Creative Uses of Creative Tools

Here is a drawing I made in LibreOffice, a free alternative to programs like Microsoft Office:

It’s drawn with the filled polygon tool. Since it’s a vector drawing, you might think each region of uniform color is a single discrete element. After all, that’s how you’d do it if you were making an animation or otherwise planning to take advantage of the nature of vector graphics to neatly resize or reposition the drawing.

But! Just because a tool is suitable for a certain kind of work doesn’t mean you can’t use it in other ways. (This probably explains why I’ve broken so many drill bits, but that’s another story.) Here’s another look at the drawing, with polygon borders turned on and transparency turned up:

It is mostly made up of a few simple shapes. In some places, though, I chose to “paint with polygons” instead of editing the existing vertices. The outcome is perhaps less versatile, but the act of carving out a contour by slapping down layers was more engaging than a more refined technique might have been. I might not have had the patience to finish the drawing, which I started spontaneously, if I’d been too concerned with placing every point perfectly.

Nothing beats the right tool for the job, but improvisation beats declining to try every time.

Posted on Monday, November 26th, 2012. Tags: art.