Commuter Arts (and BETT day 1).

Date: 22 January 2014 18:37:42

So I'm in the very lucky and lovely position to be the in house artist for Steljes at BETT 2014.

Whu-de-woo?

Steljes sell SMARTboards. Interactive Whiteboards that you'll generally see in every classroom in every school, college and Uni across the nation. And thumpingly good slabs of screen they are too. I've been drawing on them for a while and love every second of it.

BETT is the British Education Trade and Tech show, held in London Excel every year. I've been there for three years now and it's a lovely show to be a part of.

So today? Steljes asked if I could do two hour long sessions on their stand devoted to screen art and, hey, who am I to say no. As long as I could bring my students to be part of the show of course, and they said yes, so it's all good.

So I drew, and I walked around the show, and tbh I'm a bit dog tired which is ridiculous (as the pedometer only says 8.3 miles over the day) and it's only day 1. Sigh.

However, on the way back, chatting with the students off and on, I drew these with my Jot Script stylus (which I'm very fond of indeed and ended up impromptu demo-ing to a range of people and companies today) and the Tesco Hudl, which I'm equally fond of. On the train and on the tube I'm always happiest drawing. I must be, as my wind down activity from drawing on screens all day was to draw on a smaller screen. At least I was sitting down for these pictures.

(Tesco Hudl, Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Adonit Jot Script. Drawn from Custom House to Waterloo on the tube.)

(Hudl, Adobe Photoshop Touch, Adonit Jot Script. Drawn from Waterloo to Woking on the train).

I also got to draw on two Lenovo screens and an HP, all of which I enjoyed. But more on that to come when I do a massive screen art splurge post Saturday BETT.

Regardless: thoroughly enjoyed the day, got to shake hands with (and watch while painting) the immensely talented Mr Roz Hall and drew on a range of screens. And the students who I traveled with were brilliantly behaved and as good as I could have hoped for, attitude and effort wise. Marvellous. Three days to come, so may have to pace myself, but for a first day it was a lot of fun to be a part of.