Adrian’s Microblog

austinkleon:

People often ask me to recommend books on drawing.  My favorite drawing book is Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book: Make a World:  It’s a collage-like approach to drawing: if you can draw simple shapes, you can use them to create pictures. Here’s an example of one of the spreads: The other classic book I might recommend is Betty Edwards’ Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain: The book features several gems, like her “upside-down” exercise, which recommends copying drawings upside-down: 

Familiar things do not look the same upside down. We automatically assign a top, bottom, and sides to the things we perceive, and we expect to see things oriented in the usual way - that is, the right side up. For, in upright orientation, we can recognize familiar things, name them, and categorize them by matching what we see with our stored memories and concepts. When an image is upside down, the visual cues don’t match. The message is strange, and the brain becomes confused.

These are, of course, not the ONLY books about drawing, but I think the two together will give you two complimentary approaches.  Feel free to share with me your favorites. Filed under: drawing

The Emberley’s book looks especially good.

Sara Bareilles covers Elton John’s, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.This is such a powerful performance.Part of many that were featured in American Voices with Renee Fleming.

Ben Rector performs ‘Brand New’ on TODAY

And now for one of my favorite Pebble apps: “Forecast Weather App” by Nate Bean.Aside from standard weather stuff, this one actually has some added features that I find really helpful, like:–”Feels like” temperature: Comes in handy for both summer and winter. (Indicated next to letter “F” on screen.)–Sunrise/sunset: Great for when you’re traveling. Also great for the photographer in me.–Temperature trend and precipitation trend. See when that temperature is going to start to turn, and at what point the rain may show up.–3-day trend, and 5-day forecast. Helpful look ahead.I really like this app when I want to answer more than the question of “what’s the temp and is it raining”? I can see what I should actually wear based on how it feels outside, and what my chances are of getting in an adventure before precipitation hits that day.Check it, and the Pebble, out! :)

Timeline for Classic Pebbles Arrived!Thanks Pebble for doing this – it breathes even newer life into my Pebble Steel, and I’m continually impressed with y’all for your design approach and spirit of fun! Happy Pebbling! :)

Bonavita 1-Liter Variable Temperature Digital Electric Gooseneck KettleApparently 205 degrees is the right temperature for coffee. And while boiling is good for black teas, other teas prefer 165 to 190.Might have to give a kettle like this a try.

Evernote and the Brain: Designing Creativity Workflows - Evernote Blog

I embrace the idea that there’s a new demystification process going on between the artist and the audience…. I’d like to see what the new construction is between artist and audience. There is a breakdown personified by the rave culture of the last few years, where the audience is at least as important as whoever is playing at the rave. It’s almost like the artist is to accompany the audience and what the audience are doing. And that feeling is very much permeating music. And permeating the internet…. I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable. I think we’re actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying…. It’s an alien life form. Is there Life on Mars? Yes, it’s just landed here…. It’s going to crush our idea of what mediums are all about. It’s happening in every form…. The breakthroughs of the early part of the century, with people like [Marcel] Duchamp, they were so prescient in what they were doing and putting down. The idea that the piece of work is not finished until the audience come to it and add their own interpretation and what the piece of art is about is the grey space in the middle. That grey space in the middle is what 21st century is gonna be about. —

David Bowie talking about the internet… in 1999 (via austinkleon)

These does seem important for understanding the Internet in general.

dannielle:

offbeatorbit:

“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

-Martin Luther King, Jr. | Letter from Birmingham Jail 

Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

A good reminder for us all. (And what a mastery of words.)

austinkleon:

austinkleon:

I’ve been thinking about that Margaret Atwood quote I posted, “You’re supposed to do one thing. If you do more than that, people get confused.”

It’s not just that other people get confused – you yourself get confused. You love all these things, but you feel like you’re supposed to pick one.

The best talk I ever heard/drew on the subject was Steven Tomlinson at TEDxAustin in 2010. He told this story: he was going around trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with his life, so he decided to visited a professor named Will Spong, who had a reputation for being a no-nonsense hardass. Steven went to his office and explained how he loved business, he loved theater, and he loved the seminary, and then he asked Spong to tell him which one he should choose to pursue. This is how Spong answered:

This is the stupidest question anyone has asked me. You’re telling me that there are three things you love and you want me to tell you which two to cut off…so you can limp along on the other one? This is not how things work. The advice I have for you is: don’t discard. Find a way to keep all three of these things in the mix. We’ll find out [what you should do for a living]. Right now, what you do is spend 2 hours a week whole-heartedly engaged in each of those 3 things. Let them them talk to each other. Something will begin to happen in your life that is unique and powerful.

He went on to explain, “You don’t need a career, you need a calling. And right now, you’re listening.” Here’s Steven:

Now, it’s interesting how he framed this puzzle: that there’s this technology for finding your way that doesn’t involve making some bold sacrificial commitment, but rather, being determined to keep all the pieces in play, and trusting that there’s some wisdom in that, that’s going to start to burble up into something you’re looking for. This is perhaps what the theologian and writer Frederich Buechner meant when he said, “You find your calling where your deep passion meets the world’s deep need.”

The thing is, you can cut off a couple passions and only focus on one, but after a while, you’ll start to feel phantom limb pain. I spent my teenage years obsessed with songwriting and playing in bands, but then I decided I needed to focus on just writing, so I spent half a decade hardly playing any music at all. The phantom pain got worse and worse. Luckily, about six months ago I started playing in a garage band with my friends every Sunday. Now, I’m starting to feel whole again. And the crazy thing is that rather than the music taking away from the art, it find it interacting with the art and making it better–new synapses firing, new connections being made, etc.

So, yeah, it’s a lesson I constantly have to re-learn: don’t discard. Keep all your pieces in play.

Thanks, Steven.

If this post (from 2011) seems familiar, part of it made its way into Steal Like An Artist. You can watch Steven’s talk here. Still some of the best advice I’ve ever heard: