I can still remember my drawings in the sand with a wooden stick as my drawing pen, if it was yesterday. I mostly drew hearts and houses and dressed them with flowers. My interest in drawing has therefore been a passion since a very young age, and it was strengthened by getting exposure to art projects during my school years and beyond.
Our prose and poem books in primary school had to be illustrated, and I was so brave to sign up myself to my small town’s yearly agricultural show event – displaying my illustrated books and arranging flowers.
I always won second and third prizes, but that has not stopped me from participating – it was not the prize but the learning experience. My illustrations improved each year, and I persist in submitting art projects every subsequent year until I left school.
My growing years did not include information processing systems and the Internet. My computer education started in 2005 learning Microsoft Office. After mastering the Microsoft Office package, I enrolled in Architectural drafting courses. I practiced day and night and I nearly gave up. All the cry, struggle, and perseverance drove me to master AutoCAD and 3D Studio Max.
The gratifying part of AutoCAD was the 3D stream, and together with 3D Studio Max, creating images from 2D drawings became more interesting. Applying this knowledge, I enrolled for an Architectural design course that involved learning more digital software, including Revit, Sketchup, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
Learning all these software packages became my new crying game. I struggled and practiced and I kept ‘my eye on the prize because of my desire to succeed. There was no way of giving up, although I considered quitting multiple times.
Gaining more confidence, I started to experiment in different digital drawing techniques and I experimented with other software to create different effects. I realised that all these digital software can be used in combination to create more extensive digital art images.
All these experiences enabled me to investigate, prepare and create several digital art projects with the wondrous capabilities of Web 2.0 technologies. I therefore set myself as a digital artist, because I use digital technologies to create artwork. These capabilities enable me to be in an artistic virtual community where I hold social networking relationships with other digital artists, especially DeviantArt, BeFunky and my blog.
Believing all these above, my digital art journey has commenced from the sand as my canvas, to the digital. My digital artwork is full of colour and it represents images that are dear to me. I am still like a small kid with a colouring book using my imagination to create images that recount stories.
Read more about my topic at Understanding Digital Art.
Linda | Digital Artist 