Nature is amazing

The shape that this wave creates is truly incredible.
Happy St Jude day - the patron saint of hopeless cases (or as Wikipedia puts it, 'of desperate cases and lost causes'). I'm just grateful that everyone is safe and that my greenhouse is ok.

It's all about timing!

Quick Task 3

Just spent some time at Avery Hill doing Quick Task 3. It's all done, and printed out and it's only Thursday. It leaves me the rest of the week to try and get to grips with GIS etc so I can sort out the Demographics for Southwark.

I've discovered InDesign and am so happy. All I need to do now is work out how to link all the other processes together.

I'm not happy about the racket that the other students have been making in the Mansion Lab all morning. One lot were so loud they didn't hear me ask them to be quiet!

I'm off home now before I really lose it, just in time to go to the dentist and take my daughter to her sleepover. Half term was supposed to give me more time to work on Uni stuff. I forgot to take into account that they can now arrange things themselves then need Mum's taxi service.

My .pdfs wont load at the moment, I'll try again later.

I did try later and the pdfs from InDesign still don't work, I pulled them in to Photoshop and re exported them. Looks like I'll be using Photoshop to add more dynamism!

I had another go at Quick Task 3. I tried what Jamie said, and while it was an improvement, it still wasn't dymanic so here's my offering:

It's still not right, but I'm not spending any more time on this one. It looks like I'm trying too hard, the rectangles fight with the irregular shape, and I'm frustrated because I couldn't crop or mask in the way I wanted to. Time to move on to the next task.

How to embed a Youtube video into Power point using a Mac.

I was trying to put a YouTube video into my Renaissance Music presentation and found this.

I'll report back on how it worked later although it seems to be a big file - 31.4 MB. I think I'll just use the URL hyperlink for the one on Skydrive.

Fingers crossed, it seems to have worked, although I won't know if it moves from one platform to another until tomorrow morning.

Fingers crossed that the video and music clips all work!

How to embed a Youtube video into Power point using a Mac.

I was trying to put a YouTube video into my Renaissance Music presentation and found this.

I'll report back on how it worked later although it seems to be a big file - 31.4 MB. I think I'll just use the URL hyperlink for the one on Skydrive.

Photoshop - Task 2

Well, I have succeeded in doing something on Photoshop and I actually enjoyed it too. It's not the wonderful thing that hopefully it will be in the future, but I did manage to do it, it didn't take me all afternoon and I'm not traumatised by the experience so a good start. Just need to do the other 2 but I have to go food shopping now for my daughter's packed lunch tomorrow - yes, it is the H word, an all day hockey tournament (well, it's only all day if they don't get knocked out first thing). I won't be going to watch, I'll be continuing on Uni stuff, not sure if it will be Metis, Photoshop, the demographics of Southwark or what on earth to say about how the development of Renaissance music relates to Garden Design. You could all be in luck, it looks like being a very short presentation from me on Monday.

My first attempt with Photoshop, I even had a go with the filters on all the layers! I might get somewhere eventually after all. Still need some lessons though.

Here's another one, with a different model!

I did use different effects, promise, and I used context aware fill to clean up the foreground on this one.

Struggling for inspiration?

Have a look at these and see what it inspires -

40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World

http://twistedsifter.com/2013/08/maps-that-will-help-you-make-sense-of-the-world/

Found another interesting website:

This one has all sorts of interesting stuff - architecture, interesting materials etc:

http://www.dezeen.com

Rendering experiments

Wow - I used exactly the same pens on each of these sheets, promise, then scanned them with an HP Photosmart scanner.

Rendering on Cartridge paper

Rendering on Tracing Paper

               






















It'll be interesting to see the differences using different scanners. Must remember to scan the same pages at college.

Perhaps I'll do the same thing with some different colours to see if there's less variation between paper and trace.

Back to Procrastination!

Not bad as grottos go - Tiberius knew what he was doing at Sperlonga!

Some of you will remember the great procrastinations of last year so here's a quick one from me before I go back to my Roman grottos!

I was back at 'Little School' yesterday, and was lovely. It also reminded me that it was us trailing around the Hadlow grounds like confused lost souls 3 or 2 years ago.

It brought back all sorts of memories seeing the new students replanting the annual bedding by the carpark. I went to see the Tropical Borders. They are amazing this year, an absolute jungle of luxurious leaf growth, exactly what the intension is for the design. Shame I didn't take my camera.

It reinforced the realisation that we have to understand and plan for of the changing factors of time and variable climate conditions, not only from season to season but also from year to year, and that if we do it properly, we have an ever changing tapestry to create.

Navel gazing

I've just looked through to find my client & process design to post as per instruction from Jamie and all it did was bring back the horror, terror and nausea that I felt when I was doing it. I'm also appalled at it - there are some terrible mistakes in it, let along that fact that half of it is missing. It just reinforces the fact that even if I could come up with a decent design, I simply don't have the skills to express the ideas at the moment. It's so demoralising, AGAIN. Forget my best work, there isn't any, it will simply be what I actually managed!

I feel that I've gained no skills during the last 3 years at all. I've gained lots of knowledge and insight but very few skills.

I can't afford to be this despondent, this early in the term. I'll take the photoshop book to hockey tonight and do the lessons again. Perhaps this time they might sink in and I can work out how they might be useful to me.

Onwards and upwards - I don't have much further down to go!