Something to smile about!

Snapped from the park I cross on the way into town.

I don't know who created this 'Smiley' to watch over us

in these troubled times, when there's talk of general strikes

and civil disobedience - but I'm really glad they did!

And for something with a Halloween connection,
click here

More Autumn Bounty -

on Mugs, Mousepads & More

'Autumn Leaves' Tote Bag by helikettle
See more Autumn Bags

10 types of blogs - which do you prefer?

I wonder whether the human race has ever before engaged in so much writing and reading as it has since the blogging habit took hold towards the end of the 20th century! 

Did Jorn Barger, who coined the term ‘weblog’ back in 1997, envisage that blogging would become so popular that now anyone who has internet access can ‘have their say’ to a potentially world-wide audience? Who would have guessed at that time that so many of us would find that blogging would fulfil a latent need in many of us to be ‘heard’, to have our own little corner of the world wide web where we can express ourselves, show off our work or simply broadcast news about our everyday lives?

A weblog is literally a ‘log’ on the web, a log being ‘a book in which records are kept’, for instance a ‘captain’s log', something like a diary or journal.  But out in the teeming blogosphere, the term has been extended to encompass all sorts of types of entries, the one thing they have in common being that they are updated regularly and appear in chronological order.

So here are a few of the different categories of blogs and links to one of my favourites in each category. (Of course there are many other wonderful blogs I could have listed but where would I stop?)

1. Online journals – often written to describe a change in life circumstances or an actual journey (travel-log). What makes them interesting? They offer us a view into something or some place where we would not otherwise have gone and if they’re well written, we can feel as if we are carried off to some far place with the writer. Some of these journals have become so popular that they’ve been published as books, particularly if they have the ability to move us as well as amuse us.

http://www.shesnotfromyorkshire.com/

2. Artists’ blogs – again a kind of journal but with less writing and more images or videos to illustrate the day-by-day, week-by-week ‘journey’ of the artist.

http://karinjurick.blogspot.com/


3. Group blogs – a format often used by groups of artists. An advantage is that the content is kept fresh without too much of a burden on each individual artist

http://thesketchables.blogspot.com/

4. Celebrity blogs – often mostly ‘promotional’ with a few tidbits of information about the celebrity thrown in.

http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/

5. Corporate blogs – a way that a company can keep customers and potential customers updated about their products and services.

http://blog.sockdreams.com/2010/09/03/socks-for-school-uniforms/


6. Promotional blogs. Similar to a corporate blog but written by an individual to promote their products. There may be some news updates but the chronological nature of the blog is relatively unimportant.

http://ullahennig-zazzle.blogspot.com/


7. ‘Musings and Ponderings’ blogs. Here the objective is not to promote anything but again the chronology is generally  unimportant as the blogger writes about anything that occurred to them that they think will be of interest to their readers. Questions are often asked and readers’ responses are an important feature of this kind of blog, which seeks to fire off a discussion, either on the blog itself or at least in the reader’s mind.

http://freetospeakblog.blogspot.com/


8. Information/advice blogs. Many such blogs that I’ve come across, though not all, focus on tips about IT use, about blogging, about search engine optimisation etc. The blogger comes across as very authoritative and helpful, which is likely to be true as many of them make their living from blogging!

http://www.copyblogger.com/


9 Political blogs – these are really online commentaries of political events, such as might be found in a newspaper or magazine and in fact they are often written by journalist. The difference is that there is a ‘comments’ option.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny


10. ‘None-of-the-above’ blogs! Of course there has to be a category for blogs that don’t fit neatly into any of the other nine categories I’ve listed. My favourite is –

http://www.robertbrault.com/

A great many blogs, perhaps the majority of them, don’t fit into any one of these categories but are more ‘hybrid’ in nature. I would include my own blog in this! Maybe this comes about as we try to discover as we go along just what kind of blog we are writing! Or maybe that’s the way we want it to be – something for everyone. When I started blogging, nine months ago, I announced at the outset that it would be a bit of a hotch-potch and so it has turned out to be!


One of my favourites is: http://www.artsyshark.com/


Blogs fall into many categories – which sort do you prefer to read? And do you have a favourite?

Images of Autumn..

on my other blog today!

'Autumn Leaves' Coffee Mug by helikettle
More Autumn Mugs

Digital Art

 'Flow' by Australian Fractal Artist, Helene Kippert

This will probably sound very naive but when I first started investigating the greeting cards business last year, I was surprised to discover how many artists were using digital art for their designs. I had obviously been badly out of touch with what was going on in the art world while I was preoccupied with finding ways to teach reading and spelling in a way that would work for everyone.

My first impression was that I didn’t like it - I even had thoughts about it being somehow ‘cheating’! The furthest I would go was to use photo-editing software to bring my paintings back to resembling the originals after scanning and, of course, to use the computer to add the captions or greetings.

The difficulty was that I couldn’t pinpoint why I didn’t like digital art. So I asked around among fellow artists who use ‘traditional’ methods in their work. And the most consistent reason they gave was that it seemed somehow ‘too perfect’. One young artist mentioned the ‘pleasant imperfection’ in ‘handpainted’ or ‘hand-drawn’ art. And I do think it’s often those little imperfections that allow something of the personality of the artist to show through, that add spirit to the work. By comparison, much digital art can seem lifeless, formulaic.

I wonder whether this lack of ‘life’ in digital art could have something to do with the lack of physical movement involved in its making. Could what I know from my teaching about kinaesthetic memory be in some way relevant? Is it connected to how the physical act of writing a word repeatedly helps a student to remember a spelling? People have commented that my pastel paintings, whatever the subject, are full of ‘energy’. And that kind of painting is for me a very physically energetic experience. I always stand to paint and have been told that I pace about and almost ‘attack’ the paper – and I often feel quite physically exhausted afterwards! For me it seems unlikely that I could enter into that physically energetic state, seated at a computer.

But a few months ago, someone pointed out to me that the line between digital and ‘traditional’ art is quite blurred.

For instance, traditional drawing skills can be called upon when using a graphics tablet. And the ‘brushes’ in some ‘programs’ can give just the same sort of effect as a ‘real’ paintbrush. A huge advantage of  ‘digital’ can be the cost, especially as some graphics/illustration programs cost very little or nothing at all whereas most traditional art supplies don’t come cheap! No more expensive paper and paints to buy and mistakes can be reversed without wasting materials!

I’m almost tempted to have a go – but not quite, not yet! I enjoy the physical act of putting pencil to paper too much. But then there was a time when I honestly believed that I couldn’t write freely unless I had a pen in my hand and that has turned completely around so that nowadays, if I want to write something, such as a letter or a blog post, I would find it difficult to do without my computer! So who knows, maybe it’s just a matter of time?

I recently came across some digital art that took my breath away! Yes, really! It’s the work (above) of. Helene Kippert, showcased here, on Elinor Mavor’s.blog, Mavor Arts, where she interviews the artist. 

The thing about it is that it would be practically impossible to make art like this using traditional painting methods and it would be pointless to try! So maybe I’ve been misguided in comparing ‘traditional’ with ‘digital’ art and each has its own discrete place, like books in relation to plays and films. Maybe it’s when digital art tries to achieve the same end as traditional art that it falls short – in my opinion? Maybe digital art is at its best when it stays within its own boundaries as a separate but related ‘genre’?

What do you think?

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Sunday Smile...

.....with apologies to those who have seen this before.  

It just seems so appropriate after this week's 'fair' cuts, in which, apart from the wealthiest 2%, the poorest will be hit hardest!

Halloween and Other Festivities

 

Tesco is selling hot cross buns and my Easter Cactus is flowering, making me wonder whether, in my busy-ness, I’ve somehow managed to ‘lose’ a few months!

But no, I haven’t missed Christmas and we aren’t even yet quite up to Halloween! Some of our larger shops are full of bright orange and black Halloween goodies – pumpkins made of plastic, felt or real ones, witch’s hats, devil costumes, pitchforks, giant spiders, bats on elastic, false fangs, ghoulish masks and sweets in the shape of teeth and all sorts of ghastly horrors!

I wonder, though, how many of these Halloween products are actually sold because to me, Halloween always seems to be a bit of  a non-event. Apart from a couple of days in school making Halloween craftwork and greeting cards and explaining that Halloween really means the eve of All Hallows/Saints, it never seemed to make any impact until I moved to Abergavenny eight years ago. Then I was taken by surprise when I realised that a clutch of young teenage girls had gathered on my doorstep, full of giggles and a half-hearted ‘trick or treat’s. I was totally unprepared, didn’t know the form, so, Scrooge-like, I ignored it until they went away.

But the following year, I armed myself with a huge stock of the above-mentioned sweets and jellies and emptied them into a rather nicely made, lined felt pumpkin so that I would have something to offer to the ‘trick-or-treaters’ – who never showed up! So, as by this time I was teaching at home, I placed the ‘pumpkin’ on the table for my pupils to help themselves to the revolting, teeth-rotting festive fare. And they seemed to appreciate it out of all proportion to what they were actually being offered!

I have the impression that Halloween is taken more seriously in the US than it is here, where we seem to just pay lip-service to the last day of October. Maybe I move in the wrong circles, but I have certainly never heard of anyone holding a Halloween Party or buying a Halloween greeting card. And I have to confess, that I really don’t understand what the choice of ‘trick or treat’ is supposed to imply! Perhaps someone can explain how it works in practice?

Maybe it’s because Halloween is so close to Guy Fawkes night, November 5th, a.k.a. Bonfire Night, that it seems to be a bit of a ‘damp squid’ in the UK? Though even that seems to be downplayed these days, compared to when I was a child. We don’t see the children with their ‘guys’ propped up in old prams, asking for a ‘penny for the Guy’ these days – most likely there's a law against it. And of course, the selling of fireworks is much more heavily regulated and we are, quite rightly, advised to leave the bonfires and fireworks to the experts who put on public displays. Even so the fire brigades and the A&E departments expect to be kept busy on November 5th or the nearest Saturday to it.

But the public displays are pretty tame compared to the ones I grew up with in the Isle of Wight. Huge crowds would gather at the playing field at the top end of the town where the summer carnival processions set off from. A lorry would appear carrying an enormous effigy of Guy Fawkes, painstakingly dressed in a Jacobean costume, complete with lace collar and shiny buckles on his shoes and hat! 'Guy Fawkes' would be paraded on the back of the lorry, down through the town to the beach, accompanied by fundraisers collecting pennies in buckets and carrying flaming torches and everywhere young lads would be letting off ‘bangers’ and frightening the crowd!

Once arrived on the beach, the 'Guy' would be hoisted on top of a bonfire that to me, as a child, seemed to be as tall as a house! And there he was rapidly devoured by the flames as the climax to a thoroughly exciting evening for which I was allowed to stay up way past my bedtime! Even then I must have already developed a dislike of waste as the idea that the beautiful costume that someone had meticulously created should go up in flames after such a short outing, disturbed me and I was glad to go home at that point.

'Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,

Gunpowder, Treason and Plot!

I don’t know if this tradition still continues in the Isle of Wight and, if it does, it probably takes a much more ‘sanitised’ form to conform to Health and Safety Standards. But in any case, I do think that November 5th generally overshadows Halloween in the UK –  

- unless, of course, you know otherwise!

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