Another memorable Design Indaba presentation was by Troika, a design team made up of designer and illustrator Conny Freyer:
Designer Eva Rucki: More
Design Indaba 2010 – Martha Stewart
27 Feb 2010 Leave a comment
At the last day of the Design Indaba 2010, Martha Stewart showed how not to do it:
She misjudged her audience and delivered a talk that came across like a sales pitch. Surely Martha Stewart had something more to share than how to do “paint by numbers” glitter paintings? I wonder if she had attended any of the other speakers, and had no idea what the event was about?
The audience was soon muttering and giggling and tweeting: More
Design Indaba 2010 – Michael Bierut
27 Feb 2010 Leave a comment
I have a new hero: Michael Bierut. He set the tone for the Design Indaba 2010 with an insightful, witty and inspiring account of how he “almost blew it” on a high-profile project .
It must be tough to speak at the Indaba – you are asked to show off your work to an audience of highly competitive and critical people. It it easy to come over as egocentric or arrogant.
Instead, Michael did what a good teacher does – he reminded us that learning only happens when we reflect on our own mistakes.
He told us the story of his involvement in a project run by the Robin Hood Foundation – the L!brary Initiative. More
Masha’s Activity
04 Feb 2010 1 Comment
in Inspiration
I just noticed this item on my Linked In profile page. I just love how it looks:
The Iliad and the Odyssey – Alice and Martin Provensen
24 Jan 2010 12 Comments
in Inspiration
I get frustrated by the limitations of my scanner. Illustrations often spread across both pages of a book, and its difficult to show that with a scan. So now I’m trying out a new approach – taking photographs from a tripod. Dont have the lighting quite right yet so bear with me.
To test run my new approach, I took some pictures of a children’s version of the Iliad and the Odyssey by Jane Werner Watson, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen.
This is another book I grew up with, and I spent hours pouring over these illustrations and memorising the names. Here is the cover: More
The Body (Un)comfortable: Teaching with blogs
15 Dec 2009 2 Comments
in Inspiration, Opinions & reviews
Recently Franci Cronje – a colleague of mine – ran a blog project with her 2nd year students. Some remarkable blog posts were created.
Teaching with blogs is not as straightforward as it may seem, and Franci shared her experience with me: More
Poor little thing
08 Dec 2009 Leave a comment
in Inspiration
Look what we found washed out on the beach this morning – a little sting-ray:
It was about as big as my two hands spread wide. Poor little thing.
Improvisation in Sand – César Díaz
05 Dec 2009 4 Comments
in Animation, Inspiration Tags: Animation, stop motion
My post on Caroline Leaf’s “Owl and Goose” has lead me to another interesting animation. Spanish musician-animator César Díaz used the same sand on glass technique to create this animation for the song No Corras Tanto.
César is a musician as well as an animator – in fact, he is one of the musicians in El Combolinga, the band responsible for this song . He was kind enough to answer some of my questions.
Firstly – the imagery in the animation was entirely spontaneous and improvised. César says: More
A silent Jabberwocky
04 Dec 2009 Leave a comment
in Inspiration
My batteries have run out, and my red light is burning. I have a number of posts lined up – but cannot seem to get round to finishing them. So in the mean time, here is a little free treat:
Jabberwocky told in sign language:
Suzie Templeton’s Peter and the Wolf
21 Nov 2009 2 Comments
in Animation, Inspiration
There is something deeply satisfying about a familiar story told from a new angle. This is the case with Piotruś i Wilk – or Peter and the Wolf – a puppet animation adapted and directed by Suzie Templeton. The story and music is the original Sergei Porkofiev’s Peter and the Wolf but in a contemporary setting and with a surprising twist in the end.
You can watch the animation itself here – I’ve included the youtube versions below. It’s been separated into four sections. Small warning – dont get too emotionally attached to that duck… More
Giving in to Pattern
08 Nov 2009 Leave a comment
in Inspiration
I’m really getting drawn into making more and more patterns. Soon I’m going to have to find an application for them, as producing patterns for their own sake seems so very self indulgent:
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Wallpaper
07 Nov 2009 Leave a comment
in All my drawings, Inspiration
I’ve always been very drawn to the work of William Morris, and it shows a bit in this one:
Fractal Virus
03 Nov 2009 4 Comments
in Inspiration Tags: Fractal Explorer, fractals, photoshop, Pixel Bender
So I’m sitting at home with a cold. In the break between reading Deon Meyer’s far too intense thriller “13 Uur”, I’ve been taking my pattern obsession to a new level:
Subblue’s Fractal Explorer plug-in lets me take snippets of my own drawings and turn them into fractals. I got the link from this post on feuilleton.
Starting with this seed image copied from my Dragon Girl drawing:
I created these fractal versions:
Drawing and Reading
01 Nov 2009 Leave a comment
in All my drawings, Inspiration Tags: drawing
A fairly recent drawing that did not go quite as planned:
I was able to generate quite a few patterns from this drawing. I’m fairly sure that these shapes are inspired by my reading of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars that I’d just finished, and Green Mars that I’m still reading. There is a lot of detail about mutating algae and other microscopic plants in the effort to terraform Mars.
In a previous post I quoted from Green Mars – Hiroko explains her understanding of pattern in nature. Here is a quote about different ways of understanding the world – the scientific, and the poetic: More
Masha du Toit 
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