The librarian's tangents.

Oh it’s been a year…

The next stop on my art journey is this Saturday at the Maidenhead Art on the Street event. The more I find out about it the more I’m excited to be a part of it and I’ve gone from being a very irregular visitor to come to being  smitten with their art shop (an amazing place with four floors and an art room which makes my art classroom pale into dungeon like status. That said, it will not topple Guildford Art Centre from my affections as one of the nicest places on the planet, partially because I think Phillipa would kill me if I said anything even remotely close to that effect. It’s a close race though…)

The Art on the Street  event? Sounds brilliant. 120 pitches for artists to sell their wares, lots of information for new and growing artists, live music, treasure maps, all sorts. Fantastic stuff. You can read more about it here: http://www.maidenheadartmarket.org/

My involvement? Well, I’ve been drawing on a range of odd and unusual screens for a while, as readers of the blog will know, and one of my favourite screens is a Promethean IWB 500. Mutlitouch and a lovely canvas to use Art Rage software on. I’d already live drawn on a Promethean IWB at a trade show before and had video’d not only one of the images created (IWB art) but also the journey to the show (iPad art).

This time it’s different! This time there’s a plan (Last time I was told to show up and draw).

This time it’s a book draw.

Yes, I know. One of them… And yes, it does sound counter-intuitive bearing in mind we’ll be drawing on a large flat, matt canvas with digital paint.

The thing is, I know they work. I like the characters (The Dragon and His Princess). And to see kids come out of the session with a small book that they’ve made? Always very exciting. So I put my mind to how the Dragon and His Princess would interact with an IWB and, from then on in, the story pretty much wrote itself…

So… Here are some images that have been made during the planning process and, on Saturday… It’ll all be very busy and lively and exciting I expect and a very exciting book will be finished. Me, I’ve only done a small part of it, there’s much more to be made and that’s not my job, me I’ll just be there to hold the IWB pen and encourage others to do the cool stuff…. Videos and pictures of the day to follow, these are doodles from the week leading up to May the 12th, 2012th.

All images painted on Promethean IWB 500 using Art Rage software between teaching classes You can see a video of the making of two of the images above here: http://www.youtube.com/user/apaulio

Looking forward to it? Oh yes. That said I have to get a train there at 8 which means getting up at 6.30. On a night after youth group. And then wifeys out in the evening so I’m not even able to sleep then! (Then a Sunday group doing art and craft activities…. The fun never ends. Sunday afternoon will be sleep, sleep, sleep, as Damon Albarn once beautifully soundtracked)…

Big screen fun, small paper finale. Hope you can join me, say hi if you do.

Now:

So, now it’s here: Stylus t. Frog and the Weapons of Mass Construction. 100 pages of iPad artwork.

Yes, my ability to pick a succinct and snappy name still eludes me, that much is certain. But I like Stylus t. and felt he deserved equal billing. Although, again, bearing in mind he is in the title and I am a footnote also says a lot about me, psychologically, I suspect.

Anyhow, a sample can also be found at the same link above, and at £4.99 for 100 pages for the full on version  it’s…. good value? Hard to work it out. Some books are cheaper, some more expensive. Hopefully it’s a fair price. I am a struggling artist with a next generation Absenthe style addiction to uphold (hello Comixology app).

Hope you like! Let me know, if you do There’s lot in there from art apps (Brushes, Adobe Ideas, Art Rage, Eazel, Sketchshare and more), styli (Nomad Brush, Pogo, Stylus Sock and so on) and much much more…

Previously, in Kercalblogland:

(apologies is that’s confusing. I just realised I’d buried the lead in a big way).

Oh boy this has been a bit of a journey.

In Feb Apple released a desktop app called iBooks Author. I was instantly smitten, inspired, excited and so on. Within weeks I’d produced 90% of a book on iPad art.

So far so good. The application was easy to use, had a couple of niggles but nothing show stopping, and the process flowed pretty well, often late into the night, night after night.

And then I read the T and Cs. To sell a book I needed a US tax code. That took…. a while… I needed an ISBN. That was a little easier. And it needed to clear Apple iBookstore QA. That also took a while (6 weeks in fact although, fair play to them as soon as they opened the floodgates that must have been a LOT of words they had to read from a large number of submissions).

Hundreds of screen refreshes later I was rewarded by the little green dot and was so delighted I didn’t know what to do. As it was just gone 6am (having been woken by my son getting cross with Mario Kart) I tried and failed to get another half hours sleep. Now it’s the morning of emailing, texting, tweeting and as much as I can do to get any sort of interest in the work. We’ll see how that goes…

…and a brief info burst, as I’ve been asked for one:

Who: Paul Kercal – A level graphics teacher and iPad artist. And youth worker. And occasional writer. Where? Guildford College mainly. Why? Love iPads and iPhones: the screen offers a lovely immediacy – it’s fab to be involved in friction free artworking. When? I draw on busses and trains off and on. Sometimes in cafes, occasionally in pubs. For more info contact wd ((at)) kercal ((dot)) co ((dot)) uk

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 last week, in my year of crazy busyness, was the Surrey Skills Festival. Good fun, in as much as I always like to do collaborative art work and, as a result of my efforts, I got to connect an iPad to a large sports hall jumbotron.

The trees the kids drew were many (150 odd) but I’ve really not got the time to render them all out so here are my favourite 30:

As ever I can’t work out how to add youtube videos but if you go >>here<< you can see the video of the iPad linked to the larger screen. More video on that to come… Ignore the dull ramblings of a tired teacher in the background…

Also: I drew an owl!

Also also: here is the video from the ages 3 and up iPad art session!

Soon to come: the world’s first iPad/tablet computer only life drawing session – should be ace – and a collaborative exhibition of a few of my friends and a good amount of my iPad art stuff…. Exciting (tiring) times.

Also also: did some photography in the studio focusing (hoho) on, among other things, Stylus t. Frog but you’ll have to check back later to see why I was doing that…

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…

It’s been a long year.

Actually it’s been a long year starting July 2011 when things started to hot up in a big way for the World Skills Fest. Neither Stylus t. nor I feel like our flippers have touched the floor since.

In Oct it was the World Skills Fest of course, closely followed by LITS. That took me pretty much up until Christmas. So far this year it’s been demoing IWB artwork at BETT on behalf of Art Rage and Promethean, planning for a holiday club (this coming week), helping the Royal Academy staff get the most out of Brushes app (tomorrow), talking to the London Mac User Group (also tomorrow), prepping a few school trips (starting beginning of March and so on) and organising the run in for students towards their final exam projects. I’ve got a meeting about book 9 tomorrow as well. Very busy month!

Through January until now the main thing on my agenda was the opening of the Fine Art, Graphics and Photography students work at the Bar Des Arts, Guildford. (It’s on until the 20th of Feb so still time to catch it if you want to).

And it was a very cool happening indeed. Both the Bar Des Arts and Haydon Gallery were brilliant in helping me on the organisational side and it’s lovely to see the Fine Art, Photography and Graphics pieces side by side (well, photography are in their own room – their choice – but we’re together in spirit).

So, added here are a few pics from just before the opening. The opening night was nuts, students, parents, visitors and college staff all over the place and I took some photos (but they’re all awful) so here’s the gallery in the calm few moments before the storm

(the table was an exhibit, although it wasn’t always recognised as such. Made by a graphics student who also does carpentry at the college and a lovely mish-mash of both worlds… The pink sofa belongs to the BDA )

One student even managed to create three graphic pieces, print them on to vinyl and wrap them around drum kits. It makes for a very powerful display piece…

Most heartening for me is that a number of chosen pieces, chosen by the students not by me. were created on iPad. That’s great as it’s where I hope we’ll go in the next year, more and more. Certainly things like iBook Author, Brushes app, Nomad brushes etc all make life much easier in bringing people to tablet devices… Also lovely is that every picture here tells a story and a number tell quite large stories, whether triumph through depression or working around autism. There’s a lot involved in the artwork on show, and not just the framing and hanging of it all… An excellent show, hope to be part of many more as lovely as this one has been.

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).

As if the start of an academic year wasn’t chaotic enough, with the normal enrolment, paperwork, risk assessments, welcome packs and so on to be done I’ve also got the World Skills Festival to concern myself with. It should be ace, and terrifyingly huge. Apparently they are geared up to have around 7,500 people coming in every half hour and the Digital Forest is one of the first things that will be seen by main entrance 2. And there’s only two entrances.

Terrifying.

What isn’t terrifying is the concept: lots of people draw trees and those trees are placed into a digital forest which is shown on HDMI screen for all to see. It’s a collaborative artwork sort of thing I’ve now done several times and I can’t wait to see how this one looks in situ, although tbh the reality in my mind is always constrained by the budget I have to work to. What’s mind blowing is the potential numbers which tbh scares the wotsits out of me.

But hey, a chance to show off iPad, DSi XL and desktop artwork off, and the work of my students, and all sorts of all sorts and it’ll be ace. In many ways I can’t wait, but… but… only three weeks away AARGH!

Best of all, potentially, are the possible desks that we’ll be working on. Which sounds silly I know, but the digital forest has the capacity to be printed and shown on some AWESOME platforms which I can’t wait to get my hands on and see. Ace ace ace stuff. But that piece of paper is yet to be signed and agreed so can’t mention it just yet. Hope all of this comes out of my mind onto the stage in similar fashion.

But, mainly, AARGH! Scary.

I do a lot of sketching, in pads, by choice a lovely Peanuts adorned Moleskine sketchpad. So this is the 18th anniv card with the original sketches (first idea on the right and final on the left with the iPod Touch version on top). The original sketch is on the right because, generally I start pads at the back and work to the front… (at least until I make my mind up about what I want them to be).

Click image for the larger version.

Video file of the image here: Youtube!

Update: also – delighted to be tweeted by Cancom to say that it came first in their digital talent tweet competition Hurrah… Most pleased indeedy.

So I’m taking some students to London in September and I thought I’d walk the ground and see where we can go. Suggested venues were the Tate Modern (mixed feelings), the V and A (love it) and the British Library (ditto). As the BL has a sci fi exhibition – which fits right in with what I’m aiming to do in term 1 – I wanted to check it out prior to possibly taking the students there. I’ve come away with mixed feelings. The exhib is very good and there’s a lot in the LIbrary to make a trip very much worthwhile but the inability to take photos for personal use is tricksome. Mulling it over now but that’s not a tick on the positives list.

Anyhow: enjoyed the library and then walked to Camden, which is something I may do with the students, to enjoy some places I thoroughly love: the lock, the Stables and Chin Chin labs, purveyors of fine ice cream made using liquid nitrogen. My daughter and I had a tin of something on a moped at the lock and then yummed down some Mexican Caramel ice cream and probably both wished we had space for two

Once we had the energy to get up and move on we went to the Tate Modern (a lot of lovely stuff in there but some pieces which beggar belief in their inclusion. I don’t think I’ll take the students there, although it’s a shared trip so depends on what the other teachers say. For a start it requires a lot of maturity to walk around and examine the contents and someone wishing to laugh it all off will find a lot to assist them). Personally I like more than I dislike in the galleries but, well, daughter was less impressed and she’s closer to the target age group than I am.

Finished off, wearily by that point, in the V and A. I wish I’d had more time to be there and more energy to walk around it more fully, but it’s an ace place and if we don’t do the Library that’ll be my second choice with no hesitations. The blue and green sculpture above the info point was screaming out to be photographed, so I did. For the most part I took very few pictures and drew pictures as it was a mix of a reccy and a day out with my daughter. That said: some pics here…