I know that I started talking about the social structure in my last post but I have decided to drop the topic for the moment and get back to it as things move along. I remembered this funny story the other day and I have to tell it now before I forget. So I was at work today doing my work thing. I don’t think I mentioned it before but I am a new media designer which means I do designs for Interactive websites, create motion graphics and more.

So I was talking to our accountant Amit and he mentioned this story about how one of his friends bought this totally ancient computer and thought he could put all kinds of new software on it and all. Anyways, this is not the point. The point is the story reminded me of a story of my own from my high school days in Baghdad.

I went to Al Kharkh High School which is the same school that Saddam Hussien attended supposedly, even though I don’t believe that he ever attended or cared for school. That is my theory anyways. But that is not the story.

We were one of the only schools to have a computer lab in the whole country. We had these old NEC computers that ran Basic and had as much memory as my USB jump drive. I loved to draw and paint since I was little and I was fascinated with technology as well. That seemed to be a great mix for my computer teacher who decided to train me to make pixel art.

The way this idea worked is that we used this primitive software that lets you place colored pixels within a grid. So my teacher came up with this “Amazing” technique to create pixel art. First we draw things on a tracing paper, then we stick the paper to the computer monitor and use it as reference to create pixel paintings.

So far that sounds great. The problem was that my teacher wanted me to create pixel art of Saddam Hussien so we can get more funding to buy more computers. I hate it but I loved the whole thing about skipping classes and just sitting in the lab pushing buttons. I mean that might be my first exposure to digital art as I know it.

So I made all these amazing super detailed pixel paintings of Saddam Hussien. In the process I missed many classes and I almost failed that year. However, I won this national award for my work and I got this awesome gift that I never got to see. My teacher told me that it was unfortunately lost in the mail. Ya sure… lost in the mail I said.

I wish I had those images on me now, I bet I could have sold them for a lot of money or I could have made a funny ass website with them. Maybe I should do one now of Saddam coming out of his hole.

I know this sounds like a crazy story but it really happened and I had to put it on my blog.

God Damn Saddam and my computer teacher both!

Tags: computer art, design, pixel art

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Personal Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.