Up at 3 am, just finishing up my watercolor painting for Color Theory. Last class of the semester in less than six hours!

I had an interesting "argument" with one of my housemates today. He was complaining because he didn't think it was necessary to use watercolors to learn color theory. I was arguing that it's not necessary, but it's so much easier to learn color theory with watercolor than Photoshop, which was what he wanted to use. I mean, perhaps, but then you'd end up spending the first month just figuring out how to use the dang program, and then it'll take you much longer to do each assignment because you have to deal with the cumbersome aspect of digital painting. I mean, if you need your orange to be redder, you add a drop of red paint. But in Photoshop, you have to use a slider which has too huge of a range, not to mention it's harder to choose a warm red versus a cool red, etc, and then there are all those layers....

People tend to forget that the computer is a tool, the same as ink and paint. Too many people think that learning to use a program will make them artists, and it's funny because every single (and I mean EVERY SINGLE) career day thing I went to said that the most important thing that studios look for (because it's something that can't be trained or taught by a studio, at least not in a few weeks) is the artistic eye. And I was saying that you don't need to use watercolors to learn color theory, but don't think you can use Photoshop effectively without knowing color theory. And it's just far easier, for the teacher and the student, to learn color theory with paint than with software. I mean, this guy was totally against taking the 2D character animation class cuz he thought he would get much more out of the 3D character animation class to come (which is an elective, so it wouldn't have been an option anyway). But having taken it, he sees how much his 3D animation has improved by taking the 2D character animation class. That class is a b*tch. More work than you can shake a stick at. But oh boy, you come out of it with a great piece of animation and a lot of skillz. So I'm surprised he hasn't caught on that all this stuff on the computer didn't just come out of nowhere. It came out of a tradition that dates back to the caveman days. Well, at least the Renaissance, if not earlier.

I think what he likes the best is the "undo" command, actually. And yes, it's saved my butt a few times. But no amount of undo is going to teach you why your work sucks and what you can do to fix it. I say that 90% of learning art is making mistakes and fixing it (or starting over). It's funny, I've been watercolor painting since elementary school, but it wasn't until now that I really learned what to do. Cuz until now, it has always just been about filling in the colors. But now I can use colors to tell a story, evoke a mood, focus your eye on the most important things.... My housemate thinks that just cuz I've painted before that's why my paintings look great. But I tell you, the only advantage I have over him in terms of experience is that I learned to let the paint dry in between layers. That and not to be afraid of glazing, though I didn't really learn how to glaze until this color theory class.

Anyway, I guess I shouldn't complain. Cuz the more people refuse to study traditional art techniques, the more their art will suck and less competition for jobs for me.

Meanwhile, I should study more acting if I'm to become a good animator. After all, it's just a puppet until I bring it to life. I just wish there was an Acting for Animators class over here. The acting class over the summer gave me a good start, but it was designed for beginning theater actors, and it's not quite the same.

Sorry, I really got too deep into being an art geek here. Umm... go Starbucks?