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!

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.