Carrion Screenplay

Making up a back story for a card game - The author sees an opportunity turn one of his life-changing experiences into a collection of Artist Trading Cards, so he’s brainstorming. As he searches, the subject of his thoughts—a dead Mexican named Ulises Carrion—whispers the right moves in his ear. 856 Words. ap100223. ©2010 Bill Ritchie.

Image Banks

Walldows on a printmaking world - Working his way through a computer game on a self-assigned regimen, the author comes to the topic of rewards, the “pay off” for having completed another mini game. In this example he gets images from the musicians’ gallery of snapshots. He wants his own. 532 Words. ap100124. ©2010 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Reverse Engineering

Taking a game apart and putting it together - His morning routine is to take a computer game apart and put it back together, but changing the pictures in the game. He takes a classic rock music group’s game, lists how many mini games are in it, and draws a new design for a game about his printmaking. 628 Words. ap100114. ©2010 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Burin Hunt

First lesson in an online printmaking class
The year 2010 is the first year the author will offer an online printmaking course and in this essay he explains how an ordinary printmaking course will be the starting point for a computer game about printmaking. He’s been planning this for thirty years. 881 Words. ap100104. ©2010 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Opening Day

First day at ArtsPort 2009-2010 - He pretends like a little kid who is at his first day in camp. ArtsPort is the name of an island he made up, placing it in a great lake in an imaginary place called Emeralda Region—a mysterious place haunted by ghosts in his new “machines,” his computers. 1053 Words. ap091215. ©2009 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Problem One

Thoughts of a dying diehard printmaker - Winding his way through a problem on his computer one morning he hits on an understanding of the first problem to set before online printmaking users—a kind of jigsaw puzzle of why to learn old-time printmaking in a time of digital reproduction of prints. 1287 Words. ap091021. ©2009 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Coop Art

When artists share their world - This artist thinks the time is right for realizing a global artist’s co-operative that has been in existence for a hundred years, but—like people who live on a mountain so they cannot see the mountain—few artists have known about it. It is a shared world. 1475 Words. ©2009 Bill Ritchie. ap090603. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com