The Artist's Eyes by Jenn Lee

When I first started a serious interest in art, I was always going through tons and tons of paper, canvas’s, pencils, paints and supplies. I always had boxes of past artwork stored here and stored there. As the years have gone by and multiple hassles with moving around, I have either given away or tossed many art pieces. This is why I love my tablet PC….

In today’s day and age, we are all about technology and gadgets. I had purchased a ThinkPad X41 Tablet PC awhile back, for it’s portability and tablet technology. Much like a Wacom digital tablet, it utilizes a full screen touch point ability for use with a stylus. There are several reasons I believe that this is a great asset to an artist like myself.

One reason I believe it’s a great asset is because I am primarily an ECO friendly artist. I try to keep my imprint on the environment as little as possible with my use of non toxic materials, recycling and reuse of materials. With using a tablet/touch pad PC, I have the ability to draw, paint or sketch out ideas all digitally. With this technology I do not have to use any paper, paint or other materials. It not only reduces my material usage, it but frees up a huge amount of office storage space as well.

Another reason I think it’s a great asset is its portability. As a business woman, I need to have a portable portfolio. Having the convenience of being able to carry my portfolio with me is great. As well, when I am quoting a commission, being able to sketch out ideas on location or digitally sign contracts on the tablet PC, increases productivity.

Recently I decided to add switching my OS (Operating System) as well. Mind you I know Microsoft is popular, and standard on any PC purchase besides a Mac, but we are not limited to it. This laptop came with XP Tablet version installed. Though it was nice to power it up and go, it was not as speedy as I would like, plus XP is a retiring OS, which means I will have to switch it out in the near future. Knowing this, the newer Microsoft OS’s will not run efficiently on this laptops specs. With those things in consideration as well as input from my good friend Jason of Webfoo, and his knowledge and passion for Linux, I decided to try running Linux on it.

Linux is an Open Source operating system. The impressiveness of the Linux community building/creating a completely free OS is amazing of itself, as well the amount of people in the community that donate so much time and energy adding to, fixing issues and developing of their own free will and time spent.

With the successful installation of Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 on my little tablet PC, I immediately noticed a more than significant increase in speed. This alone was a moment of pride and excitement. Pride because I consider myself a complete beginner in working with Linux and excitement that it installed and was configurable without a hitch.

Not only was I able to install the operating system, the free applications available are amazing. I hear a lot of people talk about the amount of applications they can get on their iPhones and iPads with Apple, but at a cost. Again I reiterate, the free resources available in the Linux community is astounding.

If you consider getting a tablet PC, Ubuntu is definitely something to do a little research on. GIMP is like Photoshop. It has many brushes, actions and tools just like Photoshop, but without any of the cost. It has a wonderful application called MyPaint that definitely competes with Adobe Illustrator as well. From my standpoint, MyPaint has the full range of capabilities you have with drawing or painting on a canvas that mimics real life. Did I mention these too are free? Some things to think about…in this artist’s eyes.

With the kiddos being out of school on summer break, I have been trying to keep them busy with fun projects of their own. Today was one of those days when it was hard to occupy my youngest son so I decided to do some creative photography with him….

Every once in awhile I have to admit it’s nice to break out of my usual artistic medium and play around with other ways to use my creativeness. I love playing with photography as a secondary tool as a creative outlet.

With today’s digital cameras you can take as many shots as you want and have the instant gratification as soon as you upload them to your computer. My tool of choice is a Nikon D70. It may not be the best digital camera or the newest but it has several great little tools embedded into it that makes it better than some of the newer cameras. If I was going to recommend a nice digital camera to play with…this would be it.

When you are sitting at home with the kiddos this summer and can’t get them to stop climbing the walls…get them to strike a pose for you…besides nice updated portraits of them to share with family, you can get creative and make digitally manipulated photos like this! Not only will you have a little creative fun, your kids will leave you alone for awhile after posing! Mu-ha-ha-ha….

If you don’t see what was so creative about the photo above, other than the fact it looks like my son is falling out of the sky…check out the original below…

All you need is a photo editing program like Adobe Photoshop or if you are looking for a free program, try GIMP. You can find tutorials online for either program and even some on Youtube. After you get the hang of it, you can have a lot of fun as well as this being a great creative outlet…in this artist’s eyes.