My handful of Electron Readers may have wondered recently why I post less often here than I used to. I can sum up many of my reasons in just one word: Photoshop. It was only three months ago, in July, that I expressed my phrustration while learning this large unwieldy graphics program and trying to use it. As I said earlier, Photoshop is not the ideal graphics program for an artist. Most of the resources I have bought to help me use it are full of glitzy gimmicks which you can use to manipulate photographs and make modern-style advertising art. But that's not what I'm interested in. I want to make illustrations with it. I'd like to make architectural renderings too. There are resources for illustrators in Photoshop but most of the time I just play with it until I get what I want. Then I look at current graphics or comic art and see what other artists have done with it.

For instance, just take a look at this amazing public interior by digital artist Craig Mullins. I don't know what this scene depicts. It looks like a fantastic mall or enclosed forum in some alternate civilized world. I wish I had painted it. Note that it is not rendered in the super-realism of an architectural rendering, but in sketchy almost "impressionistic" strokes. This is what a master can do with Photoshop. I have a long way to go before I can create something like this. I used to do things like this in conventional media such as ink and watercolor, or acrylic, but I want to be able to do that digitally as well. It is even possible to create artworks, whether on Photoshop or Painter, that simulate conventional media so exactly that you cannot tell it is not a watercolor or an oil painting—at least on the computer screen. Much of the Photoshop instruction, though, is for people who do not have the artistic background and skills that I have. So when I sit down in front of the computer, I turn on Photoshop and spend hours sketching and experimenting. Other than the spacescape, I don't have anything to show you yet, but I will show it when I have something suitable.

I have limited time to work in my home studios due to my day job. Sometimes I have to do work for the day job at home, too. And I have lots of domestic tasks. So some things have had to be put on a less frequent schedule. I would welcome input from my Friendly Scientists on how I could continue doing calculus when I have so little time to work with. Right now I stare at my calculus book tiredly and have not changed the page or done problems in weeks. I certainly wouldn't be a good scientist or mathematician under these conditions. But I had to make a decision between something I do professionally and something I will never do professionally. Perhaps I will find another universe where time goes at another rate. As it was stated in TV Guide about some broadcast special, "Time may vary in your area."

Posted at 3:42 am | link