Feb 13
So often, the hard part about teaching – and indeed, learning – is to get a basic understanding of the subject under scrutiny. Once an underlying foundation of understanding is established then the processes of consolidation and expansion of knowledge and understanding can happen. The ability to explain complex issues with simplicity is often a …
Feb 11
Starry Night (interactive animation) from Petros Vrellis on Vimeo. Occasionally one comes across a piece of work, whether in the world of atoms or the digital realm of bits and bytes that represents a quantum shift of imaginative and creative endeavour; the kind of work that makes one feel very humble indeed. And Petros Vrellis’s …
Feb 02
Anyone with any sensitivity to art could not look upon this image and remain unaffected by it. Painted in 1998, it’s a self-portrait by American born artist, William Utermohlen, and was created at a time when the ravages inflicted upon his brain by Alzheimer’s disease were already such that his work tangibly manifests his dwindling …
Jan 27
This portrait is somewhat out of sequence in relation to the recent paintings. It’s from one of my sketchbooks and I rattled it off in about twenty minutes one evening in early December 2011. It was one of those sketches that simply drew itself; every line seemed right and the whole thing was effortless – …
Jan 27
This Prezi is serves as a brief introduction to the differences between critical and creative thinking and was created as part of the course material for tutorial sessions delivered to Industrial Design students at Coventry University. Some of the notes are based on an article by Robert Harris, An Introduction to Creative Thinking, 1998. I’ve …
Jan 22
Creativity is intoxicating stuff. Anxious to keep my painting momentum going, I thought I’d have a go at a quick sketch, just to keep things moving. For this picture I painted with the surface horizontal as I looked upwards into the mirror. The diffuse tungsten lighting was largely from behind and a bit to the …
Jan 20
It’s no secret that I’ve come to despise the Apple organisation and all it stands for. [No neutral opinion from me!] Apple’s determination to control and screw content providers and consumers alike knows no limits. But even by my contemptuous pronouncements on their activities this is a whole new level of outrage from Ed Botts …
Jan 19
OU students who are or once were enrolled on the U101: Design & Creative Thinking in the 21st Century will no doubt recall the TMA11 assignment, which despite the odd numerical sequencing, is actually the first TMA that U101 students encounter on the module. For those who aren’t familiar with it, the nature of the …
Jan 12
The quest to dust off the old painting skills continues. Another self-portrait I’m afraid; largely for the same reason I did the first one! This self-portrait is larger than life-size which is the first time I’ve ever approached a portrait in this way and it took a little while to correctly eyeball the proportions and …
Jan 03
In a previous post I opined, more or less, that in design specialisms such as interface design, for example, any quest for some sort of universally intuitive solution is unequivocally doomed to failure. The reason for this, I argued, is that before any user of interface-driven devices can get to grips with them they must, …
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