A lot to live for

     Today in this little blog of mine, I am going to tell you about a man named Neil Pastricha. Well not really all of who he is but more, how my life and your lives relate to his story. As a start, Neil is a wise man who admires and points out the small yet beautiful things in life that make life fantastic! Oh did you forget how awesome life is? Well that's why Neil is here to save us all! Neil has a blog of his own where he discusses life and how great it is. Through his tough times he learned that having a good attitude is a 100% better way to go through life than to have a bad attitude.

     In a speech of Neils' he talks about how you only have a hundred years to live and you better make those years great. yep that's right, trigger the water works. Well maybe just for me. Over the past three years I have had hundreds of thoughts pass through my mind. For a while i was happy go lucky every single day. After that phase I became slightly depressed at how much of my life was being wasted. I went to a different school last year and this school caused me to feel upset and I just want to skip the next three or four years of my life. Life felt like it wasn't special and every day I hoped the week would go fast. It was a tough year personally too, so no, life did not go fast so I spent much time just waiting. Then I stopped myself, I jumped into the light and realized if I wanted to be happy and to love long days, then I would have to create a cause for me to be happy. This started with waking up and looking outside at the beautiful spring and having a smile every day, this later led to switching schools and I tell you, now I want to wake up every morning, I want to live my life! I hope you do too, I hope you find a reason to wake up happy in the morning or just make a forceful habit of it.

     Every so often I lose sight of why life is beautiful and I fall into a state of haplessness, sometimes I don't even realize it. So I go back to the things I love in life like graphic design, I make something new and realize that is what living is for. Living is for enjoyment and love and happiness. Whether your hobby be graphic design or horse riding, singing or dancing, painting or carving, let it grip your soul and guide you into a life full of beauty.  Look at the bright side and the the world will never dull.

Good luck, I hope this inspired you to love life more.

WIP- what!

Most people know what a WIP is but if you do not, then read on. If you do, than scurry off and make your own WIP.

Ok then, many people in the world of graphic design, use the term WIP. It took silly me about two years to figure out what a WIP is. It is great to know the term WIP because it is a fun acronym in the graphic design dictionary (that's a metaphorical dictionary of course). Ok, moving on, like I said above, a WIP is an acronym for Work In Progress. So, when you see something labeled WIP you can know that the piece of artwork is a work in progress.

I have a current WIP right now, next step for me is shading (it looks very un-professional right now). Here it is

Artistic Nouns

     Oh the art of grammar. Yep that's right, I am now considering grammar an art. Of course I am sure many of you consider writing and poetry an art but have you ever thought of grammar individually being an art. If you have, kudos to you. If you have not, then you are in the same boat as me. So, why is grammar an art you ask?

     Well today I am just going to talk about nouns and their artistic abilities. Nouns as you probably know, are  defined as a person, place, or thing. Simple right? Just kidding, there is so much more to nouns than that which meets the eye. Nouns also have this incredible ability to be complicated, I am talking plurals an possessives here. I never really understood what that meant, but now I do! You wonder why a noun has an apostrophe on it and why it changes position in different nouns. This is pure grammar art. It is tricky if you do not know how possessive and plural nouns work so try learning! Grammar is very important in graphic design if you are ever trying to describe your image, set up a website or sell your artwork. Correct grammar shows you care and are knowledgeable about what you are making or selling.

     So, here you go, here are are some fantastic websites for learning about nouns. It may take you a moment or two to understand (that's what happened with me) but once you do, trust me it will be helpful. Good luck

http://www.wisc-online.com/Objects/ViewObject.aspx?ID=wcn1601

http://www.wisc-online.com/Objects/ViewObject.aspx?ID=WCN6502

Inspirational Blogger

     Wow, I just watched an amazing and very unique speech! Your interested now right? Well, as I have become a recent blogger, the person who made blogging a worldwide sensation is very important to me. That person is named Mena Trott. She is very unique and different and outgoing from what I noticed in her speech and stage presence. Mena talked about what blogging is for and how it can express the thoughts of any person to an audience who is willing to listen. She talked about her friends who blogged and how it made them more open and connected. She also talked about the documentation of peoples lives and how others may look back on it some day and find loads of helpful information in discovering the past. Can you imagine if blogging was around 100 years ago, 200 years ago? I agree completely with all of her ideas on blogging and I send great thanks to her for what she has opened peoples eyes to.

     

     Not only do I appreceate Mena's gift to the world, I appreceate how she has inspired me as an individual. Yes it may sound rediculous for me to become inspired by a single speech of hers but it is not. I found such inspiration in her simple progress with blogging. Every day I think about my future and what I will do. I love graphic design and technologie and science and I have always worried about how I could keep those passions alive. I thought that I of course could not change the technological world but now I know that an idea as simple as blogging can make a difference. I want to make a difference, I am not shure how but I will.

     So keep your confidance  up my friends, and don't wory about the future like I have. Just wait for an inspiration experience to take your hand and run away with you.

Grammer in Everything

     Hello my dearest friends who happen to be watching this blog. I am here today to talk about grammer! Yes thats right, grammer. Grammer may seem to be irrelivant but in truth, grammer and sentance structure is very important in graphic design. You certainly want to have correct sentences if you are creating a website or designining a picture with text on it. Grammer is even important to keep you organized if you are doing html coding. Laslty, grammer is important in blogging although it may not be apparent to some bloggers.

     Sentance fragments ans run-ons are very annoying to read, don't you agree? So, if a blog has tons of incorrect grammer why would you want to read it. To be a blogger you have to know what you'r doing in terms of grammer, to keep your audience engaged. A choppy and fragmented blog is hard to flow with and think about. I certainly would want my readers to think about the blog rather than the sentance structure. So in conclusion of that brief paragraph, make shure your blog can be read fluently.

The question is, are you prepared for the terrifying but terrific world of grammer? Why not take these quizzes to find out?

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/cgi-shl/quiz.pl/fragments_quiz.htm

http://www.chompchomp.com/frag01/frag01.htm

     I just took them and did extreemly well for my standards. I got a 9/10 on the first quiz which was very difficult in comparison to the second one. The last question was a bit confusing due to the fact that several of the answers could potentially be correct. The second quiz is only on fragments, which made it very easy for me (plus it is kinda fun). I got a 20/20 on the second quiz but got bored quickly. If you are looking for harder more diverse test, deffinetly take the first one. 

     So remember, keep your blog or graphic or website, flowing and gramatically correct. 

Ideas?

Hey everyone! I haven't posted all weekend and thought today would be a great time to post. I don't have much to say about graphic design today because I have been relaxing/camping all weekend long. I would still like to post something relating to graphics so here it is!

I am looking for creative ideas and projects for me to draw or photmanipulate. Please feel free to give me ideas! In return I would love to send you the completed image. Thanks so much and I can't wait to hear your ideas!   -no guarantees that I will do your request.

Self Direction? Whats that

     Yep yep, I am here today to tell you all about my view on what self direction is and why it is oh so important! Self direction from my view is what keeps a person learning, improving, changing and overall living. Self direction is that powerful force inside or you that drives you toward the things you love. Though it may be hard to realize, you as a person can manipulate that self direction to what you want and what you need. For example, I need to work on spelling but with spellcheck at my fingertips I have the choice of weather or not to use it. There is a small chance I will improve my spelling if I just use spell check, but with my powerful self direction I can move my mouse away from the spellchack button and learn how to spell better. It is sometimes very difficult to trust yourself and make yourself do the right thing but by learning what self direction is, you can think about it and use it.

     Self direction is also a driving force that keeps you alive and moving forward. (Forward in life that is) So many people say that goals help you live but without self direction, there is no way to complete these goals. So, self direct yourself toward a brighter and more intelligent tommarow.

     On a slightly but not completely different note, self direction relates to blogging. Blogging is completely self directed, you as a writer have the choise of what to write, how much to write, and when to write. It's all yours with a few technological guidelines. I hope to work hard on my blog and put hard work into it, that is self direction.

Thought I would share a quick painting that i found while browsing through old files

Student Blogging

Hey everyone, on a different note from graphics, I am here today to discuss the powerfull art of blogging for students! I am a fellow student and a new blogger and would like to share my opinion of blogging in relation to this article; http://murcha.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/20-reasons-why-students-should-blog/.

     To start off, I completely agree with the article saying that blogging is a fantastic writing experience for students. Blogging is prep for the future! It is helpful in ways such as teaching students how to use technologie to communicate, read and write. Writing is different online because one, you use a keyboard. I much prefer a keyboard to paper because it is relaxing in a way, as well as it does not hurt your hands after a while. Another great thing about a keyboard is that you use both your hands to type, which keeps your brain engaged as well as helps with cordination. Another way writing is different online is because it has tools such as spell corrector which I do my best not to use, so I can practice. Spell corrector is a fantastic safety net though! Also writing and reading online gives you imediate access to translaters, dictionarys, web recources and many other fantastic tools.

     Back to the subject of why students should blog, blogging gives kids who are not very interested in writing, to experience a different way to write. I for one was never a big fan of writing but digital writing is a whole different wrold which I love! Blogging also lets students reach into the world wide web and introduce what they know and want to share, to the rest of the world. Writing and reading class work makes students feel very boxed in. With the world at your fingertips, why not share to most of it rather than a single class or school. Blogging makes kids feel more important this way, which I do believe they are!

     Blogging does have serious danger involved in the fact that kids could share to much information. This is easy to do when you are talking about your life on a blog. As a suggestion, I would start bloging with a topic other than yourself so students can learn the safe zones before talking about their personal life.

     So in conclusion, I really hope you as an adult or student, try out blogging. Don't let the idea of writing take you down when you have the opportunity to write in a new and exciting way. Blogging shares your ideas with the rest of the world, and the more ideas and oppinions in this world, the more everyone learns and grows with. I hope you try it some time as I am today and hopefully for a while!

Learning Pixel Art!

Hey everyone! another unique type of graphic design is called Pixel Art! Pixels as you probobly but may not know, are what digital images are made of (you can look up the actual defenition if you'r that interested. but anyway, Pixel art is a form of art that is created by placing individual pixels one by one. It is a very time consuming project but each peice is unique and usually very well done. Pixel art images are usually very small and used digitally on games, websites, ect.
here is an example of a pixel art piece:

 

This one is from  http://minidollz.ninique.net/

This one is by me




This one is also by me


Obviously I am no pro but people can be really great at this!
So, are you interested in Pixel art? Well here are some fantastic tutorials to get you started! They are in order for what you should learn first according to me. But feel free to use them in any order. I would also love to see what you made! These all work for most design programs with or with out a bit of tweaking.

http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Pixel-Artist
http://kitted.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Shading-Tutorial-47269811
http://www.derekyu.com/?page_id=222
http://www.spriteland.com/tutorials/drawing-pixel-art-tutorial.htm

First Gimp Tutorials!

Yep thats right, here are some of the first Gimp tutorials for my blog! It was requested by a friend for me to post some great Gimp tutorials on how to make "signatures" siggys or signatures are small image collaborations with text representing a person or thing or company. They are often used on websites or forums. So here is a few tutorials on how to make pretty awesome signatures. These tutorials are for people who are allready pretty familiar with the basics of Gimp.


an awesome youtube video (one of my fave tutorials)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qweu4KxDNuQ&feature=player_embedded

here is a site with 100 fantastic links to amazing siggy tutorials.
http://webdesign14.com/100-cool-forum-signature-photoshop-tutorials/

I can post more later  but this will launch you

Beginning Photoshop

Hey Everyone! I heard via email that some people were interested in beginning Photoshop tutorials and where to start with that if you allready own Photoshop. Well, today I found a great tutorial for beginning and learning the tools of Photoshop.  So here it is:


http://mashable.com/2010/08/12/12-beginner-tutorials-for-getting-started-with-photoshop/

enjoy! and any sugestions on things you want to learn or see here are welcome!

A piece of my own artwork just to throw out an example of graphic design : )

For New Graphic Designers

This Blog really needs a jump start so I will start with the point of this blog! Right now I will be doing a different graphic design learning topic each month, most of the tutorials if not all of them, will be based off photoshop but If you want you can request a different type of program such as Gimp or Illustratior or other things like that. I have not picked the first topic yet but I will soon. For newcomers to graphics, read below to start. For older graphic designers, I will start posting tutorial links and other fun stuff asap!

- If you are brand new to graphic design and do not have a program to work off, I can get you started on where to go and how to learn. First, If you have a PC which many people do, you have this great free program called "Paint" which is a great place to start digital drawing. If you are more interested in web design and photo-mainpulation I strongly suggest a free downloadable program for both Mac and PC called Gimp. Gimp is basically a downgraded free version of Photoshop. Due to the fact that Photoshop is several hundreds of dollars, Gimp has several flaws and errors but is a fantastic way  to start graphic design. If you allready have a program like Photoshop than thats great and you can strt with it but if you do not have a program allready on your computer I HIGHLY suggest that you do not go out and buy one right away, Graphic design is certainly not for everyon but there is a chance it may be for you like it was for me. On a personal note, I started graphic design on Gimp and later bought Photoshop. If you plan to buy photoshop and are a student, make sure to ask for the student discount. Here are some helpfull Links for launching into the world of graphic design. I will also post the link to the GIMP download. (always make sure you are on an official website for downloads, if you download from a false website it may give yourr computer a virus.)

-Where to download Gimp for Mac or Windows
http://www.gimp.org/

- Downloading instructions to beginning project tutorials
http://www.vtc.com/products/GIMP-2.6-Tutorials.htm

-Gimp tutorials! provided by gimp, great place to start after instilation
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

-Microsoft Paint (ms paint) the basics and where to start
http://www.lkwdpl.org/classes/MSPaint/paint.html

I hope that launches you off to the incredible world of Graphic Design!

New and Learning

Hey everyone who happens to read this blog! I am a student who is here to help you and myself learn more about Graphics and Graphic Design. How exciting is that! I am in a blogging class so that is another reason why I am creating this blog. I would love to share with the beautiful tutorials and learning techniques that I find across the internet or perhaps outside of the facinating electronical box(computer). To start off I will introduce you to some of my work which is just a start to the future. I would also love to hear any feedback that you have about my artwork or website. So, without further adue, here is my website! http://stewartart.weebly.com Enjoy browsing! Also if you have any suggestions for Graphic Design topics you would like me to help direct you with, please tell me! Iwould love to hear any comments or questions from visitors.