• Dedication
• Introduction
• I discovered this discovery
• Discovery 0: Preparation
• Discovery 1: Open your XO
• Discovery 2: Buttons and bits
• Discovery 3: Turn XO on, and observe
• Discovery 4: Turn XO on. Now what?
• Discovery 5: Button functions
• Discovery 7: Other bits of the XO
• Discovery 6: Icon Ring
• Discovery 9: List view
• Discovery: Help
• Discovery: Frame
• Discovery 10: Wireless networking
• Discovery: Browse
• Discovery 8: Good questions
• Discovery: Journal
• Discovery: Record
• Discovery: Paint
• Discovery: Write
• Discovery: Collaboration
• Discovery: Frame Again
• The Undiscoverable: Terminal
• Discovery: Utility Menu
• Pause
• Discovery: More Activities
• Discovery: Puzzles
• Discovery: Games
• Discovery: Turtle Art
• Discovery: Calculate
• Discovery: Measure
• Discovery: Etoys
• Discovery: Music
• What do I want to discover?
• Discovering childhood education
• Discovery: Hints
• Resources
• Discovery: Glossary

Discovery: Paint

If you have any experience of computers at all, you should know what a Paint program does. You might even have tried one. Or perhaps you are an artist, and you don't need me to tell you about it.

Whichever the case, find the Paint icon. Do you know what it represents? Those are going out of style in the digital age, but we still use the names and images of manual artist's tools for their digital versions, in the same way we still talk about files on computers with no filing cabinets.

Click, and examine what you see. Notes and questions, as usual. Do the controls make sense to you?

Do you know how to paint in Paint? Many of our children do not know at first that you point where you want to start, then hold down the X mouse key with one hand while you move the pointer with the other. Many of them find it very clumsy, which it is. Professional artists commonly use more convenient but more expensive tools, such as a stylus and tablet.

Figure Artist's Graphics Tablet

As with every aspect of XO design, it was necessary to find a balance between what enabled a function at its most basic level, and what governments could afford for their students. We hope that someone will discover a way to bridge this gap and provide tools for promising young artists. Perhaps it can be done through microfinance, repaid out of sales of artwork. But that is not our task today.

Have a look at the toolbar and the tabs below it.

Activity

Edit

Tools

Shapes

Text

Image

Effects

Point at the controls as usual. Do the icons and names explain what they do?  Try them. You will find the Clear button on the Edit tab useful whenever you want to start over.

Notes and questions, of course.

Do you know how colors work in computers? You can set colors in Paint for Tools, Shapes (Fill and Stroke), and Text.  You can pick a color visually, or you can specify a color with three numbers. Paint gives you two ways to do that, as you will see: Hue, Saturation, and Value, or Red, Green, Blue. What do they do? How do they affect the colors you choose, including the color display and the Color name?

How do these different color selections affect your painting?

Much of paint depends on the click and drag mouse motion. This is true for pencil and brush strokes, shapes, the eraser tool, and for making rectangular selections that you can cut, copy, and paste.