Monday 19 July 2010

oh the wounders of technology!!

Hi All
The title should say it all, but of course it doesn't, i hope what happened to me doesn't happen to any of you.
This week while working on my new website I managed to delete everything from my computer by accident!
That is everything from my photos to my new web pages which I'd spent months working on. I know your all asking how do you manage that - well it's like this you see - i run vista on my laptop which has this stupid hover mode on it, so the cursor when moved over anything will automatically take you to or do what it hovers over. So this means as I type this I don't need to use the cursor so it's left somewhere at the edge of the work, but in my case my cursor will jump to where it's left and continue typing where it jumped to.
With most things I'm usually very careful because i know this can happen but what happened on this particular occasion took me by surprise. I was trying to delete a file and left my mouse right at the top of the page sort of on the address bar. I was using the nav keys to go through the files and delete the ones I don't want, while doing this I get a dialogue box come up asking me if i want to delete this file, which of course I do because that's what i working on - only i didn't realise that the next box says are you sure you want to delete files? I hit the enter button to confirm but still hadn't read the whole sentence which must have said permanent delete on it.
Well i could have died when I realised what was happening - the cursor which was now hovering over the very top bar which read C:/computer/pictures and was hurriedly deleting all my files PERMANENTLY!!
Shock horror nothing i can do, but try to find a piece of software that will retrieve them.
I find one but it wont restore them in one piece their fragmented so I still cant use them.
Losing 4 months of website building was bad enough but when i realise that some of my photos of paintings I'd done had gone I was mortified. Many of these don't belong to me anymore and we have no idea who purchased them.
Don't you just love computers!!!
Guess what I'll be doing all summer ha ha
Moral of story make sure you back up everything somewhere else!!
Back to the drawing board.

Monday 12 July 2010

recording your progress

Hi All
I've just finished teaching for another day, and one of the things that struck during the lesson was that students and sometimes myself, don't have evidence of the their progression through the one piece their working on. During many lessons due to time constraints we neglect to start with the basic drawing in our sketch books and the all the refinements that go with that.
So for me my process would start with research first of chosen subject then a series of sketches - not just one. All writing and notes should be your sketch with your first initial sketches. Many times I find students telling themselves they are unable to draw something again but all should be in the habit of repeating the draw/sketch multiple times.
This process alone benefits the understanding of the form your drawing but also other components such tonal value, perspective, negative spaces, colour theory, composition and use of equipment and supports.
Might sound like a lot to get round but like everything, if you repeat it numerous times you'll remember it and use more often.
The other benefit of this process is to explore the subjects and expand the imagination, how many of you have told yourself you have an imagination?? not true it's all there your just not using it. So I challenge you to take a sketch book and fill it with only one subject but explore it from different angles and even close up and then change some of the aspects of it. Then try changing the format from say rectangle to square or to very narrow to horizontal or even vertical. Then you could play around with different media or colour changes.
Guess what I'm off to do now?? exactly what i preach - I'm off to my sketch pad where I'm going to explore some more ink drawings for my website. Talking of which I'm looking at creating an all new website called INKSTIC hence the ink drawings!!!  ciao for now xxx