fishes

[Thelonious]

Jinn,
haven't you learned you lesson, do you want to be up for days on end?
Thems fightin' words, I can feel a competition coming on.

Western society is very competitive, its unhealthy, with your siblings then all through school. It encourages this notion to compare oneself and everyone make a negative self judgement as it is.

That said, I like the sound of it, let's think of a title (maybe the reader could chip in with a suggestion) and maybe have a tut comp.

We always seem to get suggestions for little art comps all over the talkgraphic forum. You know the type, "let's all draw a mythological creature buying a footmassager at Walmart". The more I think about it the better it sounds.

thelonious

[Jinny Brown]

That's what I'm doing. Just need to know what it's about first.

hmmm...

it may be days on end.. er.. it already has been...

Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
________________________

[Thelonious]

I was hoping you'd make a suggestion. Or our loyal reader who has looked at this post 400 times already. Who is this loyal reader, do you think it's Panfer. I want to dedicate the upcoming tut to Panfer anyway. Panfer if you can hear me, it's time to come out of the closet. The knife was excellent.

Whoever's going to suggest the tut had better get a move on, the pavement is coming up quickly.

Perhaps Jinn after all your tutorials everyone knows everything.

BTW I was having a look at the wacom tips page http://www.wacom.de/Fun/pt-1.htm
and there was a good one on setting your pen button for the brush size shortcut.

If the brush size circle was a little more predictable it'd be a real corker. However it's still useful.

thelonious

[Jinny Brown]

Hi again,

Try using the [ and ] keys to size the brush in tiny increments. If you hold either of them down, the brush continues to get larger (])or smaller ([).

Um.. I doubt if anyone knows everything about Painter, and certainly not from my tutorials. I don't begin to know everything (about Painter, that is). [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
________________________

[athena]

This is a tough subject. And with the intellect we've been amassing here, we may be able to generate some useful ideas about composition.

Please let's not consider this a competition [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] (you don't want to shame your moderator, do you? Let her do that on her own [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] )

But this is such vast subject, kind of like the group of blind men around the elephant, each with a different description of what the elephant is like (one describes the elephant's leg, the other his ear, the other his trunk, and still another his tusk). Each one has a part of the truth, but not the whole truth.

(I'm not calling anyone blind [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] I'm just saying that composition is a vast topic. It is very hard to put into words. Some people will say, "you either understand it or you don't." I think that kind of attitude is nonsense. . . .next they'll be saying "artistic ability. . . you either have it or you don't" Some people have been observing and drawing their surroundings or things from their imagination for years. . . and I mean, YEARS. . .so of course they do better work. Everyone can learn if they practice long enough and have sufficient insight on where to improve next [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] .

I'm going to be needing help from people here because I can pretty much guarantee I'll miss something (or many somethings on this discussion.) I like to be as accurate as I possibly can be. But let's just expect that I'll miss something and be pleasantly surprised if I actually get it right. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Just thought I'd let you know what I'm working on and have anyone interested in sharing put their thinking caps on. Hope to get this in by midnight my time which will be 5am GMT july 3rd.

Thanks,

Athena

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Hopefully I'll give y'all lots of places to spring from [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] (or at worst lots of targets to shoot at).

[Jinny Brown]

Or whatever it is they do to deep sea divers so they don't get the bends.

Um.. how about moving this topic up to the top of a new one? It's getting to be a pain waiting for page 2 to load.

Besides, I thought I saw a rat scurrying past. It's spooky down here in the basement.

Athena,

I'll be interested to read what everyone offers on the subject of composition. Good idea.

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
________________________

[Thelonious]

Well, composition is about seeing. And todays tutorial will be on using photography (digital or trad) to get a feel for it. Seeing, I believe can be learned. First of all a grounding in the fundamental nature of reality is useful so go and get that first, I'll wait.... OK ready? here we go.

The big picture in this case will be your backyard. We are going to take a roll of film, and the composition will take place in the viewfinder. We'll be thinking about texture, balance, lighting, colour but also your emotional reaction to the subject. Other people's ideas of beauty will be tossed out the window. This is your personal view of the world. That is what will determine the subject but you are going to have an eye on composition as well. Be aware of what draws your attention, what shapes do you see.

Move in CLOSE think of the viewfinder frame as a painting frame. Try to get to a point where your eye tends to wander all over the image and is not overly dragged to a particular point. If it feels this is happening see if you can somehow determine the cause and fix it in a way that has the least impact on the shot.

For example a dark area may be unbalancing the shot. Maybe you can reposition slightly to have a bit less of it, or perhaps a slight change in angle will introduce a small bit of light that will do the trick. See what slight changes in angle or perspective do, take a couple of variations.

Take lots of different shots and treat the objects more as abstract shapes. If you like the look, shape, texture, colour of something then shoot it. Take out everything superfluous.

After you get the shots back examine them dispassionately to see what worked and why.

Later at about level 105 we will see how to hone our skills with reportage style shots where decisions need to be made very quickly.

Here is a shot taken amidst a crowd of 250,000 not retouched or cropped.

thelonious

Sorry Jinn too late

PS I do use the [ ] keys usually but sometimes it's good if the keyboard can be eliminated altogether.

[This message was edited by Thelonious Hink on July 03, 2001 at 08:37.]

[panfer]

"I just want Panfer to lift this curse, I fear I'll never see the blue sky and a river with a waterfall again."
Sorry about your bird.
You guys are artists where as I am just a newbee at lavel one, admiring your work and wondering how "I" can do 10th of you can do with my P classic.
Cheers

[athena]

Thelonious,

You early bird, you!

What a wonderful post on composition! Thankyou [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

May I copy it to the thread on composition? This will leave the original here. It should be a duplicate post. I'll explain below that I duplicated the post.
Athena
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[Jinny Brown]

Panfer!

How nice of you to drop in (down) to see us way down here. I'd say you're at level 37 but Thelonious says the first post is actually the mezzanine so that'd place you at level 36. In any case, we're soon to move to page three of this thread, after the second page of 20 posts (two more to go after this one which is level 38 or 37 depending on whether or not you believe Thelonious about the mezzanine thing).

Are you going to join in the discussion of composition? Athena's sure to have some interesting insights to offer to those Thelonious has just given us.

Personally, I find a lot of texture in Thelonious' photo. Just look at all those grids and rivots. The sky is lovely too, just to top things off. And... the interesting right-angle directions the two humans are facing.

I do hope we can move to a "continued from" new thread so we can see the light of day for a while. Don't know if you've seen rodents down here.. but I'm almost sure I have. Basement's don't do much for my mood.

Well, Panfer, it is good to see you and I hope you'll stick around this thread to add some light to the atmosphere.... or anything else you feel like adding. It seems there are no firm rules here. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
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