Our love affair with Technology

Not technology - instead - Pink Roses with mirrors



I am easily smitten. Show me something new and immediately I want one. A recent acquisition was my iPhone and I must confess to being in love. I really don’t use it to talk much – but so much else on it is such fun.

As mentioned in a previous post, looking at other examples of digital art got me experimenting more with the Brushes app. I have such a lot to learn and am a real novice, but the experimentation is great.

There is so much technology that makes life simple, quick and easy. It is much maligned as a time-waster – and indeed that it can be. The skill lies in learning to sift, edit, discard and utilize only that which is of value.
The development of a finely tuned ‘rubbish/nonsense/ plainly untrue’ barometer when searching for information is essential. If we are not careful we would be tempted to believe everything written as the truth. However, used properly, with restraint and discipline it is an extension of many artists’ creativity. We can duplicate, magnify, crop, colour – the possibilities are endless.

When I think back to my first years as a student teacher (now I feel as though it’s my mother talking) I remember the complicated process of compiling notes and worksheets for a class. We would type or write the notes on a Roneo stencil – blocking out errors with lumpy white masking fluid, then laboriously churn out blurry copies on the wind-up Gestetner machine. It was a laborious process. I am not sure that kids today get many notes – they most likely get a list of urls to research!

I started this post a couple of weeks ago and then got side-tracked with abstraction. I’m not too sure about the love affair now – there’s a waning of affection.

My old notebook was groaning every time I tried to open more than one website so I decided the time for a replacement had come. Well, a shiny new HP Pavilion dv6 was delivered last Friday.

Since then it has behaved like a spoilt child every time it’s asked to surf the net or show a video clip – giving me a blank screen/blue and red pinstripes/green and black pinstripes or just plain black and goes into a total freeze. It’s just not good enough so it’s about to go home to HP Mama to be replaced by a better behaved sibling. Has anyone else had issues like this? I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

A fluffy pink heart for Valentine's Day

Chaucer's love birds

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love.
In the Parlement of Foules (1382) he wrote:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

("For this was Saint Valentine's Day when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.")

To this day expressions of love are exchanged - although I fear the commercial card is far removed from the love poems of yesterday. Wanting to re-create the making of a Valentine but with a 21st Century twist I decided to use modern technology.

I had another chance to play with the Brushes app on my iPhone while drawing / painting this fluffy pink heart. My skill pales in comparison with much other digital work that is multi-dimensional and very good indeed.

In fact it was another blog  that spurred me on to practice more and get to grips with the application. Gillian Holding posts a self portrait of some kind every day and her work is so much more than the superficial manipulation of the application. Each day there she has a new way of seeing herself and her surroundings.

Another daily posting by her – (do some people never sleep?) My Life and art blog! is a very worthwhile read. I particularly enjoyed Sods-laws-of-creativity which echoes the frustrations of every artist when you realise that someone has done your ideas first – AND better!

 And so I wish you a Happy Valentine's day.