to follow through procedures.

We'll use the Jedi metaphor to illustrate. Once you get the hardware (light saber, digital pen or mouse) and the wardrobe (full length hoodie bathrobe), you must learn to use the force. While learning the force, you get the moves, think like a Jedi thinks. Once you know, you know, it all becomes intuitive. Then you don't think, just do or not do, there is no try (don't look at me, I also am a noobie-won learner).

It is like this for everyone. Pick up a pencil and draw, that is one thing, drawing well is another. Now add color, light and shade, considering foreground and background. Even using traditional media requires procedures, with computers it is more so. Computers do not automatically draw what you want. They process instructions that an artist/programmer puts in. You may push the draw circle button, know that the draw circle program activated by you, is a program. All digital art software is a collection of programs that sit under the means of your control, a GUI or graphical user interface or typed in instructions. The GUI makes drawing easier but also awkward because you must understand what it does, how it works and go on from there. This is where the term CAD (computer aided design) comes from. The force may be strong in you but the hardware and software must also be your allies.

The popular Mac and MS PC platforms have lots of graphics applications with a long train of experienced users. If you go that way, you could go far. I recommend not being so platform dedicated, be open to what you have access to, as skills are transferable. I also keep close tabs on graphics applications that are able to run on multiple platforms (Open Source), they insure a level of freedom of movement that is well appreciated. Also note that Open Source programs are not commercial so they are not advertised or marketed by a for profit company and most likely are free. You may not be aware of them or realize that the quality and usefulness of Open Source Software is quite high.

One problem with Linux graphics is always in the number of experienced users. For instance while Blender 3D has a huge following, other very useful graphics apps have smaller communities. This results in less documentation, less tutorials, less examples and less chance to be applied in a professional capacity. It could be a great program but the developer is too deep in his work, too far down the road and/or too busy to help a noobie-won. A community of users thus has users at various stages able to both asks questions and supply answers. The community in Linux is vital to learning anything.

So here's the thing. With computers, the promise is repeatable results and tweakable input so that different results is possible. The caveat, once you learn the GUI (graphical user interface), you might be stuck in that program (Blender folks know this, so do Photoshop folks). This is OK, if this program is your tool of choice.  Just don't let familiarity mess you up, there could be better stuff waiting in the wings, but under exposed, getting bad press (from you) and just starting to have a viable and flourishing user community.

OK, lets get practical. I am looking at K3D a Linux graphics application. It is in active development and is starting to have a user community. Right now there are not that many tutorials, especially video tutorials. This is further frustrated by the many cut-n-paste internet K3D name drops by folks who are not actual users themselves. They always mention the name but repeat descriptions they found on the developer's site. Actual users promote good software to other users. Their enthusiasm and curoisity and creativity causes the same to rise up in many want-to-bi-wons. They become noobie-wons and the process goes on when they show what they can do with tutorials, finished work and bug fix suggestions, etc.

I usually read and view all the pictures first and look for tutorials that explain the interface and tools and then how to do something to start me drooling. Accomplishing something is how it's done. If you have used other graphics apps you have a leg up. I have but mostly 2D, so 3D is an eye opening experience and requires a little more umph!

Here's my screenshot to prove I have started.

The window in the middle is a preview rendering with no settings yet. In the online docs is a file called Simple Work Flow Example. It explains how to do what I have done above only using a cylinder and tapering the top. By doing this a few times and reading the text over and noting the changes in the parameter sidebar, you get the gist of what's going on. Forget technical perfection and accuracy at first, play. Play, never lose the ability to play. Play progress and play some more. When you ask why, you are ready to learn and advance. Then comes what if, now you are starting to use the force.

OK, get K3D and play, I don't want to sense any disturbances in the force.

what did you expect from Linux?

Not a very exciting typical day, eh? What did you expect, Mission Impossible music, hard drives smoking' " I disavow any knowledge of what happens to your PC". Believe me, when nothing happens, this is normal, you can use your computer to do stuff other than worry and fix it. And because I have a lot of these normal days in Linuxville, I have to have other interest to fill the time. Like.............

Figuring out the genius of art dabbling. You know one of the problems of our society is that we turn everything into a profession. In the process something is lost to many. In the art world, all the skills and techniques have been turned into a scientific method. Design itself can be taught because it has been formulated into exact principles. Of course one has to discover the truth of these things for themselves, but much laud is given for having been trained, not much if any for fumbling and dabbling with the inner senses. The final result is over trained to where these either get a job or seclude themselves to rediscover their artist sensibilities overshadowed by the years of training.

Come on, I've seen it. Hey you've got talent, why don't you go to school. Artists only need to improve their skills to better do what they are doing already. But to get trained to be a commercial artist is a different thing altogether. You are broadened to where you can do anything, everything. If a job focuses your work that is OK, but if your intent is to not be commercial, you have to rediscover your voice through all this stuff. You must relearn to trust your own vision. How do you show yourself through the added layers of stuff you learned.

I am going through this process. I went to school, took some classes, amassed some skills. In the mean time things changed, computers became useful for art. Now how do I turn my brush/pen into a mouse with the same spontaneity and finesse. How do I trust the monitor/display or the printer's output? And why is my work on this computer thing not valued the same as in other media?

I am going through the art process, it is not easy, there is no click, click, click and it's done. But I will admit, if I don't like the work, I can change it, delete it, sample from it for reuse, and make multiples and reproduce it. The do or die approach of the one time execution of an art work has been ended for ever. An oil painting might be a one hit original, computer output or photos, can be reproduced again and again, each an original because of the string of formatted 1's and 0's (a digital file). What is the value of a copy? The digital file can be copied, where is the means to make it rare, thus of value. Now, do you buy art because it is rare and of a famous artist (and of value because of it) or because you like the work?? Perhaps, there needs to be a different kind of value psychology for this digital art, not based on rarity because you can copy it, but on is it good art. Do you like it!!

There are many kinds of digital art, like art that is so realistic to fantasy art, comics and game art. Digital art could be photographic or obviously mimicking traditional art medias. Then onward to animation film art, cartoons and special effects. Much of ad graphics today is digital, signage, technical illustration and engineering drawing. Then on top of this some digital art never leaves the screen like wallpapers, screensavers, interface art, icons and some is meant to be printed out as pictures, photos or placed on products from quilts to business cards and billboards.

Digital dabbling is casual art. You have time to appreciate and enjoy and try stuff. And because we are often consumed with other things, time to dabble is all that's left. And it does not matter if the software is not "what the professionals use", so why spend $400 just to dabble?? I like to insist people try the GIMP because it is free, but there are other applications that push pixels around the screen. If you get well versed in some unfamiliar software package, does that make your work, not art?. If a guy can pluck his own hair to make a brush and paint a so-called masterpiece, do you think a $75 custom brush will make you a better artist? It is about making the tools, any tools, work for you. The tools that are available and convenient for you to acquire I consider your home court advantage. If all you can see is Photoshop, I hope you can put in the time to make it worth the expense. Besides, it doesn't run natively or well in Linux, thus I'm not so concerned.

The main argument I have heard against the GIMP was that it didn't have a CMS (color management system) or color separation tools needed by the large commercial printing systems. These tools I believe can be added or are provided by other software. These days and especially for art work the typical RGB color system used on all desktop monitors and printers can do wonderful work. Printers will do photo size 4" x 6" all the way to 52" wide using inkjet technology. If course there are technophobes who fuss with quality to the nth, but if precision and perfection is your obsession, will the cost of the final output satisfy the client who just wants something they like? I say, do a check print, tweak it, print it again, if it is OK, you win.

The Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt that has been applied to user's minds to keep them from looking at Linux is continuously being eroded away. I experience new things often that I would not have attempted in MS XP for the risk or things I couldn't afford to do. I remains that I will not insist on Linux as the all-solution, but if you try it at my suggestion and like it, I am greatly gratified. You have made the first steps into a larger world. Welcome to Linuxville!!