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Contents
ABOUT
You and Me: the Who
Professors hate to admit it, but we are no longer the gate-keepers to knowledge! If you want to know something, just “google it” and presto, right?
So who needs professors when “Dr. Google” can bring the world to your fingertips?
Well, Dr. Google can do a lot, but it can’t:
- sort out more useful or reliable information
- distinguish real from fake
- provide you with mentorship
- exercise your critical thinking skills
- give you critical feedback
and perhaps most importantly:
- show you how to learn
That’s the value a professor brings to your learning experience!
I’m a student, too!
That’s right. Instead of peeling open layers of information for you or lecturing at you, I do this learning thing with you.
Today, my job as a teacher is to model how to learn.
And the body of knowledge in digital art changes as fast as the latest software update, so it’s not a cliché to say we go on a learning journey together. I am also here to learn!
So we’re partners?
Yes! And this means the role of student has changed also. In the past, professors expected students to be passive sponges soaking up their sage-like genius. No more!
Today, your job as a student is to be an active partner in learning.
Understanding this as a partnership is the key to success!
Creative Process: the What
Students in a studio focus on making cool stuff. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll do that! But that’s not really why you’re here. It’s just a means to an end. You are really here to learn how to be creative. And…
Creativity can be learned!
Why should you care about cultivating creativity? For starters: it is the number one soft skill sought by employers.
So even if you never become an artist in the conventional sense, the creative process you’ll develop here is a highly transferable soft skill. The work you’ll do in each project is unique, but each follows a similar structure. What does that look like?
We start with…
References |
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Through readings and tutorials, you’ll:
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Gain skill with…
Exercises |
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By getting deeper into software, you’ll :
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Bring these together…
Design |
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In this often non-linear process, you’ll develop a design through:
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From file to thing…
Fabrication |
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We’ve partnered with Abington ∞ MakerSpace to manufacture works at no cost to you.
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Finally, a…
Presentation |
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You’ll create presentations of your finished creative work:
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Creative Time: the When
Have you ever learned how to play a guitar? Bake a pie? How many times do you play a video game before you really get good? Art is no different than any of those things.
We learn by doing!
You don’t need “talent.” I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t come in handy, but it’s not the key to creativity. The only thing you actually need is a willingness to try, fail constructively, then try again, a different way.
That takes time.
There’s an old saying: it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert.
That’s 5 years of full time work!
What the old saying doesn’t mention is that it’s the first 100 hours — just the first one percent! — that are most important for getting good. Everything else is refinement. You start by doing.
In 15 weeks, you will get that one percent and more.
135 hours: it’s a policy!
According to our Faculty Senate policy, you should expect to work a minimum of 135 hours to earn 3 college credits in any class. Probably more. So you can expect to work between 9 and 12 hours a week on average in any 3 credit class, inside and outside of regular meeting time. This is a variation on the classic Carnegie Rule and just one of the ways that college is different than high school.
Studio only meets 6 hours per week. Where to find that other time?
Don’t worry! We have strategies to help you get control of time. Incidentally, this will help you manage all your obligations!
Creative Spaces: the Where
Finding a creative space is almost as hard as finding creative time! Fortunately, we have many options.
In the Mac lab
Our studio is 341 Woodland. It is a Mac lab outfitted with all our software. Studio professors have an “open door” policy for students who want to come in any time and work, if there is an empty workstation. If you don’t love Macs, you can BYOD and use it here.
Other labs
Other labs on campus are PC-based, and they have the software you need — and there’s honestly not a lot of difference between operating systems these days. If a lab does not have a class running, feel free to use the space. There is computing in Lares, the Library, Sutherland, and Woodland.
At the MakerSpace
BYOD
First, to be very clear: you don’t need your own device. We have access to everything you need.
However, many people, including me, enjoy the freedom of working on personal devices. With my laptop, the whole world is my studio! Plus, a big benefit: log-ins are much easier.
It’s important to understand that your device needs to be powerful enough to run our professional-grade software. No phone apps or Chromebooks, please!
But for those who have a proper tool, we have free access to downloads for all the software described at the Resources page.
Learning Objectives: the Why
Why are you in college?
The answer is different for a lot of people. But generally, it boils down to acquiring useful knowledge and skills to put it to use in careers we are passionate about.
But sometimes it feels like we have to do things in college that don’t seem relevant to our passion.
Why are you in this course?
You might be here because you have to be to meet a degree requirement, but the course description or the skills we’ve discussed feel out of touch with your interest. I have a surprise for you!
We mentioned earlier: one skill everyone can use is creativity, whether you’re passionate about being an artist, a scientist, or an entrepreneur. But can creativity be taught and learned?
Yes, it can.
Not from sitting in a lecture, but by understanding and applying the creative thinking process to a variety of circumstances. This is our primary learning objective.
Discipline-specific skills
We get to that primary objective through a lot of tasks specific to the disciplines of digital art and design. You’ll learn why we:
- Develop a creative work by:
- Applying project management strategies to the creative process.
- Creating conceptually original artworks within a critical and theoretical framework of foundational 2D and 3D design, using a range of visual elements, visual principles, and Gestalt laws.
- Understanding various means of expression—objective, abstract, and non-objective—and knowing how to deliberately employ them in various projects.
- Understanding metaphors to traditional sculptural processes—additive, subtractive, construction, substitution—and how they inform the various fabrication tools we use.
- Using typographic elements in graphic contexts to create images.
- Using orthographic projection and reference planes to guide model-making.
- Discovering and developing underlying geometric structures that determine visible forms.
- Prepare a design for fabrication by:
- Generating sophisticated line art and graphics, transforming it into laser-ready vector work.
- Using a CAD modeling program to generate form by manipulating different algorithmic expressions of geometry—from sculpting to parametric sketching—and illustrate it through simple rendering techniques.
- Using a mesh editing program to optimize model geometry for fabrication.
- Fabricate physical work by:
- Outputting vector art with a vinyl cutter.
- Using a laser cutter to cut and engrave sheet good materials.
- Using a 3D digitizer to generate a high-quality mesh model scan.
- Using a 3D printer to create a high-quality rapid prototype of your model.
- Visualizing a positive shape and generating a negative mold from it on a CNC router.
- Present a creative work by:
- Organizing work in cloud storage and a professional, publicly-facing blog, vlog, or podcast.
- Discussing it in a public forum.
- Sharing it via social media.
If you do all that is asked, in the spirit in which is asked, you will appreciate why the creative process is such a useful and transferable skill.
Obviously, our curricular focus in the studio is about digital art, but it’s also about other, less obvious things. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the concept of the “hidden curriculum.”
What is it? Simply a bundle of learnable skills that pertain to all kinds of work, not just creative work. These are transferable skills that can be applied to professional life in general.
So even if you never make art again in your life after this, you’ll acquire many essential tools and habits that are critical to success regardless of your career.
We’ve identified four “meta-skills” that can be evaluated through your creative process:
- Project Management
- Cloud Management
- Publication
- Self-Reflection
Project Management
Whatever else we might think about artists, we don’t often think of them as managers. But all artists are project managers who deal with tricky logistical, supply, and labor problems. Creative time is hard to come by, even for professional artists, so it needs to be defended.
And since we learn by doing, we need to craft a relationship with time that allows us to learn. This is not easy.
Project management can run the gamut from budgeting to resource allocation, but in our studio you will focus primarily on time management strategies at 3 scales:
- Daily: Recommended flow of activities, as guided by a calendar supplied by me.
- Weekly: a time-blocking exercise that helps you understand patterns of activity, important not only for the studio, but also for all your obligations.
- Semester: the long view of time is guided by a Canvas calendar subscription fed into your choice of a calendaring platform.
Cloud Management
Computing in a cloud sounds like magic, but it’s just you using someone else’s server storage. Even though the concept of the cloud is not so new anymore, it’s still a very tricky thing.
The cloud has fundamentally changed the way we think of computing. We no longer see our computer as a standalone work-station, but as a node on a network. We work on a document in an app, neither of which lives on our hard drive! And, we often find ourselves not being the sole author of a work, with several people contributing to the same file. It can get extremely confusing very quickly.
You’ll learn about three important things that have changed in our modern creative work environment:
- Archiving and backing up work, including strategies for file naming and folder structure, so that you can remember and retrieve work years from now.
- Collaborating, whether by sharing files or working on the same file across a network.
- Intellectual property and the double-edged sword cloud computing can often be!
Publication
Publishing is what separates a professional from a person with a hobby. Publication on the web is a highly decentralized phenomenon. Where in the past artists were at the mercy of publishing houses and galleries, we live in a distributed culture where everyone is their own publicist.
This has fundamentally changed the relationship between a creative person and their audience — for example, I have a blog that I know via site analytics is regularly seen by people in Sweden or New Zealand, an impossible reach for a solo, unrepresented author less than a generation ago.
This is true whether or not you are in the arts! You’ll learn how to work with the following:
- Social media as a means to develop a following and a network.
- Hosting services that store your work for distribution.
- Content management systems that aid in web development.
- How to “own your search” when people look you up on the web.
Self-Reflection
Personal reflection is the ability to look back on your accomplishments. Understanding what your successes have been helps you handle what I call constructive failure when things get challenging. We fear and avoid failure, but when it’s understood as a learning experience, it can be the best teacher of all.
And let’s be clear: even the “worst” project contains some kind of positive outcome, and even the “best” project can be improved or, if nothing else, approached from a different perspective. Reflection is a process that allows us to see both simultaneously.
Reflection sharpens critical thinking and secures neural pathways for deep learning. In this course, you’ll engage in a layered cycle of self-reflection through:
- Blogging, imperfect videos, podcasting, slide-decks, or a combination.
- Group critique where you are both a presenter and a contributor to the discussion.
- A personal evaluation administered at end of term.
Digital Praxis: the How
Those objectives remain pretty theoretical without a way to demonstrate that you’ve delivered on them. How?
We don’t give quizzes, tests, or exams — those are also pretty theoretical. Instead, you demonstrate mastery of objectives through the completion of four projects.
These projects explore different methods of making digital art:
- 2D vector graphics
- 3D modeling, in both organic and parametric (sketch-and-extrude) forms
- mesh editing, which modifies a pre-existing model
Each project uses a different digital tool in the MakerSpace:
- vinyl cutter for an adhesive transfer graphic at multiple scales
- laser engraver and cutter, creating a rubber stamp and a “sliced” sculpture
- 3D printing, in combination with a 3D scanner, to generate another sculpture
- CNC router for a bas-relief form that introduces basic concepts of mold-making
Each project itself has a unique conceptual focus, like so:
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Method |
Tool |
Expression |
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Vector |
Vinyl |
Figure-Ground |
3D Model Slicer |
Laser |
Abstraction |
Mesh Edit |
3D Printer
Digitizer |
Surrealism |
| 3D Model |
CNC |
Non-Objectivity |
When designers talk about applying theoretical knowledge to the making of real things, they call this praxis. So our praxis looks a bit like this: four projects, a variety of visual principles, several vector and 3D software applications, a range of additive and subtractive tools, and a number of artistic expressions.
To see how this is structured, visit newMedia Wiki, the free Open Education Resource written by me to support our students taking newMedia studios:
Jargon Alert!If you run across an unfamiliar term, often in bold, you may see it link to a definition. If not, you may be able to look up the term in of our Glossaries.
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