BEDJ 18: Take that, math!

Remember that Wordless Wednesday?

Want to see more? I cordially invite you to visit my personal website.

Aside from one beastly page I made in Grade 9 computers class on *shudder* Microsoft Publisher, which never actually saw the light of the internet, this is my first website. Like, coded from scratch with HTML, CSS and a tad of jQuery website. Something I coded. Can you tell I’m proud of it?

Sure, it’s still got some kinks to work out. But I’ll get there.

You’ve already heard me go on and on about Ladies Learning Code, who gave me not only the basic skills to start a website, and go on to teach myself some more tricks, but the inspiration to actually go and make a site. Incredible women like Denise Jacobs and those I met through Girl Geeks Toronto at FITC also opened my eyes to the community of awesome coders (…who also happen to be women). Pretty cool.

What I realized through making my website was how easy it came together.

Ok, that’s a big lie. I toiled for ages over the site. Do you know how tricky it is to make a fixed header with rollover buttons that matches up perfectly with a header image? Well maybe you do…

What I mean is I was surprised, and relieved, by how much my design background came in to use. Ha! Art school proves its usefulness!  Chatting with some of the mentors at the Ladies Learning Code mobile session, even experienced coders were saying how they find themselves seeking designers to work with because their own design skills aren’t up to snuff. In my opinion, it’s easier to learn code than it is to learn design. With enough practice, anyone can learn to code (my father, who happens to be a professor of computer science and robotics, begs to differ). Art, which tends to find itself at the bottom of the academic and professional food chain, is not something anyone can learn.

Side story: I was unbelievably bad at math in high school. I just wanted to do art. I wasn’t interested in math, so I never applied myself, so I did poorly, so I felt discouraged… Flash forward to a few years ago when I was contemplating doing an MBA. I, and all my friends, entertained the idea but were all intimidated by the math portion of the GMAT. I took a GMAT prep course, bought a practice book, and studied. I relearned math I had once been taught in high school but never took the initiative to learn. But with time, a goal, and a work ethic, I taught myself the math that had made me cry for most of the late 90s. And I aced that GMAT.

So, basically. If I can learn math, if I can code a website, then really I can do anything I put my mind too (my mother was right all along!). It takes initiative, and it takes work, but man is it rewarding. So whatever’s on your bucket list, whatever you want to do but for some reason don’t think you’re capable, work at it.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve taken on? And if not the biggest, what’s the one that made you the most proud?

BEDJ 17: Having it all

Even though I loved art school, I realized I was not going to be able to support myself on my art. I would keep it as a hobby, a refuge, something to do outside of work. And I did.

And people told me I was good at it. And I enjoy doing design at work, and for friends, and for extra-curricular projects. I really like being a go-to for design when colleagues need something whipped up.

And way back when I saw Draplin‘s talk at FITC I got the fire in my belly to create more, and more purposefully, and to promote myself more. And to make art with the intent to sell.  I need to thank Joey Aberle for asking me to design him a portrait in my vector style, and even more, agreeing (insisting) to pay.

Hold the phone – I can make money doing this?

And then others starting coming forward, commissioning me for artwork. And while by no means enough for me to quit my job and move to Tortola (–someday!) it reminded that I’m gosh darn good at this, and that’s worth something.

Returning to my first love, my first passion, has completely changed my outlook on a lot of things. I can have it all. My mother sent this TEDx video to me, and if you’ve got the time, definitely watch it. It speaks to my experience, finding how to balance a need for an income with a need to be creative, and I’m sure in some way it will speak to yours.

So if you’re looking for design work, artwork, or a personalized vector portrait (check some of my previous works here) drop me a line. I’d be only too happy to work with you.

Let’s give the final words of this post to Liz Lemon, who drives to live off her creativity and managing the rest of her life, and with whom I share a love of food:

BEDJ Day 2: On why painting is like coding

I’ve joined a group of awesome bloggers (Amber, Heather, Edwin, GirlFrmMars, Tom, Peter, Ashley, and Kitty) for BEDJ (Blog Every Day in June).  Here is my second installment.

The year was 2005 and I was in one of Zavitz Hall‘s painting studios. The instructor was making his way through the room. We students stood in front of our easels, painting diligently. Everyone had earphones in, working to our own personal playlists.

On one of those days I overheard a comment from the instructor that stuck with me:

You only need another three hours on this painting. The trick is, you need the right three hours.

And if you’ve ever gone to art school, you know those words ring true. You could paint all day and night and still be no closer to your finished product. You end up overworking it, and have to scrape off paint and start an area all over again.  You could count yourself lucky if you at least made some progress, rather than leaving the painting in a worse state than how you came to it. My friends had their own tricky assignments, but they knew if they put four hours’ worth of work in to it, they’d have four hours’ worth of a product on their hands.  Like a marathon. Yes it’s hard, but each time you put one foot in front of the other, you get closer to the end.  I saw no such guarantee in art. It’s more of a lindy-hop. There’s some shuffling forward, but a lot of backwards and sideways and spinning movement too.

But if you paint those right three hours, each stroke ends up being exactly what you wanted, with no mistakes, and the painting comes together without a struggle.

Since the epicness of Ladies Learning Code and FITC I’ve been working away at creating a personal website. I genuinely can’t wait to get home and bust out my Text Edit files and fiddle with HTML and CSS. But my coding sessions don’t always go well.  I can tinker with one element of my website for hours and still not get it to work. Or if I get it to work, it breaks another part of the website.

But like painting, occasionally you get right three hours of coding in, and every keystroke gets you that much closer to your intended result.

And yes, fine, I suppose in all things, those wrong hours you spend, where you find yourself back where you started, or worse, with more of a mess on your hands than before, are needed. You need to screw up and understand what you don’t want in order to work out what it is you do want. It’s still frustrating as heck.

Oh, and another reason painting is like coding – turns out I’m fairly awesome at both (you can see how awesome I am at coding in a few weeks).