Creativity

     Ken Robinson. What does that name mean to you? Yes, I know tat it probably doesn't mean anything to you yet but once you finish reading this post, you will certainly know that that name, means a lot. To start, Ken is a man that holds great wisdom in the subject of creativity. I know that creativity does not really sound like something you can learn about and know of, I figure you have never considered creativity as a subject to be taught. This is probably because creativity is taught in so many forms, but not in too many schools. This leads me directly into the topic of creativity in schools and what Ken thinks about it.

     I learned about Ken in a TED speech and since I already love TED and their magnificent talks, I was quickly fascinated with Ken. Ken's main goal from his speech was to educate his audience of the importance of creativity in schools. He discussed how so many schools are teaching students to the average textbook, and in theory everyone would end up in the exact same place having the exact same career. Who would want that? I certainly would miss the entertainment of acting, music, art and dance, honestly who wouldn't. Thankfully some student and some schools step out of the box. The box containing textbooks and calculators and tests. I am one of those students and I am part of one of those schools.

     In the last paragraph I ended with  "I am part of one of those schools." Originally I had written, (as most students would) "I belong to one of those schools." Then I realized how possessive that sounded. That single sentence made it sound like the school owned me and controlled me and decide what I would and should learn. That would be terrible if I actually felt that way. I unlike other students have the resources to jump up and take part in my school, I have the chance to express myself in unique ways like graphic design and drawing and even blogging! Yes, you might have forgotten that I actually am blogging in a blogging class right now. How incredible is that? I love it so much, I love that I can be who I am and consider the hundreds of careers that I could go into. Many people and perhaps even you, forget about creativity in other schools and forget that some schools may not even care about creativity and learning beyond the book. So here it is, here is a an eyeopener for you to speak out about creativity, share your opinion and teach the world to change our system, teach schools to get a little creativity and take a leap into the unknown. Let the people learn what they want to learn. Of course keep the basics of math and science, ect. in education but influence others to be different. No one wants to end up in the exact same position as someone else.

     Those of you who are reading this blog for the pure purpose of learning graphic design and enjoying graphic design, question yourself of where you learned graphic design and how you were inspired to care about it. I for sure did not learn graphic design in a school, I learned it on my own in my spare time. There are so many people who do not even know what applications like photoshop or gimp or paint is for, but if creative subjects like graphic design were taught in school, the world would be a lot more colorful.

Shading Tutorials!

Ok, now after all these days you have been waiting, I am going to post some tutorials. These tutorials are for learning shading for digital painting. I have always struggled here and finally found some decent tutorials. They are mainly for photoshop but most, if not all f the tools used, are available in other programs. So enjoy, I hope they help you as much as the helped me.

http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm - This is a detailed description for everything shading, it is a great place to start but it is very extensive. Don't let this tutorial scare you.

http://www.cellesriaart.com/resources/basic-blending/ - This is an overview of blending techniques if you are struggling with how to blend your shading

http://www.melissaevans.com/tutorials/pencil-sketch-to-smooth-digital-shading - This is a tutorial on how to turn pencil sketches into digital paintings. I found this very unique and helpful if you are better at traditional drawing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxO8u-loAEc - This is a tutorial on how to shade a sphere

Soon I will have some tutorials on how to shade people because I find that very helpful.

i made these with some shading help. The orb is from the YouTube tutorial 

Latest and Greatest

Hey everyone surprise its me! Over the weekend I had a fantastic experience of learning how to shade people, It is only a brief start and with all the flaws, I am still proud. I have been trying to learn how to shade people for quite some time. Oh, keep in mind this image is not meant to look completely realistic. Enjoy
I will have several shading tutorials up in a moment

oh and the hair was just a last minute effort

I forgot eyebrows! that's what was missing. I will fix that.

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

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 : )

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.