Hackers and Painters
In hacking, like painting, work comes in cycles....A novice begins without knowing it; next he tries to consciously be original; finally he decides its more important to be right than original - Paul Graham
This book was pretty good. He explores the motivations of "hackers" and parallels it with painting.
In painting, I start with a sketch, then I lay down the darks/shadows, the midtones and then the lights, carefully adding in the right values. Then I go back with colors to convey a mood. I'm still a newbie to painting, so there is still lots of corrections as I go. (These last three imageries started as sketches, study of the human form. I scanned the sketch into Photoshop and then I utilized layers, masks, and tools (burn, dodge, smudge, blur)). These will serve as more defined sketches for pastel / oil. I wanted to post these up since someone accused me of simply editing a photograph. My goal is to achieve more photo-realism in my paintings.
In programming, pretty much works the same way for me. I start out with some psueducode "sketch" of what I want to accomplish. I put in the general code and then I go back and refactor and refactor. Create classes and procedures, etc. Another element present in both is inspiration. When in the "flow", I can paint til the wee hours of the morning. Same applies to programming.
I thought this was cool: Randomized Hash
keys= keys %movies;
$selectedKey = $keys[int rand( @keys)];
$selectedValue = $movies{$selectedKey};
I've been excited about Perl and have been working on a small little program. I'm at the "refactoring" stage completing the guts of the program. I now have to go back and add the colors (graphical interface).
If I am not creating "something", I feel half alive, mostly dead (ooh - a Jewel verse). I used to wonder if I had chosen the right career path, and now I believe I have. Programming allows me the opportunity to create, and like painting, good design is redesign. You have to keep at it, rarely is it right the first time.
What are your passions?
posted at
6:37 PM
6 Comments:
Wow, Thanks for the look into your creative process. There are elements of what you do in my song writing. Often, though, it starts out as a phrase and grows. My editing process is a bit like your process though. This is facinating and you're quite good.
at 4:12 AM
Oh,, I forgot..My passions? My wife and my music. My music takes me in a lot of directions, though. I'm always sucking up as many experiences as I can, hunting for song ideas. Isn't that what you're doing with your art?
at 9:38 AM
I'd be curious to hear more about your song writing process. What are your inspirations? Do you have to write down the chords for later or will you recall from memory?
Guitar III starts this Thursday... ahhh.. I can't wait!!!
at 9:39 AM
This is soooo beautiful, as always!
My passion is cooking, the best part is seeing people honestly enjoy what I create.
at 9:58 AM
That was really cool to see how you create your art -- I'm just so clueless to it all.
Passion... interesting word, and sadly, not sure if I have one when put that way.
at 11:09 AM
Aymiee, I've Blogged quite a bit about my song writing process. You can look back and check it out but usually, I stumble on either a phrase that expresses something I've noticed and I just start writing. I always put it aside for a while. I go back and eliminate as many cliches as I notice. I start tinkering with the rhyme scheme and beats per line. Music comes last. I tinker until I find something that is not too standard 1, 4, 5, if you know what that is. I like starting away from the root and resolving to it. I love to find out-of-the-box chords or bass runs that sound that way. Sometimes I write things I can't even play well. I often have to change the key to sing them. That's brief. Ask me more.
at 3:12 PM
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