As technology advances through the years, it has found endless limits to intervene in the everyday life of the average human being, for better or for worse.

So endless are the possibilities of technology, in fact, that it has now found a way to coexist with the nature of art.

EC’s art department offers several digital art classes and six certificate courses, such as computer animation, digital photography and web design.

Providing variety

“If you look through job recruiting advertisements, three computer programs that people ask for are Illustrator, Photoshop and Quark XPress,” art professor Joyce Dallal said. “If you take the art 141, 142, and 143 classes, you can get experience in those three programs.”

Ray John Pila, 36, graphic design major, doesn’t know how to combine his art works, such as graphics, photographs, advertisings and 3D animations, but is mastering three major computer programs, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Quark XPress, which helps him to get into industry.

Art 141 class, Computer Art 1, is the most basic and prerequisite for all other digital art classes, Dallal said. This class deals with vector (drawing) and raster (painting and photography) graphics and software, Illustrator and Photoshop.

“It’s broader than other classes and designed to give students a foundation in computer graphics,” Dallal said. “The goal of the class is that students really understand two kinds of graphics and software so that things are familiar to them when they go on to other programs.”

Gaining experience

One of the projects that students do in the class is to produce trading cards like Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon, Dallal said. Students come up with names and ideas of games and create illustrations for characters.

“It’s a fun project because people come up with all kinds of different ideas,” Dallal said. “This semester, students are producing games about junk food, snowboarding and hip-hop dancing.”

Anyone is eligible to take this class, but it’s helpful if students have an art background, Dallal said.

“The more experience you have in art, the better you will be at doing anything on a computer,” Dallal said. “Any art student should take the class because when you get into the working world, you need to know how to use the computer.”

Art, technology merge

The Art 141 course is very practical and helps students who already have an art background, but don’t know about computer software, Dallal said.

“Most students already have an art background and their skill level is pretty high. Once they attain computer skills, they can get a job,” Dallal said.

There is no prerequisite for the class, however, due to a wrong computer setup, students had to go to the Counseling Office to clear prerequisites on the computer, Dallal said.

“This semester, a lot of students who wanted to sign up for the class were blocked even though they should not have been blocked,” Dallal said.

Debra Barba, 20, undecided, is currently taking Art 142, digital photography.

“I’m taking the class to know more about computer and digital media,” Barba said.

Art 142 is taught on Photoshop and students are provided with digital cameras, if necessary.

Imaging through art

“This class is an approach to digital photography and is a little bit more advanced than basic,” art professor Noah Webb said. “We cover digital camera, scanning and mainly Photoshop.”

“I’m not really interested in taking pictures, but I like manipulating pictures,” Barba said. “Just being able to use computers and to learn is a benefit from taking the class because I don’t have a computer at home.”

Webb said that he is trying to make the class interesting by adding conceptual assignments to computer applications.

“It’s definitely a blend of technique and artistic concepts,” Webb said. “I hope students will get a good understanding of not only technique, but also image making.”

One of the projects that most students like in this class is the movie poster project. Students create their own story and poster, manipulating photographs or scanned images, Webb said.

Webb said that Photoshop is just a tool to convey an idea.

“I think many people can understand how to use Photoshop, but the more important part is to understand image making through Photoshop and how you can communicate to tell a story,” Webb said. “Pictures that you create in this class are important because they tell a story. It is almost a language.”

Satisfaction attained

Pila is enrolled in Art 143 and wants to start his own advertising agency or work for a big corporation, he said.

Intermediate Art 143 is taught on Quark XPress and covers the use of computers in producing visuals and designs for print.

“We do projects like fliers, posters and magazine articles,” Dallal said. “This semester, we did a business card and letter head project.”

“In our class, we work with Macintosh G5 computers with the latest software. We are fortunate to have that,” Pila said.”I like the fact that Dallal is very disciplined and pushes us to the edge because that’s what it’s like in the real world.”