The librarian's tangents.

Added this image to the prior post (Holy Prior Post, Pratman) and have also added a smidge of description onto the Kermode and Mayo facebook page so, since every word I write has significance and meaning and should be kept for posterity I thought I’d add that fine stuff here:

Long story ahoy, hope it fits*.

I’m doing a collab art exhib with youth group kids**, local artists*** as well as my iPad and iPhone art.

This is one of my pics and the image on the right is called Charlie Blimey (after one of Marks catchphrases). It’s drawn entirely on an iPod touch and the story of the pic is the down on his luck reporter Charlie Blimey meeting up with Julian L’Strange (played by Jason Isaacs in the never to be commissioned TV pilot) in an alternate world where Wikileaks happened in print in the 1970s(x*). In a daring move Charley is played by Simon.

So, despite having commuted on SWT trains for years ( ) and camped out when possible at the Curzon for a range of animations this is as close as I’ve got to saying hallo to Messrs K and M.

x*yes I know, but this is more Our Friends in the North than All the President’s Men.

All of these explanations aren’t on the fb page comment.

* the limit of the facebook comments character/updates.

**the exhib is of a magnificent 7 people, two who I work with, my wife, my daughter (although she doesn’t know this yet) – both of whom make brilliant and characterful soft toys, a local – and brilliant – illustrator called Sharon Davey and an ex-youth group kid (my daughter being the other) now turned youth group leader called Nick Thatcher who makes mashup machinery. All excellent stuff and my only fear (and a huge, crushing, damning fear) is that after all of the setup only one person will come. That said Triple FFF brewery have sent 34 pints to be consumed during the night and it’ll help if I’m on my todd.

(I will post more work by all of the other artists but for the moment here are two of the images on display from the 20 year old engineering genius, Nick Thatcher. The first is a working, USB powered, Mini Coil Gun ((naturally)) The second picture is his fully working high speed bullet proof segway. I kid you not. He’s built all of it, including the software/gyroscope programming, when he gets back from work which is, whichever way you look at it, pretty darn astonishing. Also on display tonight will be images of Coil Guns, laser guns and bespoke culinary artillery).

I shall Momento this post up so as to start with the exhibition!

Which leads me to the next two weeks:

Next Weds is this: an iPad art exhibition in amongst other excellent things. Guildford if you can make it and would love to see some lovely people there…

The venue is the very lovely Bar Des Arts, opp Yvonne Arnaud. It’s a great place for an exhibition and better still that it’s a collaborative work between different artists. True to form my stuff gets hung at the last minute (well, Tues and Weds am) but the stuff that’s ready now is glorious and the whole thing, metal machinery by a teenage engineering genius, soft toys by an undiscovered creative mastermind, Fine Art by lovely and amazing artists and so on, not to mention iPad art by the very modest Moi, mean that it’s going to be a fab evening. I hope. You can never tell, can you? But I love the contents of the room and the artwork going into frames very soon indeed…

And then… Well, the small matter of the world’s first tablet only life drawing session (April 1st, honest) and from then… Easter break I think and OH BOY do I need it.

Fade to black, we open at the beginning…

It’s been a week. Yesterday and the day before especially so.

Tuesday was teaching, new students interviews and then dash up to London to go to the US Embassy (note: iPads will be taken off you at the door. Small objects, suspiciously shaped like hand grenades, will not be). Still didn’t get my itin number sorted out so now have to phone the US.

Hurrah.

Then off to meet Lumilyon, who you should all know I am a fan of and she was in London. Happy happenstance and she’s a heck of an iPhoneographer. Was excellent to see her working.

Which led to the Hi5 innovation in teaching awards. I was nominated but failed to make the final cut. Least said the better really, although I was a little surprised and disconsolate by the end of the evening. Learning without frontiers seemed a little more future facing and implementing Youtube into a class structure or making a VLE wouldn’t have been my picks of obvious innovations, excellent though I’m sure they were. Hey ho. Will not talk of it again, although may post pics in the future and the food was very nice.

Then yesterday was, of course, iP3d night so I spent it with the LMUG’s and British Tech Network, drawing and laughing and chatting about liveblogs. All good fun. Prior to that I’d had an easy day of teaching 50+ year 5 and 6 girls how to do iPad art, despite the best efforts of both Arriva busses and South West trains to get in the way rather than get me there. Then another final meet up with Lumi and then to LMUG. Got home at midnight for the second night in a row, a smidge tired.

(also I’m being lesson observed so that’s this week completely frazzled then).

Unsurprisingly I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the Hockney exhibition at the RA in a number of ways and, just to spite everyone who knows me, in ways unexpected as well as the more obvious iPad art angle.

For a start the exhibition itself is an amazing sight. Full and free and flowing and fabulous.

For a second thing the Andrew Marr Culture Show special was wonderful. Thoroughly enjoyable stuff.

Now, those who know me ask what I thought of the iPad art, to which I reply – very good (although I do wonder why it wasn’t screened on iPad as it was in the Parisian show last year) – which is expected. Then I follow it up with ‘not my favourite work of the show’. The favourite piece? Well, of course it was wonderful to see the Grand Canyon and Route 66 up close and personal – both wonderful pieces – but the images which moved me the most were the video installations. I could have watched them for hours. I did, in fact. Mesmeric stuff.

A third wonderful moment came when I travelled to see Edith Devaney talking to Will Gompertz at the Apple Store, Covent Garden. Of course I decided to draw in the q, on the seat while waiting and during the discussion as it went on. Those pictures are the first four below.

(waiting for the talk to begin).

(Stylus t. Frog, waiting patiently on his seat).

(Will Gompertz, arts editor for the BBC, beginning proceedings).

(Will Gompertz talking to Edith Devaney).

While waiting for the show to begin I also borrowed the Apple Store wifi to do some Sketchshare collaboration with the marvellous Mr Marjoram:

… all good fun and very diverting from waiting for things to kick off. I must admit to harbouring the faintest fraction of a hope  that David might install Sketchshare and draw a collaborative piece with myself or my students one day. Who knows…

I was also lucky enough to be invited to the teachers preview night of the exhibition, where I drew this and ended up talking to, and making friends with, a good few teachers also in attendance:

…and then a week or so later I was invited back to the RA to help the learning team get to grips with Brushes app. Directly after that I went to speak to the London Mac USer Group on iPad art in general but, just before I did, I had a brief walk through the exhibition again and drew the learning team this:

All ways round it’s been a thoroughly excellent exhibition If you haven’t seen it yet I recommend it wholeheartedly. You may never see its like again.

Lastly – unrelated the A Bigger Picture, but I’m nervously anticipating tomorrow night. I’m up for an education award for iPad art in education for the World Skills Festival. No idea on chances – unaware of who’s in same category so assuming on a bronze medal at least. Then, on Weds, I’m the artist in residence for the London Mac User Group live podcast of the iPad 3 launch announcement.

Interesting times ahead.

So, I started today with the normal kids to school stuff from 6.45.

Just finished now. Didn’t sit down more than half an hour between 10 – 6, then walked home for an hour and half. Then been doing emails/work calls until now.

Tired.

BUT, got to do artwork collaboratively, using a fab new app called Sketchshare, on an iPad. On a Jumbotron. In front of a 100 or so people.

Tomorrow I get to do it again in front of a thousand. Interesting times! Pics to come, but now to sleep…

Depending on what the plan was, yesterday went to plan.

I say that because at the moment I’m taking things as they come, because I don’t know where things are going. I know where I want to be in a year, and I’ve got a couple of things I’m working towards, but for the most part I’m allowing things to move as a river flows.

Which has worked well, in ways. Yesterday being one of those lovely unplanned but successful stops on the journey.

First off, once I’d got everything packed for the day (and there was a lot) was a book meeting with Mr Moloney at a cafe opp the Royal Academy. Very nice it was, we had coffee and pastries and we discussed where the industry is as a whole, past projects, digital distribution, what comes after that and so on. When the pitch process started we quickly agreed to refresh a book I’d suggested to him a good year or so ago and two other pitches went well enough for sample materials to be requested. I’ve been itching to get back into writing for a while and these projects would be a welcome return for me as they’re not the big project I’ve got in mind but mini-steps on that path. The other nice thing about both projects is that they’ll have a good space for illustration within and that means I’ll have another reason to load up the art apps

Stepped straight from that meeting into the learning department of the Royal Academy, via a lovely impromptu meeting with friends on the way who’d been to see the Hockney exhibition. The q was massive and I felt a small amount of guilt that I was at the RA to teach rather than view the exhibition but would likely get to see more of Hockney’s exhibition as a result. It was a lovely time, a good number of department members wanted to see Brushes app demoed, the variety of styli that I’d brought with me and so on. I didn’t get to take a picture (completely forgot DOH) but it was just a lot of fun and they were an excellent class (bar the trouble makers at the back who were taking pictures of themselves and defacing them but that was all part of the experimentation of the session). Later that night the learning team were hosting a group of young people and I wish I could have stayed but I had another thing to dash off to at 6.

Once I finished showing the app it was a half hour back in the Hockney exhibition. I’d already been on the teacher day and had thoroughly enjoyed the larger percentage of what was on show. What I hadn’t got to see as much as I wanted to were the videos and it was an odd feeling to walk past everyone else viewing the images on display with the mind to get to one of the final rooms. When I’d been there last time a number of teachers had been asking me about iPad art (I had been drawing off and on through the exhib) so I only caught part of the video room. This time I sat there for as long as I had and it is just the most interesting wall of imagery I can imagine. Fabulous stuff.

After that it was back to Waterloo to pick up a friend who was joining me for the next talk and back on the Bakerloo line to Marylebone for the London Mac User Group. Fab stuff. I’ve been a few times now and get on very well with the audience anyway but to stand in front and talk away – I was nervous and as always I forget the planned notes I have and afterwards have forgotten everything I said during the time on stage. Everyone seemed happy with the demo and it got a good round of applause so my inner Egozilla slept well that night, all cities conquered or at least laid to a good deal of destruction.

What’s next? Today it’s holiday club for 25 10 year olds doing artwork, shrink plastic and mini-books. After that? Holiday club on Weds. After that? All sorts of interesting stuff, I just don’t know what that is yet…

Working title. I may go with ScreenPainter instead but this title always makes me smile. Stylus t. and I have shared quite a journey over the past few months.

The other thing I’m working on at the moment is a book. So, yes, another of those then. This one’s different though, in as much as it’s an art book almost solely about my travels with a variety of Apple devices: iPod touch through to iPhone 4S.

It’s a 100 pages long, contains over 150 pictures, photos and all sorts and chats over which is the best stylus, which art apps make the grade and some of the large scale art events I’ve run over the past couple of years.

Not sure how much it’ll be when it hits the iTunes store (I’m thinking around the £4.49 mark?) but hopefully it’ll be worth that at least I’ve made it in iBooks Author and that’s been a lot of fun to work my way through with only the occasional incidence of teeth grinding frustration.

Bit of luck it’ll be released on or around March the 1st.

First talk on the book 8 accidental tour will be at the London Mac User Group this Monday.

Wowsers. Don’t know where to start.

Well, the good, how about that?

I was made half redundant. So that’s mixed news. And it wasn’t a redundancy, per se, just a ‘readjustment’ of my working hours. So I’m now 2 days a week instead of 4.

Except I’m still in on 4 days because of my timetable: Mon for an hour, Tues for an hour and a half, Thurs all day, Friday morning.

So that’s the good news, in as much as I’m very excited to see what comes next. Scared, yes, but excited.

To balance, how about some less good news. Was VERY sad to see the WYAC, the youth arts centre I managed for 6 years, shut down by Surrey County Council as one of their series of closures of youth, disabled and elderly services. It’s a sad loss and I’ll do a longer post about that later.

Back to good! Last year, shortly around the time I stopped updating the blog, I was asked to host a space at the World Skills Festival on behalf of my college and the students, focusing on iPad and mobile artwork. It was a HUGE endeavour, the week before and the week of the show both clocking in at 100 hour plus working weeks and that’s before we even get to the finance, organising, logistics. Truth to tell I was utterly tired for a month after. But it was amazing and the students and I demoed digital artwork to over 10,000 people. More on that to follow too.

The week after? (Still good news) I was asked to do a similar something at the London International Technology Show.

And then Christmas is a bit of a blur, really. On the bad side just about everyone I knew was ill with colds or bugs or worse but we still managed to have our traditional two Christmas dinners over two days (long story) and a lot of fun on or around.

This week? I’m at BETT the huge Educational Trade Show at London Olympia for two days demoing digital artwork, next week meeting up with Mia Robinson of IAMDA,  Shaun Mullen and Valerie Beeby which’ll be lovely. Then it’s private viewing of the Hockney exhibition (VERY excited about that, loved the Paris show) and then prepping for a children’s workshop series in Feb. As well as all the normal teachey stuff like marking and UCAS and exams and all sorts. Oh, and a month long exhibition at the BAr Des Arts of 2nd years for a week, first years for a week and then teachers for a week. Also getting ready to be at the Learning Without Frontiers seminars too which is… next week or the one other, can’t remember.

Also: very excited to have some work exhibited at the Grove, San Francisco in the Art Rage exhibition. And a piece in the MacWorld/iWorld show in association with Nomad. But on the bad news side: I’d love to be at MacWorld but the time isn’t there at all (nor, really, the funds for an American jaunt, not just yet). There in spirit and I’ll be watching the show unfold from a distance.

Oh yeah! I also won Nomad Brushes inaugural digital art competition! That deserves a post later as well I think.

But as for now I need a coffee before the next class. Just thought I’d post to prove I’m still alive (at the moment0).

At the moment it looks like this:

(although without the mute button, obviously. Didn’t realise they turned up on screenshots…) You can still see the old website here if you so wish…

Now, or at least for the moment, it looks like this:

Which is an improvement. Still not quite what I want but times a pressing as ever and the Carbonmade chasis that I’m using is smooth and wonderfully easy to use. It is more of a focused thing though as it concentrates on the iPad artwork which is where I can see myself going in the near future (work being as it is, I shan’t bore you with the current ums and ahs).

Anyhow if you want a look-see you can now see it at www.kercal.co.uk

Also added the little dots below which will be at the base of all of my posts from now on in. I wasn’t overly happy with the break at the end of a post so this will do for now as a break between musings (it also provides links to the new folio as well as the youtube, twitter and flickr pages… ) I may make a couple of small changes but have a couple of small freelancey bits and bobs that I really should be getting onto, like about an hour ago…

Loads to update but, typically, no time to do so.

Since I last logged on I’ve taught 50 adults in a rain soaked gazebo how to draw in 20 minutes, been to a goth/steampunk wedding, finished off a couple of new images, taken a few photographs, attended a future ideas meeting in Reading, attended the Bagel Tech Mac blog recording in London and had my job role clarified.

Yes, job role, that old chestnut. I was working all but full time a week ago, as of September I’ll be three days a week and then, after December I’ll be 2 days a week. It’s a relief to know what’s happening and, to be honest, the feeling at work has been so monumentally sad over the past little while I’m not sad to be half going (and leaving one department entirely) but it’s still a strange half way house. I was hoping a slightly better solution could be found but it wasn’t, so I’ll work with what’s given me.

The tricksome thing is that I’ll now be going into freelance art with more intention than I previously have. Until now some of it has been for money (one job has paid for the family holiday which makes all of the midnight finishes bearable) and another I do as a charity role: they pay but they pay directly to four charities that I nominate. I like it, it feels like a tithe of time, or of talent and to know that my artwork supports the work of the charities I like is, again, a great motivator when I’m trying to get a piece finished or working to a good few changes that have been made late in the day (War Child, Christian Aid, Engage and National Autistic Society incidentally, all very powerful causes and ones I want to see succeed in their various fields of work).

From now on in? Going to have to be a bit more organised on that score. There’ll stil have to be a charity element to the work I do but… Ah well, things to think about and a finalised plan doesn’t need to come into place until December.

A couple of things I do need to do post haste. If I write them here maybe I’ll have to get more organised about the doing of them: a new web page, designed and hopefully created over the holiday weeks, a new look for this blog to fit into the webpage (no idea how to do that one though), a new portfolio with samples of the projects that I want to go and work into… All that sort of stuff. Selling myself, which I do so appallingly that I worry from the get go. I’m a good artist, I think. The trick is turning that into something my wife won’t hit me over the head with a frying pan over. I’d like to work more in art if I’m able.

That said a new teaching post may come available in the future, who knows. And I have a lot of work to complete for the college’s participation in the World Skills Festival in October (and if anyone knows an Action Script programmer I’d very much appreciate contact info help). More than anything else though the coin is flipped into the air now. Just got to see what side it lands on.

The Goodbye Guys. ((click pic for larger version)).

“Learn about colon cleanse” was the punchiest.

Short, grabs the attention, almost a Sun headline in the making. Whoever wrote that one needs to consider a change of career and write something more useful…

(Although I could say the latter half of the sentence about all spam I’m getting at the moment).