Some cool bugs arrived in the mail recently. I have decided that I really like drawing "nature stuff" tho' I have no plans for how I shall exploit it for profit.

This morning I thought, "gee, wouldn't it be fun to render the bugs in powerpoint." But when I arrived at the computer station, the mac was on and the pc was off. Powerpoint is currently on the pc, but not the mac. I decided that I was too lazy to bend down and turn on the pc (besides, that monster takes a good 15 minutes to warm up) but wouldn't it be fun to try Illustrator.

I hate to date myself, but the last time I tried Illustrator, I think it was version 2 (my old mac has 7, but its well beyond that now). To be honest, I remember nothing of that encounter except the irritating "vector-based drawing" (which is really great if you are working for John Deere and you have to render every single rivet in the UltraMan Thresher, or something like that). I figured I'd find the ellipse-drawing tool and go from there.

It wasn't nearly as easy to pick up as I hoped. Boeuyed by my recent conquest of Powerpoint (yeah, I know, nothing to brag about) I started by opening a new file. Then everything halted. The ellipse tool was gone. I couldn't find it anywhere. Eventually I put on my computer-teacher hat, and it materialized, not surprisingly, in the tool menu. The sad thing is, I could do a better beetle in powerpoint. i am humbled by my ignorance.

fun with powerpoint

"Dutch in Powerpoint"


Last year, I was able to recycle my predecessor's wonderful computer projects. This year, I have a bunch of repeat students, so I get to devise a whole new series of projects, which is something I am having fun with. In the course of my web travels, I found a site that is brimming with fun, geeky powerpoint stuff. I followed the tutorial for creating your own anime head and totally fell in love with the "curve tool" (which allows you to draw any sort of 60's style organimorph shapes). I was going to play tetris this evening for a second, and then it occured to my that it would be more fun to make a picture of Dutch.