John Watrous stopped teaching this class in the spring of 2006

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Introduction to Computer Graphics in Art--Projects and Resources

Monday and Wednesday 10-12 plus two hours per week online. Room 1261

instructor: John Watrous, Art 18.1, SRJC
jwatrous@santarosa.edu, office in Analy 765, 707 527 4276, hours TTh 11-12

Quick links on this webpage:


the Art Department webpage: www.santarosa.edu/art ...at the bottom of this page is the link to this class page.
Student Webpage Resources
Last Semester's Student Webpages

Fall 2005 Semester's Student Webpages

Overview of Class

About The Instructor

I first became involved with computers in 1964 and they were a very different animal then! I introduced computers in the SRJC Art Department in 1983 and have been teaching this class since 1985. I created the college's first Online class and have been a proponent of art and technology for years. I am currently exploring the use of OpenSource software for use here. Having experienced so much change with technology over the last 30 years, I am keenly aware that becoming more creative is not about mastering software which can be largely done from a book coupled with hands-on experience, but rather it is about paying attention to the collaboration between human and machine structured so that the process of discovery is paramount. Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge in his work. I believe this to be true with creative endevors as well. The process of creation is critical, not simply the use of the tool to achieve a known goal. And finally one process that computers have provided to visual artists is quick and easy editing leading to first and later "drafts" of images.

More information on my recent exhibit can be seen at my website: jwatrous.org

First Online Homework

Read and send comments to the class listserv, on both this link to Steve Jobs Commencement Address and the following thoughts on an alternative way of thinking and working:

Linear versus Creative Thinking

The most basic principle of creative thinking is that any particular way of looking at things
is only one among many other possibilities.

Linear thinking is analytical whereas creative thinking is associative and provocative. Creative thinking enjoys the process whereas linear thinking is always trying to get to the goal and stop the process.

Linear thinking is normally single-goal oriented and selective. Creative thinking generates multiple ideas (which can later be selected).

In order to function well creative thinking demands many options from which to select and make choices later in the process. Because of this demand for options, Quantity becomes one of the greatest secrets of creativity.

We are often taught to only think about things until we have an workable answer. We explore only to find an adequate answer, then stop exploring. This is called linear thinking.

But if one keeps exploring one may find a far better solution, or better yet multiple solutions from which to chose. This is creative thinking which in large part enjoys the process of finding solutions rather than finding only an adequate, single solution. Because the process is so important to creative thinking it is often referred to as The Creative Process.

The purpose of design is to generate alternatives, to look beyond adequate towards inspiration and to free ourselves from cliche patterns.

Creativity is often vaguely encouraged as some mysterious talent.
Not so! Creative thinking can be learned and can complement linear or logical thinking, but must be practiced.

About the Online Projects


Three online projects are required. They will demand selective web research and illustrate some of the things artists are doing with technology these days. More information will be coming via email. Follow this link to the list of:

online projects for this semester.

About the Class Projects


The projects are briefly described below and further explained in class. You can work ahead on projects, but I prefer that you treat each project as important and focus on it creatively.

Be sure you understand the "limits" of each project before beginning. Both limits are listed in red.

Attempt to push the limits of projects and personalize them. I encourage you to reread each project after you have begun it. The light blue text at the top of each project tells you exactly what I expect from you. The best way for me to describe to you just what I want and expect from you in this class is spelled out below under "Linear versus Creative Thinking." If you come to this class with some computer graphic experience, you can talk to the instructor about alternative projects.

And commit to memory what the artist Emil Nolde said years ago:

"Clever people master life; the wise illuminate it and create fresh difficulties."

Kurt Schwitters Collages
Student Collages

Project 1 -- Actual, Physical Number Collage

Material & Technical Limits of Project


What is due:
3 cut paper collages based upon the number your instructor assigns you. Each collage is 4 X 6" in vertical format, mounted on 8 1/2 X 11" white paper. Also, the collages will be uploaded to the web in a specific format.

Conceptual Limits of Project


Collect magazine and newspaper images only, no personal photos--this is not to be an illustration of anything! Carefully select images for color and texture. Compose within the small, 4X6" space thoughtfully.
Include your number in each collage, but make it increasingly more challenging to read in successive collages.

Kurt Schwitters:


"...the twentieth century's greatest master of collage."
Read about this artist and see his collages on the 2 following webpages before you begin:

Optional work


What would Schwitters make today if he had access to the computer and the web? Create a series of collages using only images collected from the web and reorganized using a paint program.
Example of how collages will be uploaded to webpage.

Collages Uploaded to the Web


Later we will scan our 3 collages and upload them to the web. This is one way to create a simple webpage with images. We will also use other ways later.

I have made a template for you to follow and will demo it in class.
See the demo in the collages folder on the class files page: collages and view its "source" file, copy and paste it into a text editing program and modify it to reflect your image names, date and email address.

Online Homework--Collage Copy


Make an exact copy of one of your collages using only Painter! Use no scanned or downloaded images. When you are finished save it as a .jpg and upload it to your webpage. You have until mid October to finish this assignment as it is hard!

See Example

Project 2 --Tesselations and 3D Polyhedra

Make 12 pages of tests primarily using Brushes and Papers to see how the different brushes work with paper grain and how the sub-categories of brush controls work.
Then make interesting "pieces" you've made into grids or tesselations. The definition is "a covering of an infinite geometric plane without gaps or overlaps by congruent plane figures of one type or a few types."
  • Capture your own paper using your digital camera image
    with one of the 12 and always pay attention to how the Controls Window changes with brush selection. Use any and all of the tools and techniques described in the overview above.
  • The goal for the other 11 images is to make very complex and interesting textural backgrounds into patterns to be used in future work. Take a simple texture and push it through many permutations so that in the end, you can't remember all the variations you moved through.
  • Remember that the paper grain slider often works in a counter intuitive way--right on slider is less grain.

    3D Polyhedra


  • 3D Construction Create a tetrahedron or other polygon with your best of this project inside it. This will count as a separate project. Make a template for your work from this site: korthalsaltes.com. See student examples in the class.

See Example

Project 3 -- Publishing your work

What is due: The minimum is to create a Photoshop Automate folder with all your Project 2 images, viewed on a web browser.
Publishing your work on the web can be as simple as learning how to upload images from your computer onto a server so thatyour image can be seen by anyone using a web.

also Scan Collages and put up as Webpages

..to be viewed off line

New! Student Example
Samaras Examples

Project 4 -- Lucas Samaras Photo Transforms

What is due: 6@ Transformational images, using an original photo of yourself, paying homage to Samaras.

This is a concept-based project where I want you to have at least some idea prior to starting.
Start by finding out who Samaras is: Getty Museum

Then begin taking some new photos of yourself using any digital camera--there is one for check out in the MCL. I am looking for exciting visual images along with some attitude. Even though Samaras' work can be a bit freaky, yours can aim for any kind of personal expression you like and doesn't have to be "who you really are." I'd like you to use one photo and transform it several times.

Learn to use 2 new tools


Learn to use Tracing Paper for this project, even though you don't have to use it on all your transformations. Remember to Clone a source image, select it all and delete, then the Tracing Paper icon in the upper right of the window bar will control the on/off of Tracing Paper. To reactivate Tracing Paper you must have a cloned source image open.

Under the Layers menu, find Composite Method and try out the many ways layers can be combined or stacked up. This link might help you and it's from the Help Topics in Painter called Composite Methods

Double --1st Project
Hayashi --2nd Project
Seamless --3rd Project

Maggid Example One
Maggid Example Two
Hayashi Panoramas
More Panorama Resources

More Hockney Resources
Hockney-like Resources
History of Panoramic Photography

Technical Examples: How to get results


Studio Pan using a tripod level device An image example
Finding your camera's "Nodal Point"
Great interior panoramas
Christo's Gates VR panorama using special software

Project 5 -- Panorama

What is due: One image for Double, one for Hayashi and 3 seamless images uploaded.

  • Panorama 1: A Double made by flipping an existing image horizontally
  • Panorama 2: Masumi Hayashi-like where ragged edges become an important visual element.
  • Panorama 3: Seamless and as transparent as to where the edges of your photos are.

Do some research on the web looking into Masumi Hayashi's work. Here are some links:
http://www.masumihayashi.com/html/gallery.html
http://tech1.dccs.upenn.edu/~xconnect/v3/i1/Art/hayashi.shtml
http://www.masumihayashi.com/html/htmt.html
http://www.coldbacon.com/art/masumihayashi.html
http://www.clevelandartsprize.org/visart_1994.htm

The Panoptican: About Masumi Hayashi's Work:


The French theorist Michel Foucault noted that nineteenth century prison architectural plans were often based on the panoptican, where one prison guard can see all of the prisoners in their separate cells. Such a space exudes hierarchy and control. These photographs of the concentration camps are about a mapping of space. The viewer can instantly see a 360 degree panoramic view which would otherwise circle around her, thus the viewer becomes both prisoner and guard within the photograph's memory. The camera's eye records a panoptic space, an impossible two-dimensional space composed of overlapping cubist images. From over 100 images, sequential fragments make up one panoramic photo collage, extended and stretched like a warped shoji screen. They present the gestalt of looking at many fractured images and seeing a unified whole. These photographs confront the viewer with the beauty of the natural landscape and ironically withthe history and memory of the land.

The digital camera permits you to work in any format you desire. Once the image is captured, the software will let you alter it in many ways. The way I want you to alter the images for this project actually needs to be addressed while you are taking the images, because I want you to connect the images horizontally to make a panoramic image of 4, 6 or even more images 'spliced' together using Painter.

Painter 7 or later should be used for this project since it will allow you easier manipulation of layers.
Here is the step-by-step:

  • Open all images--check to make sure they are 72 dpi or greater.
  • Increase Canvas Size to left or right so that you can add images: Canvas > Canvas Size > uncheck file size box
  • Use far left image as starter and then select second to left image
  • Select all by double clicking "rect. Selection" icon
  • Choose "finger" icon, layer adjuster
  • Option + Select + move second image onto first window--images always come in on far left
  • Select again and move to right--look at objects menu to see layer info!
  • Keep moving until best overlap is achieved--use arrow keys for fine tuning
  • Open window > Objects > Layers and select layer and thenselect "Composite Depth" and choose "Subtract"
  • Select "Brush Tool" eraser and adjust size
  • Erase away second image to reveal first image underneath--this is the creative part!
  • Continue this process with all images
  • Save file with new name!

Optionally you can get totally carried away and use many images and print using Epson's panorama photo paper which is long! (8.25 X 23.25")or even Epson's roll paper to make prints many feet long!
See Michael Maggid's website for inspirition and even more resources at: a guide to panoramic photography.
Notice in some panoramas that the edges are irregular. This is how David Hockney uses simple cameras to make his photo-collages which are like panoramas is 2 directions.

For anything higher than 72dpi (and I expect to see higher resolution for your prints) you can also scan either flat art such as magazine photos using the flatbed scanner, or slides and negatives (4 X 5" is our limit) using the scanners in Analy 787.

See the above scanner page as a resource and note that we have a slide and negative scanner now in room 1261. The color laser printer, the Epson printers in 1261, the 2 in 787 and any others you can access can be used for this project. I can supply you with 2 pieces of high quality, glossy paper only. More high quality paper can be purchased, but keep in mind that color cartridges also cost money and you may be asked to contribute for these if your project exceeds what the lab considers "over the limit."

See Example

Project 6 - description

A Great Example
See Other Examples Page

Project 7--Animation

What is due: One Gif animation of at least 30 frames.

Present a visual experience which includes the element of time, Einstein's 4th dimension. Make a Painter Movie and save it both as numbered files and as a gif animation which can be viewed on the web (and not in Painter). Modulate time by varying the speed between images.

Making Simple Movies in Painter

Movies are easy to make and edit in Painter, but can become huge files if precautions aren't taken. My intent here is to give you the chance to make an image which is tied to time and even to modulate or vary that time component.

1. Start with File>New but this time check "Movie" and make it good for 10 frames, click OK.

2. Call the movie "movie-01" or some such simple title and save it to your Zip cartridge. Movies are automatically saved/updated as you work on them.

3. Tell the next dialog box that you want 2 layers of onion skin. All this means is that you'll get to see 2 frames at once while working. To actually see the other layers in the frome you are working in, check the tracing paper view box, black and white squares, on the top right on the working window.

4. Draw something very simple and that varies very subtly from frame to frame, like a ball bouncing. Use the controls like a VCR and move from frame to frame. Drop All Floaters before running your movie! When finished "play" your movie. You can't control frame rates until after it's saved so all you can do is edit and add complexity.

5. Once you've done this, think about an image you already have, like someone's mouth or lips and trace/clone it onto a movie and make it move as if talking! This of course is just one, simple idea.

6. Save your movie as a frame stack--numbered frames--with a file name starting with a number your last name in the title. Also save the movie as a GIF Animation which can be only viewed using a web browser.

Project 8--Your Project

What is due: A single project of your design, related to this class, complete with examples and informational links.
One example

Domes

Mandalas

Final Project -- Kaleidoscopic Symmetry


What is due: A minimum of 3, complex mandalas.
Automate them and upload and print your best.

I want you to start with a part of one of your Texture Project images, use the "Double" idea from the Panorama Project to create some symmetry and finally add to that symmetry in many directions to create kaleidoscopic effects. Of course the more colorful and contrasty the image you start with, the better the overall effect will be.

kaleidoscope Resources



Symmetry Resources


Science


E-Mail your comments or questions about the
course to me at: jwatrous@santarosa.edu,
or you may call my office at 707 527 4276.

Updated last on: 24 August 2005