learning and using one thing to drive another

Got the blues when the sketching course ended and went to the House of Illustration which made me yearn to draw even more.

With one click I signed up for 'learning how to learn' during  the second week. Week 1 taught me about focussed vs.diffuse thinking and Dali's and Edison's methods of falling asleep thinking of a problem and waking up when what they held in their hand fell to the floor and clanged to invoke diffuse thinking and hopefully solutions.

As I dozed off wondering what I should be drawing, I decided I would draw/paint the course notes. So I did the first drawing and enjoyed it.

Then the second drawing came to me when I had the urge to draw 'eat your frogs first'. By now, I was having a lot of fun. I also found that I was recalling this image when I had to get on with things.

The third drawing was notes for harnessing your inner zombie and tips re procrastination and memory. 

Strangely,  having visual metaphors helping memory made this a meta drawing for memory. I kept on visualising the pomodoro in the drawing and setting my timer to get on with eating my frogs first!

The memory palace idea of visualising my shopping list has not yet worked. I keep recalling the technique  but not actually using it!

Don't forget...to get your body out of fight or flight state, remember to breathe. 

Additional tip : Then tackle the hard thing, and drag youself away to the easy stuff if you struggle too long. This allows you to mull it over in the background. 

The assignment for the course was to present what you learned in the course in a different way which seemed perfect for a blog post for these drawings hence your seeing these in this one collection. 

drawings plus circuits

Light off

Light on

eat your frogs first (ewww)

Tips for studying #9

Slumber with a key

Background :Visited House of Illustration which was pretty inspiring - their Inside Stories exhibition by Quentin Blake was on and included his illustrations for Sad Book, a painful and beautiful book.

I wanted to try to illustrate or draw something from my imagination again rather than from seeing things like I have been practicing.

Later that day, found yet another online course on Coursera called Learning how to Learn.
One of the things they mentioned was the power of diffuse thinking and referred to Edison and Dali who used to capture that point at which you fall asleep. Dali called it the 'Slumber with a key' method.

So I decided to illustrate it.

morning coffee minus the waffles

Ate them

a sketchbook roundup

Spreading the joy of tinkering

For the 'tinkering' coursera course, one assignment was to do one of the other assignments as facilitation exercise i.e. watch and encourage someone else tinker.

This seemed tricky as I needed to find a volunteer and a location. Luckily, someone said yes.

Things I learned:

• Location is important - nice settings help. I chose a garden that actively uses materials inventively.
• The activity you choose has to be fun and compelling to get them over the hurdles
• Let them voice their inner critic and ignore it
• Stay silent...you will see them work it out
• Seeing them work it out is brilliant
• Seeing them enthused is brilliant
• Seeing them tell you their plans to modify is infectious

This short video (0:26) encapsulates all the moods your volunteer will go though.

Inspired by Andrea Joseph

Inspired by Andrea Joseph and her klass today for Sketchbookskool

A collection 

Hand lettering

Objects in blue

a toytopsy for tinkering studio

Take one cheap working toy that responds to your clap with sounds and movement

Take it apart - ensure it still functions

Now reassemble it differently

And your toy-take-apart homework is done

batik chic

Jelly's Open for Art Sessions - Caroline Streatfield-Chalk ran a Batik workshop today

Final result after ironing out wax:

mixing up sketchbook with hack books

Jie Qi suggests hacking your notebook with circuits. Sketchbookskool suggests sketching as diaries. We had hack days so I put my sketch in my diary.

lighting up loo rolls

Tinkering with paper circuits LED me to learn ten things en route to lighting up a loo roll.

Creative Coding on futurelearn

Creative coding is an online course by Monash University in Melbourne on futurelearn which is another online course provider (currently in beta).

It combines teaching us how to use Processing to make art work and also teaches us about artwork and artists in this field. This combination means that it stays interesting and inspiring, as there's always something you didn't know.
e.g. the effects in Processing are impressive. The works of Sol Lewitt, Cornelius Cardew were also introduced to us, amongst others

The discussion on generative art  about whether the process or the end result was the artwork culminated in lots of debates. Coincidentally, I heard Michael Cook (who built Angelina) speak so lots of discussion ensued about who was the artist/designer. Apologies to our fellow commuters.

Over the weeks, hopefully (time and energy permitting), the knowledge around the subject will increase and I will gain confidence in the tools I can use to play.

This will overlap with the 2nd term of sketchbookskool so that may be interesting.

Here's the first set of homework which was done in a hurry (three different sketches that we were to play with - I tweaked one to add colour)

tea time

More cross hatching fun

Tommy Kane taught me how to cross-hatch

Cross hatching has always been a mystery to me. I disliked it as a method as I never really got it. I admired what others could do with it.

As part of SketchbookSkool's last klass (sic) this semester we had Tommy Kane teach us. His work is very detailed and he takes 3-6 hours to do a drawing (sketch, detail, watercolour and then go over with colour pencils).  That is a long time and you can guess what his homework assignment to us involved. As I mulled over the subject of my drawing, he posted an additional video in answer to comments in the class.

This one was about cross hatching as he drew a lemon in around ten minutes. That was amazing and I tried it straightaway and then once more as I finally got what he was talking about.

They are not brilliant but they are a massive step for me and I enjoyed making them!

What time is it? TEA-TIME

• Outline
• Flat lines for shadows
• Turn page if need be
• Notice darker areas even in shadows
• Know when to stop
• Go over outline again
• Practice

BULL

Visual expression - useful tips for design sketches

Design: Creation of artifacts in Society is another Coursera course I enrolled in (just for the videos - won't be completing this at all due to time constraints and other commitments).

One aspect of the course is to teach us tips for Visual expression - and I started making some notes in this area as this is related to but unlike the sketchbookskool klasses (sic) I have been following.

The basics of sketching for impact
These include

• fill the frame (use the page, not a thumbnail)
• use dark lines (walk 10 paces away from your drawing)
• annotate (erase pencil marks in one direction only)
• scan to high quality (1-2k pixels on longest side, cropped, jpeg/png, and scanned in colour)

 (So nothing like my notes on tracing paper in a A6 book)






Orthographic projections and Cross-sections

Orthographic Projections are 2d representations of views of the object. They are moved perpendicular facing you (side A, front, top, side B, bottom) - and give you a sense of dimensions and proportions.  It is important to align the drawings so that you maintain scale and proportions.


 X-sections give you a sense of the materials or set up inside your object/building - e.g. in a building, you can see where the stairs and internal doors are and in an object you can see that various materials are involved.


Two point perspectives

1 point perspective is the traditional vanishing point in the distance. This VP may be obvious or appear to be behind a wall.

2 point perspective is where you have an edge, corner and two sides which converge to two VPs on both sides on the horizon.

3 point perpective is where you look up or down a building and see the edges converge.

Rules for two point perspective
1. All vertical lines stay vertical
2. Circles are drawn as ellipses - use midpoints and diagonals to locate.










Drawing with emphasis , and Modelling tricks and techniques are to follow over subsequent classes.

Watercolours and vegetation

As part of SketchbookSkool's class I struggled with Jane LaFazio's klass (sic). The assignment involved making a grid in pencil, and making a composition of fruit or vegetables (for example) - we could use watercolours. We were to add some text, and a border.

Can you spot the various errors in my watercolour painting? It made my classmates laugh and me giggle.

A useful exercise in observation - I discovered that pine cones (NOT acorns) have more interesting 'leaves' then I knew. And that shades of brown watercolour on non-watercolour paper doesn't dry well.

Jane's style was time-consuming with various media introduced into it (e.g. collages, stictching etc.) - it became obvious that I needed to spend a bit more time on my second attempt. Her site has several tutorials for your perusal.

Using watercolour soft pencils worked better and I mixed her and Koosje's tips to do it again.

If you are interested , check out the list of teachers for semester one (a new session of this runs from July)
Semester two starts soon as well (July).

what day is it today?

badger, badger, badger, badger...

Was introduced to Roz Stendhal in my Sketchbookskool class today. She does animals and I did not expect to enjoy it but her class was great.
I started making notes from her class
but then could not resist having a go.








Then I took her advice for when you cannot go out....draw toys etc. So I reached for the badger.

Of course this meant I ended up with the earworm of the Badger song from all those years ago...