The British Tech Bash and other adventures...
Categories: artwork
Tags: iPad artwork, British Tech Bash, Artwork
Date: 03 July 2012 13:40:55
So, yes, I know. Lack of posts and business shouldn't really be an excuse.
But there's just so much on! Yowsa! Only a short post to say hi, I'm still here. Mostly sane. Waning in places.
Last week was taken up with the same thing as most other weeks this year: getting a very mixed bunch of students through to marking and EV. It was, at times, a very stressful experience but now done I'm looking at (unless they are challenged at all) my highest bunch of stats for a few years. The lowest stat is 87% and the majority 97 - 100%. Which is nice. But OH BOY did I have some students who wanted for all the world to fail. Sigh. Most were brilliant and I'm VERY happy with the standard of artwork I got from the students but it's had a good few moments. Next year is stupidly exciting as I really like the students who I've interviewed and offered places to, including the four Asperger students which is an interesting addition to the class. Really intrigued by how next year will work.
This week? relaxing into everything I've not done for the past 6 as the stress levels ramped up post half term. Not all done but some are, which is nice. To come? A 50 strong yr 9 - 10 iPad art showcase and interactive session, a July 4th celebration with publishers in London, the British Tech Bash on Friday/Saturday, artist in residence at one of the Adobe Creative Week events, another school event (shrink plastic this time) an prepping for a couple of summer schools. Which, actually, is a heck of a lot calmer than I've been for yonks.
The British Tech Network? Who dey den? Well, if you know your podcasts you might be aware of the TWiT US tech network. I'm fond of their shows but the UK equiv, the up and coming BTN have a huge amount of heart, soul and character. And they're the local vote. And they're better than TWiT in a lot of ways. I've been invited to join in with their weekend meetup and I'm looking forward to it a HUGE amount. I've also created four bespoke images, just for them, which went off to print this morning and will be sold on the Bash weekend with all proceeds (over costs, sorry, I'm as broke as a broke thing and have been since going down to two days teaching a week) will go to the NSPCC. I really hope it's successful* so that I can do something similar for the National Autistic Society (people who know me will know why) but the Bash charity of choice is NSPCC which is cool. Very happy to have done the posters for the Bash with them in mind.
*hahahaha yes, I know. I'll keep on plugging away. Something I do has to work out sometime right? Tenacious is my middle name (if you jiggle the letters about and swap a couple).
Sample, teaser, tweeted images here:
(using the hashtags #btnb12 and #nspcc if you wanted to seek it out and retweet away. All of the artwork was created on iPad 2/3 using ArtRage - except one made using Brushes app. All were created using a mixture of styli but Nomad Brush being the key stylus on each image. I know each pic was taken with the images in Photoshop - in retrospect that's a smidge confusing but that's the program I used to resize them all to the correct paper size and check for CMYK gamut warnings. For the most part I think I still like Pixelmator a smidge more than Photoshop but the latter program still wins for large size work and gamut checks).
Apart from that? Probably forgotten a whole heck of a lot of stuff and hope to update the blog again in the not so distant. Exciting stuff on the horizon though, just a bit weary plodding through the maze.