a day ago via Facebook

THIS WEEKEND! Can You Teach A Digital Art Class? Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love Vectors SPE Summer School: Professional Development Workshop If I am asked to teach a class, I always say yes. I know I will always grow from the experience. This attitude brought me face to face with the prospect of introduction to digital arts classes. Traditionally, these classes teach the trinity of Adobe: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Photoshop is not a problem for a photographer. Having worked in journalism, I was familiar with InDesign and understood the fundamental basics of graphic design, but Illustrator was what I didn’t know, and I had to teach myself. A lot of times, the students know more than I do. Proficiency with the basics came over time. It was a slow process full of trial and error. I knew enough to get students going, but I was not always able to help them solve problems. During the COVID-19 lockdown, I discovered Figma, a collaborative design tool that works in a browser. It is a modern interpretation of a vector-based application that works on a Chromebook or iPad. It is stripped down with a simpler interface and approachable. Using it has made working with vectors manageable and fun. I have gained a greater understanding of the fundamental basics of vectors using it. The goal of this workshop, over two half-days, is to explain how I have learned to embrace the vector creation process from the point of view of a photographer who is not a designer or digital artist. I will address techniques and examples used in developing assignments for an introductory class. There will be a hands-on feature of the workshop where we will create vectors as a group. I will share the framework I use for teaching classes like this, no matter the application used. I have shifted my current class from the limiting idea of “teaching software” to teaching an understanding of how vectors work and how they can be used to express abstract ideas in visual forms. My goal is to help those who could teach these kinds of classes not to make all of the mistakes I have.