I'm looking forward to this class

Last night was the first night of my Computer Illustration class. This is the only class I'll be actually taking on campus and its also one of the classes I've been looking forward to the most. I've been looking forward to this class because this is all about delving into Adobe Illustrator. I've played around with Photoshop and Premiere Pro (the video editing software) but I knew next to nothing about Illustrator. I knew that in Photoshop, you're manipulating an image and in Illustrator, you're creating the image itself, so I was really looking forward to trying my hand at it.

Since it was the first class, we didn't immediately start creating huge pieces of art, it was all about getting to know the software itself and learning about the tools and some of the things you can do. Did you know you can turn an image into vectors so you can work with it in Illustrator? How cool is that?! I thought that if you dropped an image into Illustrator you would have to use one of the tools to trace over it to create something you can work with, I didn't realize that you could just turn it into vectors. There are a lot of different things you can do with an image or you could just start from scratch and create something all on your own.

Since it is a four hour class, we spent the first half in lecture and the second half actually working with the software (although I did spend most of the lecture playing around and trying to create different things. I was listening, promise!). Since we're working from the Illustrator Classroom in a Book, most of the assignments that we do during class are in the book itself. What I didn't realize though was that the first lesson was just trying to get you used to the tools. So I'm sitting at my computer trying to work through this assignment and its hard. Okay, maybe I wasn't listening as well as I should have been... I was getting frustrated because if the first assignment was this difficult, how the hell was I going to make it through the entire semester? Lucky for me, my teacher let me know that I was in fact working a lesson that was in fact more difficult. The actual lesson one was much easier.

We also received our first assignment that we will be creating outside of class (although we will be able to spend time in class working on it). We're to design letterhead, business cards and envelopes for a "business" that we own. I think I'm going to go with my teacher's suggestion and do some sort of dance studio, hopefully I'm not aiming for something too difficult. I'm thinking I'll create some sort of dancer doing an arabesque or pirouette or maybe a piqué as my logo. I also need to think of some sort of name for said dance studio.... This should be interesting....

All in all, I think I did well for my first time working with Illustrator and I think this will be a good way to start working with the various Adobe products. I'm really looking forward to working in this class.