I agree with the sentiment. Although coding, can be(and often is) a form of artistic expression. The same way Math is; unfortunately, people believe that math and coding is a very strictly left-brain activity. This notion is entirely untrue.
For instance, when I grew up, I really want to make a game. Now, the problem is that I can throw together a game pretty quick; yet, I can't ship a game without good graphics. One could argue that I could go minecraft style, but I want a pretty game. This requires a lot of art.
This is, but one reason, why I married my wife who has a studio art degree and draws amazingly well.
"I don't know how to draw" -many of my friends, simultaneously dismissing drawing as out of reach and as a challenging hobby in which they fear they could not be good at - at least in the crucial initial stages (the fear of peer judgement)
If you want to learn how to draw, you can learn how to draw. You start out drawing lines and blocks, move on to cylinders, than to pots and pans, shoes, chairs, simple still-lifes and make the leap to live models. If you really want to become a legitimate skilled artist, you can become one. It just may take 9 years... [1] Like anything, you will need to work on it as often as possible - to the point where you just enjoy doing it (the classic doodling for fun). Doing art for money isn't realistic for most people [2]. There were always be people who are natural artists, people who make skilled drawing look effortless - remember as a coder - what you do is not easy - and it makes money - and it can exercise our problem solving creativity - all the while being a marketable skill.
I've been taking a progression of art classes for over a year and a half now. This is actually a long time in art class world. Really enjoying the escape from coding. It rocks because you lose yourself (like when you are on a focused coding tear). Have gotten much better yet have still so far to go. Have plateaued many times.
Drawing is all about the relation of shapes to each other. Drawing is about drawing what something actually looks like not what you think it looks like (drawing what you think something looks like and having it turn out to be what it actually looks like is the artistic equivalent of 'perfect pitch')
I've always wanted to be able to draw portraits. Portrait drawing is about the relation of shapes - but has the additional constraint of very little tolerance for off-by-one errors. Everyone is particularly attuned to facial recognition - lines that are off by even a millimeter or a fraction of an inch (by position or more generally - the angle) - you notice that. It is the difference between a portrait that looks like someone, a portrait that looks like someone else (but not her).
The thing that has troubled/stopped me most was trying to draw what I thought the eye/nose looked like and actually drawing what it looks like. My internal model of what the eye/nose looks like is flawed because I lack experience.
If you want to get better in portrait drawing and don't have the luxury of a live model posing for you, don't draw from pictures. Draw from live TV (like a newscast where the poses are relatively static but still fluid).
As an aside, if you look at other people's portraits of the model - there is usually part of the portrait that resembles them.
One of my teachers was amazing. She could take a blank piece of paper and in 15 min. create the person's portrait, capture their essence. If she worked on it more and more, it got even better. But she got the basic essence in a very short time.
She didn't make mistakes in positioning - like most of us in class did (we did get better by the end of the course) - to draw fast - you need to draw very accurately and with confidence. Mistakes can be corrected, up to a point.
If you don't draw the eye as it really looks, you can easily end up with something that looks like an egyptian mummy. There is a very clear orbital socket that needs to be shaded/drawn - without that the eye isn't an eye. Shading is so, so important.
Adding the little stuff to your drawing - like adding a little more shading to the half/side of the pupil that is on the dark side (away from the light) makes a difference. By itself, it doesn't add up, but it makes it look better - when adding all the other little stuff.
Now, drawing in public (e.g. someone's portrait for money in 15 min.) is a whole different ballgame. At least, starting with a controlled environment (precise teacher feedback) is a start. I believe the key is to have the basics down (and basically do a Mr. Potato Head from your experience drawing the basics)
Here[1] is an excellent HN thread about that painter in your first link.
The video[2] in the top link of that thread is a little long, but very much worth watching. I was incredibly impressed by this man's perseverence and achievement.
I've never been great at drawing (freehand, I can do mechanical stuff okay), but I realize it's mostly because I don't put the time into it that I could and so I'm much slower at it than someone who is an expert and does it all the time (so that eventually leads to frustration). I do try to use that as a reference point for explaining to people that think they cannot learn how to program though (or learn to be better programmers). If I took the time to do draw more often, I would improve and probably learn to be halfway decent at drawing.
It's mostly about dedicating the time and working through the frustration and embarrassment (either from imaginary judgment or real). I would imagine to be an expert in drawing/painting, one has to delve into theory and concepts, such as much as a programming requires as well (Computer Science, Mathematics, etc). Sure there are people that are naturally talented in both, but to understand the "whys" of a subject, it takes more than a superficial approach to the subject.
"I don't put the time into it that I could and so I'm much slower at it than someone who is an expert and does it all the time (so that eventually leads to frustration)"
I have devoted a lot of my time to making art, and I can tell you that frustration is a fact of life for me. I'm virtually never as good as I want to be. My work rarely turns out the way I want; and this doesn't even begin to touch on issues of coming up with ideas and creativity/originality. Learning to deal with and live with failure is just something many ordinary artists have to do constantly.
"Fail early and often" is as much of a maxim to live by for artists as it is for entrepreneurs.
Perhaps 1 in 100, or 1 in 1000 works will be something you're pleased with, and then you can count that as a success. Or perhaps the journey can be counted as much or more of a success than the destination. A lot depends on your expectations.
William Staford was once asked how he was able to write a poem every day. He answered, "I lower my standards."
We typically think our code is never good enough and can always be improved. Learning when something is "good enough" or as you mentioned "lowering one's standards" can lead to a more productive and happier life.
I used to doodle, which eventually made me think that I had some predilection for art. It was only partially true, and likely only in the sense that you refer to -- that anyone can do it. Drawing something that you see is a purely mechanical exercise.
The first real drawing lesson that I had was some years after I had started. The teacher placed an egg in front of each of us, and said "Draw exactly what you see." It was a revelation, an instant understanding that art was a way of looking at the world, not about collecting shapes on a piece of paper. The utter simplicity of the form and color force you to examine the play of light and shadow in exacting detail.
I am convinced that once you've learned to see gradations of light and color, you need no other lesson, only practice.
The author appears to warp his argument and land his primary criticism on machines and not the people that program them. Which is odd - you should not learn to code because machines are not creative? Much like saying you shouldn't learn to draw because paper + pencils aren't creative...
Machines "aren't creative" is a naive assertion too (forgivable though because not everyone outside of our industry may be aware of the happenings) - there are some truly amazing programs people are building that can evolve creative solutions to many things that no human could ever dream of.
There's some (small) wisdom in there. History shows there is less and less correlation between technology and jobs lost the more an industry relies on creativity.
While I entirely agree that creativity is the future, I do not understand why people think you need to draw or compose music to be creative. My most brilliant creative moments have always been with my code, not my music. I may consider myself more of an artist than an engineer, but my code is my most precious work of art.
That said, by pure chance I happen to be re-re-re-re-attempting to learn how to draw this year.
I feel that the different mediums are mutually beneficial. Stories can be told through music, code or a drawing. Often a new perspective can be found in a different medium that applies to another you may be struggling with.
I agree - I am more concerned about telling kids to draw instead of learning to code, when it would be much more beneficial to do both. This is a glaring flaw in an otherwise prescient essay.
What I find lost in the cracks by many "artists" is the fact that creativity is found in all areas of human activity - it's seductive for systems thinkers to painters to consider their "clan" or "way of thinking" is the sacred and the rest of the world as secular. In truth, there's a beautiful creativity in Music, Painting, Writing, Mathematics, Engineering, Programming, Gardening, Architecture, Exploring, &c...
Also, if I'm not mistaken, painting came about because people studying mathematics were studying geometry and how to relate the real world (using geometry) onto a piece of paper.
I'm all for drawing, and a lot of what is being advocated here, but I hope we at least make an attempt to consider things like programming and mathematics to be artistic/creative disciplines. I mean, there's a reason many universities intentionally award Math students a BA, as opposed to a BS or BEng. There's a subtle beauty to mathematical precision, and well-made code, so I don't like seeing these areas dismissed as cold, grey cubicles for the hopelessly left-brained.
I like to think of this as a response to the "learn to code" propaganda.
If it seems like it's missing the point, or underestimating the "other side", I'm sure it's entirely intentional. Or at the very least a reflection of how videos like "what most schools don't teach" come off to 'artists'.
I've been coding for over 20 years now and I absolutely suck at drawing. The only kind of drawings I've ever done are circuit diagrams, but I don't think they count.
I bought a copy of Betty Edwards' "Drawing on the right side of the brain" over a year ago but never got around reading. Maybe I should dust it off and start with it.
Does anybody have any recommendations for coders learning to draw?
I thought I was completely unskilled at drawing. Heck, stick figures were beyond my grasp. And then, by chance, I ran into an awesome teacher at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum Of Art). I went to his class to humor my partner - she's an artist and wanted me to learn more.
In the first class, we started sketching the human figure (based on a statue) - and the guy was good enough to make me understand what to do and how to get a realistic depiction. Now, granted, that is still miles from what any decent artist could do, but he made things click for me.
Reading a book won't do that for you. Find somebody who can teach you in person what drawing feels like. Who can, if necessary, take your hand and draw with you. Who can relate the ideas behind painting in a way that makes sense to you.
Just read the book and do what it prescribes. This got me from stickmen to decent shaded realistic drawings. No portraits yet, but I believe I just need to put the time to practice.
I think the future requires a balance of both logical and intuitive intelligence. Both are needed in creating art, ideas, things, and experiences that matter to people.
Einstein was a violinist and a physicist. Why not develop both skillsets?
Yes? There are lot of books, videos and other materials that can teach you how to draw better. Like with coding, or anything, with practice you can become quite good at it.
And drawing well really depends on your standards, the time you devote to the pursuit, and your dedication.
If you are past retirement age and want to achieve the technical proficiency of a DaVinci or Durer while painting on the weekends, then I'm sorry to tell you, but that's probably just not going to happen.
If you are young and incredibly dedicated, and devote a lot of time to it, maybe you can achieve something like that (on a purely technical level, though it arguably takes much more than this to achieve anywhere near as much on an artistic level above sheer technical skill).
For those of us with lesser ambitions, a lot can be achieved without becoming very technically proficient. There's a lot of satisfaction that can be had from emotionally stirring, but perhaps not technically perfect work.
This is a much more realistic goal. But it's still a difficult one because you have to get beyond completely cliched depictions (unless that's what you're aiming at), and achieve some sort of technical proficiency. This will likely take some time and effort, but should be achievable for most people who can devote sufficient time and effort to the pursuit, and not give in to discouragement.
And then there are the so-called "naive" and "art-brut" sort of artists, who may have no technical proficiency at all and yet make work that is satisfying to themselves and/or others. There, by definition, they have no training to speak of, but often make art through obsession, mental illness, or for a wide variety of other reasons.
Finally, there are the so-called "weekend painters", who work infrequently, at their leisure, and usually without extravagant aims or demands on themselves. They can also be quite pleased with their output, and often create just for the sheer joy of it, or with a very modest aim of achieving a little technical proficiency. This is quite doable and quite satisfying for many.
Yes. Drawing is muscle memory/dexterity. Drawing/painting is a physically trainable skill.
Creativity however, is something innate (or at least a by-product of the nature/nurture of the person) and can be expressed compulsively regardless of the technical acumen of the pencil-wielder.
Creativity is certainly distinct from technical proficiency. However, much research has been done on creativity, and the consensus is that it can be taught and learned.
The compulsion or "drive" to create is something else, and perhaps that is more innate. I'm not sure what the research says about this, actually.
Certainly a lot of people "want" to be creative, just as they may "want" to write a novel. But few want to put in the hard work to make it (writing the novel) happen. Being "creative" is also hard work. Especially when you have to do it consistently and over a long period of time. Relatively few are compelled or driven to do so.
I appreciate the effort it requires to draw, and create art. But I don't think the author of this page quite understands how difficult it would be for a computer to program another program.
You can tailor aspects of a language to your program, but you cannot simply design a program to think of unique ways to tackle an issue. Math and programming are left-brain activities in practice - but this ignores the slew of abstract thinking that occurs before you set key to the page, as it were.
Coding may not look as pretty as art, and I'm not saying it's more important. But it is wrong to say programming is any less organic than art is. Having a computer automatically generate code is like having it generate ASCII - impressive, but both pale in comparison to what human talent offers.
My brain can't do art. I have tried for 20 years. I am never happy and keep going to try and make it perfect. And I never succeed. I end up tossing it in the bin after my attempts at perfection make it look like like a mess.
I like code since it works or it doesn't. Sure, it could be better but as long as it works and is secure I don't really care. And yes, 90% is using PHP.
You try to make something perfect and don't succeed so you don't feel satisfied?
Welcome to the club of mere mortals!
Even Michaelangelo probably wasn't completely satisfied with some tiny spot on David or the Sistene Chapel that looked like an enormous blot to his trained eye and unmeetable standards, while virtually everyone else probably couldn't see it and considered the work a masterpiece.
If you set impossible standards for yourself you will get nothing but frustration and disappointment. Part of being an artist is learning to either set more realistic expectations or learn to work despite your own feelings of inadequacy.
"It works or it doesn't" suggests you either limit yourself to extraordinarily simple projects or your clients don't care what happens as long as it's not a 500. Development is not such a black and white pursuit if you're working on projects with any sort of complexity.
I'm better with programming than I am with charcoal, but I can say with certainty that while my art is hanging in a few living rooms, my code gets a lot more scrutiny (appropriately) and evolves much more. That's not because it can or should be perfect, it's because the result and the scrutiny is less subjective.
The author here makes bold, sweeping predictions about the future. While these might come true, Hoffman offers no concrete evidence to bake up the claims.
Hoffman suggests that because computers are becoming more powerful, the people who work closely with them will be less marketable, and their skills less valuable. Maybe I'm short-sighted, but I don't see this as coming true.
Picture a writer. You've seen him countless times in tv shows and movies. Brow furrowed, pencil gripped tight between teeth, hunched over a typewritter, tearing pages out and throwing them into an overflowing waste basket, staring at the ceiling praying for inspiration.
Picture a developer. Brow furrowed, hunched over a keyboard, the room is dark but he glows from the light of the monitor, a pile of empty mountain dew cans littering his waste basket, slamming his fist on the desk in frustation.
Creativity is noticing the absence of something and knowing how to bring from the void into reality. You sketch it. You poke it and prod it. You shape it until it is just so. You love it until you hate it enough to call it done.
Sounds a lot like coding, at least if you are doing it right.
Please, learn how to code. Learn how to draw. Learn how to think. Learn how to write. Learn how to solve problems. Learn how to do everything until something sticks. Not until you find something that you 'love', but until you find something that you just can't not do. And when you grow tired of it, do something else.
>I've never thought of coding as involving much creativity
Truly?
Programming requires a whole lot of creativity (sometimes enough to sap it from your other creative endeavors). Not necessarily in the part where you write the if, else, for and while stuff, but the part before that - when you're figuring out what you actually want to DO.
I've spent hours simply thinking about the best algorithm to use for a task. Sitting there with a notebook, sketching different possibilities over a simple example, thinking about its algorithmic complexity and whether there's a way to do it better. Considering what data structures I need to implement it, and the trade-offs between those choices. Whether I might just need to start over altogether (and I have; on some of the more challenging algorithm assignments, I've gone through 4 iterations of implementation before I hit one I was happy with).
You might call that engineering. But, the act of actually COMING UP with new algorithms and implementations that might solve the problem? That's creativity. And the harder the problem, the more it takes to solve.
Maybe it's just that I'm still a student, doing some projects on my own and doing a lot of homework assignments. I don't know what kind of coding you're doing, but if you can do it mechanically, without requiring any creativity whatsoever, then it doesn't sound like a very good use of your time.
> I've never thought of coding as involving much creativity.
I do. In both writing (drawing/sculpting/whatev) and coding you have something based in reality, that you transpose into you mind and then create another reality with.
In writing you may have something you have experienced, in drawing you might have an object in front of you, in coding you have a non-computer-based system/algorithm that you need to support. The better you are at imagining how to best support the real life system, the better a programmer you are. That said, I consider programmers more like craftsmen; but as in all crafts, some artistry usually slips in.
It depends on the ‘level’ at which you employ this creativity. To me, neither coding nor writing requires much creativity at a very low level (think inside a function or a paragraph), but it does require creativity as much as the ability to analytically extract suitable abstractions at a higher level.
That is, once you created (using your creativity) some sort of flow-chart for either your programme or your story, you will be able to fill in the remaining bits using strictly analytical thought without much creativity: Once you created pseudocode for Dijkstra’s algorithm, you don’t need much creativity to implement it. Similarly, once you set up the story of your genius cheating the devil, you don’t need much creativity to fill in the gaps.
The quality of this gap-filling will still greatly depend on your skill as a coder/writer – making the best use of the language you have – but this is not a necessarily a creative process, unless your language is ill-suited to the task and you need to create it on-the-fly, c.f. Shakespeare or K&R. Neither Goethe nor Thomas Mann made up many words, but only used their tools at a very high level and are still considered among the best writers in the world. Similarly, Linus didn’t invent C, but he used it to build a very complex system (or randomly ended up at one by continuous evolution, though that’s another discussion).
The above obviously only applies to writing/coding, and I would assume that the same goes for composing – even more so, as you can choose a particular set of rules (harmonic, atonal, you-name-it) and each individual note follows from the previous with little choice. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is probably a good example for this.
On the other hand, at least to the uninitiated (read: me), painting and sculpting appears much more ‘creative’ and incomparable to coding/writing/composing.
Programming these days isn't really like what you describe, unless perhaps you are an indie game dev. Most software development nowadays requires extensive collaboration with other programmers, interacting with a lot of non-programming people and building on top of existing systems, rather than creating something from scratch.
The creativity comes in when you need to decide on the most efficient way to do something. And you are always creating something from scratch, otherwise you could just reuse the existing solution.
Some of the assumptions made here are absolute nonsense:
1. Programming is purely science: If so, then why can't we teach the computer to do it?
2. Coding is not a "conventional skill" that should be taught: Schools teach physics and math because they make up the system of which we live in, then why not software? It is an integral part of our day to day lives.
3. Software and computers are at a point where they can operate wih minimum human interference: to any programmer this is ridiculous because we all know that we still live in the Stone Age equivelant of what software engineering should be like.
3) Talent evaluation is difficult enough in the current paradigm. Hiring/promoting based on 'creativity' is even harder. How can super-creative types 'rise to the top' if we mere mortals can't identify them to begin with? (Before you answer with platitudes about track record or whatever, ask yourself how well your solution is even faring right now. There are a gazillion recruiting startups for a reason.)
4) Author takes several paragraphs to explain an idea that requires two sentences.
Learning to draw has been on my todo list for quite some time. I've started reading "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" and I bought a Wacom tablet. I can just never seem to find the time.
I think I need to find a class (Manhattan anyone?) so I can dedicate the time. It's easy enough to Google any computer language or system and learn at least the basics in a few weeks. Unfortunately, learning to draw seems like a very slow process.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 211 ms ] threadFor instance, when I grew up, I really want to make a game. Now, the problem is that I can throw together a game pretty quick; yet, I can't ship a game without good graphics. One could argue that I could go minecraft style, but I want a pretty game. This requires a lot of art.
This is, but one reason, why I married my wife who has a studio art degree and draws amazingly well.
Would they have the same opinion of an architect or structural engineer who builds buildings in a creative way?
If you want to learn how to draw, you can learn how to draw. You start out drawing lines and blocks, move on to cylinders, than to pots and pans, shoes, chairs, simple still-lifes and make the leap to live models. If you really want to become a legitimate skilled artist, you can become one. It just may take 9 years... [1] Like anything, you will need to work on it as often as possible - to the point where you just enjoy doing it (the classic doodling for fun). Doing art for money isn't realistic for most people [2]. There were always be people who are natural artists, people who make skilled drawing look effortless - remember as a coder - what you do is not easy - and it makes money - and it can exercise our problem solving creativity - all the while being a marketable skill.
I've been taking a progression of art classes for over a year and a half now. This is actually a long time in art class world. Really enjoying the escape from coding. It rocks because you lose yourself (like when you are on a focused coding tear). Have gotten much better yet have still so far to go. Have plateaued many times.
Drawing is all about the relation of shapes to each other. Drawing is about drawing what something actually looks like not what you think it looks like (drawing what you think something looks like and having it turn out to be what it actually looks like is the artistic equivalent of 'perfect pitch')
I've always wanted to be able to draw portraits. Portrait drawing is about the relation of shapes - but has the additional constraint of very little tolerance for off-by-one errors. Everyone is particularly attuned to facial recognition - lines that are off by even a millimeter or a fraction of an inch (by position or more generally - the angle) - you notice that. It is the difference between a portrait that looks like someone, a portrait that looks like someone else (but not her).
The thing that has troubled/stopped me most was trying to draw what I thought the eye/nose looked like and actually drawing what it looks like. My internal model of what the eye/nose looks like is flawed because I lack experience.
If you want to get better in portrait drawing and don't have the luxury of a live model posing for you, don't draw from pictures. Draw from live TV (like a newscast where the poses are relatively static but still fluid).
As an aside, if you look at other people's portraits of the model - there is usually part of the portrait that resembles them.
One of my teachers was amazing. She could take a blank piece of paper and in 15 min. create the person's portrait, capture their essence. If she worked on it more and more, it got even better. But she got the basic essence in a very short time. She didn't make mistakes in positioning - like most of us in class did (we did get better by the end of the course) - to draw fast - you need to draw very accurately and with confidence. Mistakes can be corrected, up to a point. If you don't draw the eye as it really looks, you can easily end up with something that looks like an egyptian mummy. There is a very clear orbital socket that needs to be shaded/drawn - without that the eye isn't an eye. Shading is so, so important.
Adding the little stuff to your drawing - like adding a little more shading to the half/side of the pupil that is on the dark side (away from the light) makes a difference. By itself, it doesn't add up, but it makes it look better - when adding all the other little stuff.
Now, drawing in public (e.g. someone's portrait for money in 15 min.) is a whole different ballgame. At least, starting with a controlled environment (precise teacher feedback) is a start. I believe the key is to have the basics down (and basically do a Mr. Potato Head from your experience drawing the basics)
[1] "Journey of an Absolute Rook...
The video[2] in the top link of that thread is a little long, but very much worth watching. I was incredibly impressed by this man's perseverence and achievement.
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3031684
[2] - https://s3.amazonaws.com/markerdmann.com/Paintings.mov
It's mostly about dedicating the time and working through the frustration and embarrassment (either from imaginary judgment or real). I would imagine to be an expert in drawing/painting, one has to delve into theory and concepts, such as much as a programming requires as well (Computer Science, Mathematics, etc). Sure there are people that are naturally talented in both, but to understand the "whys" of a subject, it takes more than a superficial approach to the subject.
I have devoted a lot of my time to making art, and I can tell you that frustration is a fact of life for me. I'm virtually never as good as I want to be. My work rarely turns out the way I want; and this doesn't even begin to touch on issues of coming up with ideas and creativity/originality. Learning to deal with and live with failure is just something many ordinary artists have to do constantly.
"Fail early and often" is as much of a maxim to live by for artists as it is for entrepreneurs.
Perhaps 1 in 100, or 1 in 1000 works will be something you're pleased with, and then you can count that as a success. Or perhaps the journey can be counted as much or more of a success than the destination. A lot depends on your expectations.
William Staford was once asked how he was able to write a poem every day. He answered, "I lower my standards."
We typically think our code is never good enough and can always be improved. Learning when something is "good enough" or as you mentioned "lowering one's standards" can lead to a more productive and happier life.
The first real drawing lesson that I had was some years after I had started. The teacher placed an egg in front of each of us, and said "Draw exactly what you see." It was a revelation, an instant understanding that art was a way of looking at the world, not about collecting shapes on a piece of paper. The utter simplicity of the form and color force you to examine the play of light and shadow in exacting detail.
I am convinced that once you've learned to see gradations of light and color, you need no other lesson, only practice.
I can't imagine a better foundation for "systems thinking" than "creativity, intuition, and the marshaling of original solutions".
Machines "aren't creative" is a naive assertion too (forgivable though because not everyone outside of our industry may be aware of the happenings) - there are some truly amazing programs people are building that can evolve creative solutions to many things that no human could ever dream of.
That said, by pure chance I happen to be re-re-re-re-attempting to learn how to draw this year.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, painting came about because people studying mathematics were studying geometry and how to relate the real world (using geometry) onto a piece of paper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_thinking
If it seems like it's missing the point, or underestimating the "other side", I'm sure it's entirely intentional. Or at the very least a reflection of how videos like "what most schools don't teach" come off to 'artists'.
Does anybody have any recommendations for coders learning to draw?
I thought I was completely unskilled at drawing. Heck, stick figures were beyond my grasp. And then, by chance, I ran into an awesome teacher at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum Of Art). I went to his class to humor my partner - she's an artist and wanted me to learn more.
In the first class, we started sketching the human figure (based on a statue) - and the guy was good enough to make me understand what to do and how to get a realistic depiction. Now, granted, that is still miles from what any decent artist could do, but he made things click for me.
Reading a book won't do that for you. Find somebody who can teach you in person what drawing feels like. Who can, if necessary, take your hand and draw with you. Who can relate the ideas behind painting in a way that makes sense to you.
Einstein was a violinist and a physicist. Why not develop both skillsets?
If you are past retirement age and want to achieve the technical proficiency of a DaVinci or Durer while painting on the weekends, then I'm sorry to tell you, but that's probably just not going to happen.
If you are young and incredibly dedicated, and devote a lot of time to it, maybe you can achieve something like that (on a purely technical level, though it arguably takes much more than this to achieve anywhere near as much on an artistic level above sheer technical skill).
For those of us with lesser ambitions, a lot can be achieved without becoming very technically proficient. There's a lot of satisfaction that can be had from emotionally stirring, but perhaps not technically perfect work.
This is a much more realistic goal. But it's still a difficult one because you have to get beyond completely cliched depictions (unless that's what you're aiming at), and achieve some sort of technical proficiency. This will likely take some time and effort, but should be achievable for most people who can devote sufficient time and effort to the pursuit, and not give in to discouragement.
And then there are the so-called "naive" and "art-brut" sort of artists, who may have no technical proficiency at all and yet make work that is satisfying to themselves and/or others. There, by definition, they have no training to speak of, but often make art through obsession, mental illness, or for a wide variety of other reasons.
Finally, there are the so-called "weekend painters", who work infrequently, at their leisure, and usually without extravagant aims or demands on themselves. They can also be quite pleased with their output, and often create just for the sheer joy of it, or with a very modest aim of achieving a little technical proficiency. This is quite doable and quite satisfying for many.
Creativity however, is something innate (or at least a by-product of the nature/nurture of the person) and can be expressed compulsively regardless of the technical acumen of the pencil-wielder.
The compulsion or "drive" to create is something else, and perhaps that is more innate. I'm not sure what the research says about this, actually.
Certainly a lot of people "want" to be creative, just as they may "want" to write a novel. But few want to put in the hard work to make it (writing the novel) happen. Being "creative" is also hard work. Especially when you have to do it consistently and over a long period of time. Relatively few are compelled or driven to do so.
You can tailor aspects of a language to your program, but you cannot simply design a program to think of unique ways to tackle an issue. Math and programming are left-brain activities in practice - but this ignores the slew of abstract thinking that occurs before you set key to the page, as it were.
Coding may not look as pretty as art, and I'm not saying it's more important. But it is wrong to say programming is any less organic than art is. Having a computer automatically generate code is like having it generate ASCII - impressive, but both pale in comparison to what human talent offers.
I like code since it works or it doesn't. Sure, it could be better but as long as it works and is secure I don't really care. And yes, 90% is using PHP.
Welcome to the club of mere mortals!
Even Michaelangelo probably wasn't completely satisfied with some tiny spot on David or the Sistene Chapel that looked like an enormous blot to his trained eye and unmeetable standards, while virtually everyone else probably couldn't see it and considered the work a masterpiece.
If you set impossible standards for yourself you will get nothing but frustration and disappointment. Part of being an artist is learning to either set more realistic expectations or learn to work despite your own feelings of inadequacy.
I'm better with programming than I am with charcoal, but I can say with certainty that while my art is hanging in a few living rooms, my code gets a lot more scrutiny (appropriately) and evolves much more. That's not because it can or should be perfect, it's because the result and the scrutiny is less subjective.
Hoffman suggests that because computers are becoming more powerful, the people who work closely with them will be less marketable, and their skills less valuable. Maybe I'm short-sighted, but I don't see this as coming true.
Picture a developer. Brow furrowed, hunched over a keyboard, the room is dark but he glows from the light of the monitor, a pile of empty mountain dew cans littering his waste basket, slamming his fist on the desk in frustation.
Creativity is noticing the absence of something and knowing how to bring from the void into reality. You sketch it. You poke it and prod it. You shape it until it is just so. You love it until you hate it enough to call it done.
Sounds a lot like coding, at least if you are doing it right.
Please, learn how to code. Learn how to draw. Learn how to think. Learn how to write. Learn how to solve problems. Learn how to do everything until something sticks. Not until you find something that you 'love', but until you find something that you just can't not do. And when you grow tired of it, do something else.
Or is your point that good writers and artists and such are not actually being creative?
Truly?
Programming requires a whole lot of creativity (sometimes enough to sap it from your other creative endeavors). Not necessarily in the part where you write the if, else, for and while stuff, but the part before that - when you're figuring out what you actually want to DO.
I've spent hours simply thinking about the best algorithm to use for a task. Sitting there with a notebook, sketching different possibilities over a simple example, thinking about its algorithmic complexity and whether there's a way to do it better. Considering what data structures I need to implement it, and the trade-offs between those choices. Whether I might just need to start over altogether (and I have; on some of the more challenging algorithm assignments, I've gone through 4 iterations of implementation before I hit one I was happy with).
You might call that engineering. But, the act of actually COMING UP with new algorithms and implementations that might solve the problem? That's creativity. And the harder the problem, the more it takes to solve.
Maybe it's just that I'm still a student, doing some projects on my own and doing a lot of homework assignments. I don't know what kind of coding you're doing, but if you can do it mechanically, without requiring any creativity whatsoever, then it doesn't sound like a very good use of your time.
I do. In both writing (drawing/sculpting/whatev) and coding you have something based in reality, that you transpose into you mind and then create another reality with.
In writing you may have something you have experienced, in drawing you might have an object in front of you, in coding you have a non-computer-based system/algorithm that you need to support. The better you are at imagining how to best support the real life system, the better a programmer you are. That said, I consider programmers more like craftsmen; but as in all crafts, some artistry usually slips in.
You know that you are in the forum created by the "Hackers and Painters" guy, right?
That is, once you created (using your creativity) some sort of flow-chart for either your programme or your story, you will be able to fill in the remaining bits using strictly analytical thought without much creativity: Once you created pseudocode for Dijkstra’s algorithm, you don’t need much creativity to implement it. Similarly, once you set up the story of your genius cheating the devil, you don’t need much creativity to fill in the gaps.
The quality of this gap-filling will still greatly depend on your skill as a coder/writer – making the best use of the language you have – but this is not a necessarily a creative process, unless your language is ill-suited to the task and you need to create it on-the-fly, c.f. Shakespeare or K&R. Neither Goethe nor Thomas Mann made up many words, but only used their tools at a very high level and are still considered among the best writers in the world. Similarly, Linus didn’t invent C, but he used it to build a very complex system (or randomly ended up at one by continuous evolution, though that’s another discussion).
The above obviously only applies to writing/coding, and I would assume that the same goes for composing – even more so, as you can choose a particular set of rules (harmonic, atonal, you-name-it) and each individual note follows from the previous with little choice. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is probably a good example for this.
On the other hand, at least to the uninitiated (read: me), painting and sculpting appears much more ‘creative’ and incomparable to coding/writing/composing.
But it's more fun on my own at home. :)
1. Programming is purely science: If so, then why can't we teach the computer to do it?
2. Coding is not a "conventional skill" that should be taught: Schools teach physics and math because they make up the system of which we live in, then why not software? It is an integral part of our day to day lives.
3. Software and computers are at a point where they can operate wih minimum human interference: to any programmer this is ridiculous because we all know that we still live in the Stone Age equivelant of what software engineering should be like.
This post reeks of wish fulfillment.
1) Underdog Rises fantasy
2) Everyone thinks they're creative
3) Talent evaluation is difficult enough in the current paradigm. Hiring/promoting based on 'creativity' is even harder. How can super-creative types 'rise to the top' if we mere mortals can't identify them to begin with? (Before you answer with platitudes about track record or whatever, ask yourself how well your solution is even faring right now. There are a gazillion recruiting startups for a reason.)
4) Author takes several paragraphs to explain an idea that requires two sentences.
I think I need to find a class (Manhattan anyone?) so I can dedicate the time. It's easy enough to Google any computer language or system and learn at least the basics in a few weeks. Unfortunately, learning to draw seems like a very slow process.
If you like Photoshop:: Free http://ctrlpaint.com
These guys are amazing:: Paid http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/
and others:: Free http://www.proko.com/videos/
http://theroundtablet.com/
Some inspiration:: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?870-Journey-of-a...
http://www.deviantart.com/
Probably the biggest factor stopping you from teaching yourself something is your own motivation.