by Marty Coleman | Mar 6, 2016 | SXSW-2016 |
Here’s the cover page for my presentation. It will animate with additional information after the Workshop starts.
I am finishing up the presentation and starting to rehearse content and timing this week. I leave for Austin Thursday, stopping in Dallas for lunch with my daughter Caitlin. I am staying at an Airbnb townhouse that I am hopeful will be a great spot.
Let me know if you are going to be there! Use twitter to connect if you can, I will be checking it often. I am @thenapkindad there too.
You will be able to watch the presentation on Periscope (hopefully). Just find me, @thenapkindad and tune in on 3/11/16 at 3:30 Central Standard Time (USA).
Wish me luck!
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by Marty Coleman | Mar 2, 2016 | Three Letter Words - 2016 |
Three Letter Words
And here are the last two drawings I will use in my SXSW workshop, ‘Igniting Creativity with Periscope’, next week.
Each one will be animated so that a statement appears in the blank bubble. First a statement with negative words that inhibit creativity, then the same statement but with positive words that ignite creativity.
What do you think the words are?
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 29, 2016 | Three Letter Words - 2016 |
Prepping for SXSW 2016
In continuing my workshop preparation for SXSW I am working the same angle I showed in my last blog post.
I am finding more three letter words that either inhibit or ignite creativity. Here are two more drawings I have done this week that will eventually illustrate these words and their meaning. The second thought bubble in each drawing doesn’t just contain a three letter word, they contain a sentence that has a word in it that I think ignites creativity. Any guesses?
Drawings and ideas © 2016 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 25, 2016 | Three Letter Words - 2016 |
SXSW Interactive Conference
I am going to be speaking at SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin, TX in March. I will be leading a workshop titled ‘Igniting Creativity with Periscope’. (Periscope is the streaming video app I have been using over the past year).
Three Letter Words
In preparation for the workshop I am creating some new drawings that illustrate my belief that there are a number of three letter words that, when added to statements we make about our selves, our limitations and our creativity can change our outlook and attitude from one of finality to possibility.
When I give the presentation I will not be showing the words at first. Being the mean person I am I will be making them guess. So, I might as well make YOU guess as well.
Two Illustrations
Those of you who know these words because you have heard me talk about them on Periscope or in past blog posts, keep quiet, ok?
Those of you who don’t know, guess away. What do you think the words are?!?
#1
#2
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 20, 2016 | Mind Image - 2016, Robertson Davies |
Purchase the Original Drawing | Original Drawing Series (4) | Print | Print Series (4)
See What?
Have you ever done one of those tests to see if you are colorblind? It shows a whole series of dot in various colors. If you aren’t colorblind you can see a number appear amid the dots. If you are colorblind, you can’t. Why is that? Because your eye’s retinal cones aren’t developed properly and so the color doesn’t register with the brain. In other words, you couldn’t see that color even if you wanted to.
YouTube Color Blindness Test
Trompe l’oeil
The history of art is filled with examples of the artist trying to fool your eye. As a matter of fact, there is an entire genre of art called ‘Fool The Eye’, better known by it’s French translation, ‘trompe l’oeil’. The goal is to make you think you see something that, in fact, is not what you actually see.
Pere Borrell del Caso, Escaping Criticism, 1874
Andrea Mantegna, Oculus (window to the sky), Palazzo Ducale, La Camera degli Sposi (The Wedding Chamber), (1467?-1474)
Surrealism
Another movement in art that uses the mind’s initial inability to comprehend is Surrealism. Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte are two who come to mind. There goal isn’t to fool you into thinking you see something you don’t. It’s to see one thing, then another and not easily understand how or why they go together. It’s that visual and mental dance of confusion that gives the art it’s power.
Salvador Dali – Three Sphinxes of Bikini – 1947
Rene Magritte, Empire of Light, 1950
What is Possible
The whole point of these and other works of art is to make you think about what it is you are seeing. To be fooled or confounded or challenged.
It’s telling about artists that so many like to fool us. Artists are great at challenging our pre-conceived notions of what is art, what is real, what is good, what is beautiful. Unfortunately, many of us respond to not immediately understanding something we see by cutting off our curiosity, our wonder, our open-mindedness. We judge and are done.
But if one is willing, in art and in life, to experience rather than judge, to allow for confusion and the unknown instead of demanding all answers immediately, then the rewards can be great.
Among the rewards are delight in discovering new ideas, enlightenment about how others see the world and inspiration for your own creative journey. And those rewards are definitely worth it in my book. How about you?
Drawing and commentary © 2016 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Quote by Robertson Davies, 1913-1995, Canadian Novelist and Playwright
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