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October 22, 2018 - No Comments!

Black, Red, Teal, and Rose Undulating Lines: My First Solo Processing Piece

In September, I visited Artechouse in Albuquerque, New Mexico. On exhibit was "XYZT
Abstract Landscapes," interactive work by performance artists Adrien M & Claire B. I had so much fun exploring the world they created with sensors, projectors, and screens. Coincidently, today is the last day the exhibit is open, but if the work travels to a spot near you... GO!

Starting on my own digital art journey, my first goal has been to invoke a similar sense of playfulness, where one move from a person is met by a countering move by the computer. Starting a series of push and pull that draws someone in and opens them up to learning something about themselves or the world around them.

I'm not there yet, but the sketch that I created sparked a bit of joy for me. It has a sense of a lively swarm, with lines that bloom and fade as they follow the mouse.

int c = 0; // color base
int x = 1; // color increment
int lw = 2; // line weight base
int lx = 1; // line weight increment

void setup() {
  size(400,800);
}

void draw(){
   background(255);
  
   for (int lsx = 20; lsx < width; lsx += 45) { // lsx = line start x pos
     strokeWeight(lw);
     stroke((c+lsx)/2, c, c);
     for (int lsy = 20; lsy < height; lsy += 45) { // lsy = line start y pos
     line(lsx, lsy, mouseX, mouseY); // all lines follow the mouse
     }
   }
   
   if (lw < 3) { // if line weight is 2
      lx = 1; // adding 1
   }
   if (lw > 39) { // if line weight gets to 40
     lx = -lx; // removing 1
   }
  
   lw += lx; // line width gets existing width (lw) + increment (lx)
   
   if (c < 0 || c > 240) { // if color is black or very light
      x = -x; // change direction of color increment   
   }
   
   c += x; // color gets existing color (c) + color increment (x)
 }

I've about 50% through "Make: Getting Started with Processing." I've slowed down the aggressive pace since my last post, because self care.

October 13, 2018 - No Comments!

I’m going to make a flash card app.

There. I said it.

I left out the update where I finished KhanAcademy. That happened!

I finished up with Codecademy's Intro to JS course this week. I started it in 2012! Totally normal to take six years to get through a 20 hour course.

I feel really good about getting through three "get the basics of JS" courses within a month. I found Khan Academy to be the most engaging, although Codecademy went more in-depth. Using them to reinforce each other has been great. I can tell that I have made progress, and with learning a new skill... having that sense of momentum makes all the difference.

I had to take a brief hiatus from studying, news, and screens in general. I've been so motivated that I didn't realize that I was exhausting myself. It takes time to let new concepts sink in.

During my brief break from the internerd (aside from my day job), I got to catch up on homesteading business like painting and making moss wall art. All forms of making are rewarding.

I started reading "Getting Started With Processing" last night, and have so far been pleasantly surprised by how much content the Khan Academy class covered. Competence is one of my favorite feelings, y'all. I know I have leagues more to learn, but so far I feel great about drawing shapes and making them move a wee bit.

To help with concepts and syntax, I started compiling a Processing JS Tiny.Cards deck (Duolingo, you are so cute and helpful). It's a lot of manual copy-pasta. It's inspired me to try to figure out how to make a flash cards app. We'll see. My ultimate goal is to make art, but a few helpful pieces of software here and there seem like good learning tools.

 

September 24, 2018 - No Comments!

Getting the basics down

This past week, I finished up Grasshopper.codes and now the drum machine on Glitch that I remixed last week makes a lot more sense. Grasshopper was a great intro/refresher because it uses a plug and play puzzle-completion pedagogy that builds upon concepts. I found myself wanting to use it while on my laptop, but it's mobile-only. That aside, it was impressive in taking complex concepts and making them fun and approachable. Kudos to its creators!

There are still loads more gaps in my knowledge re: web audio and other unknown unknowns, but it's felt like real progress to be able to understand what every line of code was doing.

I started Khan Academy.org's Intro to JS: Drawing & Animation, which has complimented Grasshopper quite nicely. The style of instruction is a hybrid of video instruction and live-code editing called "talk-throughs." This approach to instruction they've created is novel in that a pre-recorded lesson can be paused and the code manipulated by the student. Following the "talk-throughs" are coding challenges and mini projects to practice and build upon new concepts.

As of today, Khan Academy's Intro to JS is  82% done. That's roughly 15-20 hours of studying this week. There are some tools provided to track progress on the site, but it doesn't appear to track talk-through time.

I've made nine projects to demonstrate understanding of drawing, loops, arrays, objects. Key-value pairs all of a sudden make sense (although, I can't remember when that concept was confusing).

Other stuff:

  • I played guitar today and wrote half of a twee pop song. It was p cute.

 

 

September 17, 2018 - No Comments!

Last week’s progress

This was my first full week back to normal life after two weekends away.

Over Labor Day, Panda and I road-tripped through New Mexico seeing literal tumble-weeds, the depths and awe of Carlsbad Caverns, the paranormal activity of Roswell, the charm and vibrations of Santa Fe and not spending nearly enough time at Meow Wolf.

The following weekend was five days in Portland for XOXO. This was my first year attending, and I was floored by how thoughtfully organized and executed the conference was, and by the community of people it attracted. Everyone I met was an instant friend. I was inspired hearing their perspectives and what they were working on. Some of the speakers helped give me the vocabulary for using design and tech to affect change, and for navigating spaces as a woman of color.

Boarding the plane at PDX, I could sense heading towards creating something that I have dreamed about for over a decade: using tech to make art. I'm being vague because it's shifted and morphed for me a thousand times. I've been inspired by generative art, projection mapping, using algos to design clothes, light installations, synthesizers, etc. The biggest blocker over the years has been me. Not knowing how to code beyond the HTML/CSS I learned in art school and not making a serious effort to learn. Add a bit of perfectionism, and you have the perfect recipe for inaction.

So, here I am... actually trying to do a thing. And sharing my process and whatever that ends up looking like here (and here). I'll be sharing all sorts of making as I figure out what I am most interested in.

This week:

  • Started using Area 120's Grasshopper Learn To Code app. I am finding its fill-in-the-blank teaching method to be effective (but tedious) so far. I always have my phone, so it's easy to fill waiting time with quick lessons on for loops. I'm interested in comparing teaching methods as I look at other resources.
    • Finished Fundamentals 1 & 2, part of Animation 1
  • Made several Garageband & Figure studies for music projects while flying to and from Portland.
  • Made a Glitch account
    • Hurt my ears remixing a drum machine by haphazardly increasing the distortion on a tone too high. Lesson learned 😖
  • Put "Getting Started With Processing" back on my Kindle.
  • Made a couple of docs to home in on what types of art I can create immediately vs what I'll need to learn new skills to make:

Screenshot showing spreadsheet with rankings to help me figure out what I can create right away vs. learn new skills for. The outcome was music and comics being immediate options.

The gist: Low scoring activities can be started immediately. Learning effort is how hard I think it will be for me to pick up the skills (1:Low, 2: Medium, 3: High), how cost/distance prohibitive accessing resources & tools are (1:Low, 2: Medium, 3: High) and lastly, how interested I am in an activity affects the overall score (-1:Pretty interested, -2: Pretty damn interested, -3: DO WANT!).

The ranking system isn't my best spreadsheet work, but it worked to help me get from overwhelmed: "I WANT TO MAKE EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW! (but don't know how)" to "Oh yeah, I can make music and traditional art right away" and, "Learning how to make simple generative art is hard for me but something I really want to do and I have everything to do it."

That last bit is important. Learning is high effort, but ultimately worth it if I want to create using this kind of technology.