Another Interest: Back at School

My recreation of a Susan Rothenberg painting. The original, below, was created using acrylic and tempera on canvas. The one above was created in Processing, using a screenshot.
My recreation of a Susan Rothenberg painting. The original, below, was created using acrylic and tempera on canvas. The one above was created in Processing, using a screenshot.

Since this website is all about the things I love (cooking, eating, making wine, drinking wine, old houses, and listening to good music) I decided to share another part of my life: a new endeavor, school. I went back to grad school this month, studying digital media at Northeastern University.

One of the things I loved about college 30 years ago, I discovered is still true today: the classes interrelate. I’m taking two courses, an art class called Visual Communications and a computer programming class that allows you to draw and create animation.

When using the programming language, called Processing, it’s suggested that you lay out your design on graph paper so you can calculate the coordinates for the computer to draw what you want. For one of my first assignments I decided to recreate one of Susan Rothenberg’s horse paintings. I first saw her paintings in the text book, “Art Fundamentals,” a book we use in Visual Communications.

A photo of the Susan Rothenberg painting.
A photo of the Susan Rothenberg painting (US, 1975).

And now, one of the assignments for Visual Communications, has us creating our own graph paper to help us paint a self-portrait.

So does art imitate life more than life imitates art or is it vise versa?

I’m not sure. But I’m happy that these two classes imitate each other.


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