Artistic License vs. Technical Ability

[handrawn]

but as soon as someone asks you for 13x12...can you work it out?

(12x12)+12 is the way to go ...

the modern world is full of advice, some of it dodgy and I am guilty of it myself occasionally - but it's partly the result of the now relatively unrestricted means we all have, of expressing our sometimes ill-considered view, on anything we like; and the speed and emphemeral nature of much of the web does not help

in my field, ideas are king - you can teach skills all you like, but coming up with good ideas is a black art

the first rule of DIY has always been 'know when to ask someone else who knows more than you do' - but somewhere along the line this is getting lost, although it may simply be that it is now more obvious how often it is ignored...

[Acorn]

(12x12)+12 is the way to go ...

Only if you understand the Commutative, Associative and Distributive Laws and your 12-times tables.

13 x 12 = 12 x 13, hence:

What you don't "know": (12 x 13) + (12 x 0)
What you do "know", using the Laws:
(12 x 12) + (12 x 1)
(12 x 11) + (12 x 2)
(12 x 10) + (12 x 3)
(12 x 9) + (12 x 4)
(12 x 8) + (12 x 5)
(12 x 7) + (12 x 6)
(12 x 6) + (12 x 7)
(12 x 5) + (12 x 8)
(12 x 4) + (12 x 9)
(12 x 3) + (12 x 10)
(12 x 2) + (12 x 11)
(12 x 1) + (12 x 12)

The original trick is to spot the pattern to the answers in the what you know part and extend into the don't know area.
The bold ones are the "easier" to calculate and sum.

Mathematics and Art both require deep understanding.
Acorn

[handrawn]

I sorta took the 'spot the pattern' bit as read

it's all about patterns: maths, art, music, games, life itself..

biology is really chemistry
chemistry is really physics
physics is really maths
maths is pattern recognition...

maybe aristotle wasn't so misguided after all...

[pauland]

It's just as well that we don't have to be artists or web designers to produce artwork and websites that make people happy.

Having tools doesn't make us professional or skilled, but they do enable people to accomplish things they might otherwise have felt was not possible.

In that sense, Xara and other software and tools do their job as enablers.

If art had to be perfect to be enjoyable there would be a lot more miserable people in the world. Art is not about technical skill or understanding, but about how it makes people feel.

[handrawn]

besides art is full of variables just like life itself, and so perfect does not exist as a definition in any absolute sense... unlike skill when you can at least benchmark