Intro to Scribus and Inkscape

Indyish attempted its first Open Source for Artists workshop as part of the beta launch(ish) weekend. we are in perpetual launch, as far as we can tell, and we may just continue to call all our events launch parties. currently, the sprouting and next-level-launch prep is happening behind the scenes, where El is experimenting on newer, faster versions of the site using newer, cooler, edgier code. i’ll let him tell you when he’s ready. My point is this: since we’re building gratefully on stacks of open source languages and tools for our lil web world, it seems fitting to us that we should offer software workshops as part of our creative fun.

We started small with a one hour introduction to Scribus and Inkscape- two potent tools. We projected from a laptop up onto a big, high screen and clicked through some of the highlights in the software. I use “we” figuratively, actually, since it wasn’t El or myself giving the workshop, but a guy who volunteered from the Montreal linux meetup group. The workshop ended up being a bit more of a lecture; and though when we practiced it, it was bilingual, when it came time for it, the bi sort of slided and it ended up largely francais. Which is ok and fine, most of the crowd was bi and able to swing it i think. And you can’t blame a fella if maybe nerves got the best of him and his mother tongue took over. Mothers are like that.)

Also, he made this handout! great!Intro to Scribus and Inkscape

The lecture may not have been thrilling (it’s software, c’mon) but it served to inspire us with ideas for future cool os workshops, like the one we’re planning for the Puces POp (hint- live recording). And it was pretty functional- got me to finally open Inkscape, which has become one of my most used tools. And my 16 year old sister went home and dowloaded Scribus and called me with questions about layers, and we met some very cool programmer people who came out with lights in their eyes at the idea of artists getting involved in open source. One wise gentleman suggested acting workshops to help programmers visualize scenarios. Acting to write code equals awesome, so in at least a kernel-type way this workshop 1.0 has got to be considered successful. go team! thanks Jean Marc for bravely doing it!