How I’m celebrating Science Fiction Day

To celebrate Science Fiction Day I am going to give a sneak peak at a very small sample of the robots being worked on at Project Isabella These guys will when completed be in lots of colours and materials and art styles and will be available to be purchased as large individual .png files for artwork and in sequenced .png with run and walk actions for game programming.

January is Creativity Month

Well! Happy New Year – we have made it to 2015. I wish you well and may your year be full of blessings.

As this year has started I have found myself researching days and months and celebrations. I have always enjoyed these sort of things so now is the time to explore it all a bit more and just see what little gems are out there! Of course I had to start with one that sounds like it represents my own life and work so wholeheartedly. January, The Creativity Month. Yes! At first glance it would seem I have started this one with a blast and have filled my digital hours from the wee hours of this morning with colourful and cute little characters that are in the making for Project Isabella. Today for many people is probably a day off for many but as I got knocked out over the festive period with a stomach flu thing, then I feel I have had a creative drought and needed to slake my thirst literally and figuratively.

So, January is the International Month of Creativity which was founded by Randall Munson.

It is designed as a month to remind individuals and organisations to make the most of the power of creativity. I know in my own home there is clearly going to be a need be some creativity in finding places for my daughters new possessions without the house reacting something like my own body did over Christmas!

For organisations it’s a superb time to have a period of reassessment as this may be the longest period teams have been away from one another over the whole calendar and the distance can help where creativity is concerned. Hopefully on return to business there should be still a smattering of Good Will and most promisingly that new exercise book feeling you had at school – a great time for some fresh thinking and creative ideas to get a look in. 

So for Project Isabella and myself as The Graphic Overlord what do I take from this? Clearly in actually creating and creativity terms, myself and the purr of hard drives here can confirm then I honestly do not stop! But I think the idea is greater than that and this Month of Creativity is about creative thinking and I really do need to make some commitment to one particular aspect of business. Creative thinking needs to be applied to sourcing and working alongside a team to market Graphics For Schools that is a service at Project Isabella.  So that’s a resolution of sorts from me!

How do you think you will take advantage of International Creativity Month to refocus your attention to creatively improve your business and personal activities?

Here's looking at you kid - Eyes from Filter Forge

The Eyes have it. Feel free to download any of these eyes if you can use them in your own work - they are in .jpg format and are on a white square of 300px. I will be making some in .png and .svg for the site over the coming days so there will also be an opportunity to buy more eyes if they are your thing.

I am a huge fan of Filter Forge and I have blogged on this subject a number of times, in fact I used to run a dedicated blog on the subject but now I spend too much time actually using it to dedicate my time to blogging on the subject all the time. Having said that I'd like to boost my Make Snake Policy over at Project Isabella Graphic Workshop by adding the odd post or two regarding some of the creation processes that I go through to develop characters, clipart and graphics.

So last week I put a lot of hard work into developing little characters with walk motions for Scratch and other programming tools and I'll be going into more detail about that next week but I needed some eyes. So this is an ideal opportunity to get searching the Filter Forge Library (not that I need an excuse!) and see what I could find. This filter at the moment strikes me as the most suitable. It is a filter called Cartoon Eyes by Redcap submitted in 2009 and I will no doubt be giving it some hammering over the weekend. I did tweak the original and removed an option called "Diminish Eye Size" as I didn't need my eyes diminished. Keep an Eye (oops a pun) on the Filter Forge website at the moment they keep having absolutely mad sale reductions on the price of the software which can be bought outright or as a subscription.

Next week I'll let put together a post on how these eyes get used.

Stegosaurus in the night with moon and stars

Having recently sold a stegosaurus hat on Zazzle I was actually really pleased and flattered as there are some great designs by some other folk on there in the same theme and I thought I'd spend a bit of time sharing those too.

Alice In The Maze - Scratch Project

I have been testing out a new character with animated poses - a little preview of Alice here at Scratch

Alice is a vivacious blonde that has been developed with a swinging walk and a lively run. She has a number of outfits that are bright and some of them work to a defined palette to make your design processes smoother. These will be added to Project Isabella Graphic Workshop next week.

Change My Name

Although I can hardly say

Everywhere I went people knew my name
Written on my face were the scars of fame

quote Trading Yesterday - Change My Name

I did think it was maybe time to change the blogs name to something that suited me and the thing I get up to a little better.

So "Impromptu Art" has now been renamed "The Secret Life of a Lollipop Lady" where I get to describe all the things I get up to creatively to learn and develop my business Project Isabella Graphic Workshop 

I have some posts lined up regarding activities on Scratch the fun I am still having with Filter Forge and Carrara and all this to proof to the new small children at the crossing that I don't actually stand there all day!

Why I develop graphics that can be used in Scratch.

Years ago I travelled the world as a Software Engineer. For many the exciting aspect of that phrase would be the idea of visiting beautiful cities in Europe, visiting Australia repeatedly and traveling around America. For me however my passion truly lay in the coding and problem solving. I actually happened on programming and the fact that I had a brain for logic after completing a Theology degree. A training course was offered after an IQ test. I was the only girl on the course. I think I surprised my family as I was a day dreaming novel reader, perhaps the term woolly headed and flibberty jibbet may even have been applied. But then that's family for you!
For me I would love to know that every child has the opportunity to learn programming in schools. There are cost effective ways that children of all ages can be introduced. Some of the articles below work through many of the, I have over the last 2 years worked with my own daughter in a couple of environments - Kodu so far has been her favourite and was particularly useful as she really struggles in her reading. The commands are developed with images but the overall environment is good looking and fun.
My daughter was quite delighted on the occasions when she solved problems in the coding, she displayed a natural talent and it has given me great joy to watch her work. This half term I will be working alongside her in Scratch to see how she gets on there. She is excited to know she can use the graphics from Project Isabella and I am looking forward to the holidays.
I would love to encourage children, parents and teachers to give at least one of the methods for introducing programming for children a go and if developing pretty graphics that support systems such as Scratch helps, then that would make my me so happy!
So that's why the SVG graphics at Project Isabella contain a snippet like this.

Use our graphics with Scratch

Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. It is available for free at      http://scratch.mit.edu Scratch enables young students to program their own interactive games, stories and puzzles. As Scratch is a graphical programming language these our SVG multi pose vector clip art developed at Project Isabella Graphic Workshop is ideal to use within the Scratch system. Contact us to see how you could get these graphics in bulk and very affordable to use in your school or programming club.

20 Resources for Teaching Kids How to Program & Code ...
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com Thu, 20 Feb 2014 14:30:00 GMT
Isn't it amazing to see a baby or a toddler handle a tablet or a smart phone? They know how technology works. Kids absorb information so fast, languages (spoken or coded) can be learned in a matter of months. Recently ...
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All God's Children Gotta Learn to Program! -- THE Journal
http://thejournal.com Tue, 13 May 2014 12:49:00 GMT
In 1967, Seymour Papert and colleagues invented Logo, a programming language designed expressly for kids and intended not to teach programming per se, but to teach 'powerful ideas' in mathematics, e.g., iteration and ...
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Here's how you can help teach kids programming - Pluralsight blog
http://blog.pluralsight.com Tue, 06 May 2014 16:44:19 GMT
Top reasons why kids need to learn computer programming.
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Women in Tech: Coding and Teaching Kids to Code - Developer ...
https://developer.salesforce.com Thu, 15 May 2014 16:55:51 GMT
I really like teaching, and whenever there's an opportunity for me to talk about what I do or to teach kids to code, I take it. I want kids to feel like I did when I was little: “Oh yeah, obviously programming is the best job!” I love the ...
Read more ...

Boost Your Zazzle by Using PromotiGraphics

If you purchase quality graphics or letter art from Project Isabella they come with built in advertising for what you create on Zazzle. Those using the Print On Demand Company Zazzle to create merchandise such as T Shirts, mugs and device cases are usually creative souls already, so why should they go out of their way to buy graphics to boost their Zazzle designs?

I have some great reasons and I am building a business around them - I want to hear you scream about Zazzle sales!

If you haven't heard of Zazzle, then as a quick explanation I would tell you that it is a Print on Demand service that allows creative folk to place images they have rights to use on all manner of things that the company will then print and send to you, or place in a online store and display it for someone else to purchase. If you would like to see a store feel free rummage in my own Zazzle store. Zazzle isn't the only Print On Demand (POD) set up, there are others such as Cafepress, Society6 and more.

So, back to to the point I am writing about today, I call my system PromotiGraphics and here are some reasons why you should consider using graphics from Project Isabella Graphic Workshop with PromotiGraphics to boost your Zazzle exposure and sales.

1. It's good for your store to vary up your work a bit and add new elements, as someone who creates images and graphics for a living I constantly find it is some of my least favourite things that sell, not everyone has your taste or style. Using graphics that push your Zazzle designs out of your normal groove will increase your exposure and potentially boost your sales.
2. It's good for your own creativity and artistic development to work with new tools and elements on a regular basis, why not use elements that are good value for money and offer promotion for your Zazzle store.
3. Project Isabella Graphics contain built in advertising, this means if you use them your item and the Zazzle store it is in will be promoted across many Social Media account and on the website at Project Isabella.
4. The PromotiGraphic catalogue is growing with many themes and each the the themes at Project Isabella contains hundreds of images, so you are by no means going to be struggling to be inspired. You are also able to post requests for custom items or to suggest the next items to be uploaded that have already been created. There is no need to feel like Project Isabella will not be able to produce something you can use in your next creative project.

Graphics with built in PromotiGraphics service can be purchased so far, on Etsy or at the Project Isabella website, other sites are being made available too.

It's not only Zazzlers that can use PromotiGraphics - but I am hoping some Zazzlers will like this as we know that boosting our store traffic to this growing marketplace is what it takes to sell our goodies.

Pinterest for Kick Ass Market Research

 

Pinterest is certainly fun to use and once you are in the swing, it is very compelling, inspiring and frankly hard to stop. Thankfully for my business it has a number of positives so now I can schedule pinning and know it's actually part of my working day - and that pleases me no end!

My business Project Isabella creates graphics, so before I sit down and start on a new batch or a certain subject I start a pin board on that subject. If you took a look at my board Fairy you would know that I pinned over three hundred - yes 300 images from all over the internet on the subject of fairy. I searched Pinterest for pins that contained the word "fairy" and also searched for boards that used the word "fairy".

So how does all this pinning of images of other people's fairies help my business? Surely that is just promoting other people's artwork? So to put pay to that attitude I would like to share the ways this activity helps me.

1. I have established that images of fairies are very popular. There are many boards, pins and pinners for this subject.

2. The subject matter remains active, I know this because when I pin Fairy things they are quickly repinned.

3. The Fairy topic includes vintage and modern material, this interests me as the subject is not a fad of a fleeting fashion pinning frenzy so it should stick around some more - definitely long enough for me to put together my collection of fairies and get them to store.

4. I have been able to study the popular images of fairy that can help me understand some artistic elements such as poses, lighting, colours and attitudes.

5. I can follow where fairies on my board get pinned to - for example is it to a board named "I love these" - or "Things not to touch with a mile long stick"

6. Basically I get the opportunity to study my subject matter and observe the traits of the most successful images as wells as observe the demand for such images. That is pretty good market research and it did not cost me anything other than a small amount of time, time I belief I can happily justify.

I don't think we have ever had to hand such a powerful tool to utilise in Market Research for artists and illustrators and I can confirm that for me it worked - a fairy figure was the first I sold in my new business - and here it is on my clients t shirt.

Brilliant!

You can visit this T Shirt at its store at Who Has Your Back?

So I have done my research on Fairies and now I have images of fairies that I have created for sale and a Pinterest board followed by fairy hungry followers - I wonder what could happen next?

Day 19 Book review! The Name of The Wind @_PVBOnline Daily Challenge

Book review! Which is your favourite book? Why?

I do have a favourite book and it is the first of 3 books. It is the only time I have read a book and then waited impatiently for the second part, I marked it on a calendar and wouldn’t you know it, it got delayed it was awful to have to wait. The second part did arrive eventually and it was brilliant too – now I wait for the third – I’m not good at waiting.

My favourite book is “he Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss and it’s the only time I have rammed a book through someone else's door just so they could read it and we could talk about it. I also wanted to check that it wasn’t my imagination on how beautifully it was written.

Apparently I wasn’t wrong it is indeed a wonderful piece of writing. However my reading chum and I did disagree regarding the main character. I am not sure whether that has something to do with us being different genders. In some books you are guided quite plainly on how you should feel about a character. Kvothe is the protagonist and in these books I honestly don’t believe we guided in our feelings. Having since looked at readers reactions on Amazon then I’m not the only one. There is one discussion titled “Is it just me or is Kvothe a git?” Notice it is a question!

My friend did not feel the character was flawed enough and this gave him a sense of of dis-ease, I however wasn’t as disturbed by him but wasn’t entirely sure I would want him as a friend.

The Name of the Wind is a big romp of a fantasy tale with magic, evil bad guys and a large landscape with travel. I would heartily encourage anyone to read it and then to read it again and revel in the language used.

Listen to this

'I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

My name is Kvothe.

You may have heard of me'

Seriously go and read this and if you are disappointed I’d really like to know why.