It occurred to me recently that I should really do something to update myself.

See, I’m an old-fashioned watercolour painter, who, well, produces old-fashioned watercolour paintings.

While watching youngsters effortlessly churn out artwork with only a stylus and tablet, without worrying about water saturation or bleeding paints, this tech dinosaur decided that it was time to take a running leap into the age of technology.

I mean, how hard can it be, right? Right?

So I signed up for a three-day Digital Art Rendering programme with Biz IQ Academy, held at Triple One Somerset, near Orchard Road.

Did I achieve my objective?

Uh, I think so. I discovered what Digital Art entailed. Armed with my Apple iPad, a newly procured Apple pencil from Harvey Norman and freshly downloaded software called ProCreate, I fearlessly swept into Mr Syed Rashid’s classroom. Four other students with varying levels of competency completed the cohort.

Was it as easy as I envisioned?

Aiyoh, I had to blow off cobwebs from the grey matter in my old skull. I tried to memorise the gabillion functions in ProCreate. And failed. On the first day, we learnt how to draw straight lines and move them about. Then we quickly went on to the function called Layers. Layers is like baking Kueh Lapis, except you’re sketching, drawing, tracing. filling in colour and special effects on different planes and shifting them about. By the end of the first day, I couldn’t remember how to move straight lines, which was taught in the first 10 minutes!

Okay, so it was not a walk in the park. Did I manage to produce anything?

Amazingly, I did! Kudos to our Digital Art Guru, Syed, who answered the continuous onslaught of inane questions with the patience of a saint, despite feeling hungry and thirsty. He was observing Puasa, you see, and couldn’t eat and drink during the day.

There was an exam!

Eeeee! Memories of anxiety-inducing school assessments came flooding back! We had to submit a thing called a ‘Mood Board’, which detailed our research into our final artwork and our final artwork itself.

And then there was a written paper. The first question on the paper was:

Why is ‘aesthetics’ as important as ‘function’ in design?

This is SERIOUS stuff! No multiple choice guessing game here. You had to consider your answers carefully and write them down. Coherently! Luckily, the answers could mostly be found in our notes. So unless you have the IQ of a single celled organism or attended class in a zombie-like state, you will pass.

So, was the whole experience worth it?

Like Kueh Lapis. there are several layers to my answer.

First, I believe I’ve acquired a new skill. Although if anyone questions my competence, I’ll have to admit that I’m at kindergarten level, adequate for my own purposes, like illustrating this blog. In fact, the lead picture of the dinosaur going to school was created by me after the course ended and took me less than an hour to complete.

It was good to work the ol’ noggin. Sometimes frustrating when I couldn’t get the computer to understand what I wanted to achieve, but I think the stress caused long dormant synapses in the brain to start sparking again!

And it was a joy to meet new people. A nicer, more friendly or helpful bunch of classmates would be hard to find. Especially Rachel, my next-door buddy!

T-Rex goes back to school