Back to the basics

Ever heard the old adage: "If all else fails, read the instructions"? Recently, I've had a renewed passion for fine art–not graphic design; not photography or photo manipulation; not even anything remotely resembling computer design–just fine art.

There's much to be said about the work of the masters–Rembrant, Michelangelo,Da Vinci, even Picasso, Van Gogh, and Monet, among all the great painters. They presented life in a unique way, as unique as we all are as individuals. No one will ever see a starry night the way Van Gogh saw it. No one will ever see Mona Lisa the way Da Vinci saw her. No one will ever see three musicians the way Picasso saw them. Yet, there will be volumes written about the interpretations these artists conveyed to the world through the basic medium of paint and canvas.

I've been a graphic designer for 30 years now. Yes, that's right, even before there was such a thing called a "Mac" or a "PC". Why I remember when I was a kid, we did our lettering with "rub-off" letters and outlined boxes with "chartpak" tape. I even used a Leroy lettering machine and a compuserve disc for typesetting. After walking uphill in the snow barefoot to work, we designers had to use a thing called a "light table" to do all of our work on. I remember many-a-time I burned myself on the "waxer" which was a roller of hot melted wax laid on the back of our typeset strips to adhere them to the layout paper to get ads ready for the camera.

I don't know why I just pig-trailed with all that other than to say things weren't so easy before the computer age.

I recently purchased a book called "An Introduction to Art Techniques" by DK publishing. It lists for $15 bucks at Amazon.com. I have loved going back to the basics reading this book! It goes over just about everything I ever learned in my high school and college art classes - book wise, that is. The experience of doing it is a whole other ball game. It's one thing to read about painting, it's a whole 'nother subject actually doing it.

That has been the challenge of this book. It goes back to the WHY we do art by explaining how to do it. I highly recommend it to those who have lost the passion to be creative.

Have a great day and thanks for keeping up with this blog!

Kevin