Tag Archives: art

I want, I wish, I hope, I dream

Tonight is our first event of the year where we invite parents into the school. We are having a meet the teacher event followed by a PAC – Parent Advisory Council – meeting. In preparation I am putting up a wall of photos of our students and staff (the Inquiry Hub community is 100 staff & students). I did this 5 years ago, and 5 years before that, so all of our students from grade 9-12 have not done this with me before.

It’s a black & white portrait of each kid with a quote underneath it. The quotes all start with one of 4 prompts: I want…, I wish…, I hope…, or I dream…

Here is a video describing the project from 5 years ago (starting at the 4 minute mark).

This is the process for getting these photos:

1. Ask students (in a form) to share the response to four questions:

I want…

I wish…

I hope…

I dream…

I try not to give examples. (I learned a couple lessons here. The first lesson I learned the last time I did this is to ask a follow up question: “What’s your favourite answer”, to help guide my choice when I pick their response to go with the photo. The second, hard lesson I learned this time is not to also ask for a school goal in the same form… this resulted in a number of students focusing all of their answers on school goals.).

2. Take high quality headshot photos of students with a blank background. I used a green screen, but a blackboard or even a white wall works. The main secret is to not have kids too close to the background. Another trick is to tell them NOT to look at the camera. Even just a class of 30 faces staring at the camera would look like a mug shot wall, and so looking away from the camera gives a softer, easier to look at collage of faces. (Another hint, set the camera up to take a black & white photo and save yourself conversion time.)

3. I created a black frame on PowerPoint with 4 boxes, having a slightly larger one on the bottom for text (with size 20 font and a light grey text rather than full white). I also set the slide size to 8.5″ x 11″ (the same size as letter paper). Then I add the photo, right-click it and ‘move to back’ behind the frame, then size the photo inside the frame and adjust the placement. (Another tip, once you’ve got the frame with text box set up, and you’ve tried the first photo and text and are happy, duplicate this slide, delete the photo and text so you have an empty frame on the second slide. Now duplicate this slide as your master.)

4. Convert to PDF, then take a Zip drive to Staples or your business print shop of choice, and print on 80 stock photo paper. Doing the prints here will cost under $1 each instead of several dollars at a photo place and the quality will still be great as long as your photos are high resolution and focussed (use a tripod in step 2). This year I shared a link to a password protected file that I opened when I got to the store, rather than carrying a Zip drive, but it took over 5 minutes to download because the file was over half a gig in size!

5. Place the photos on your wall. I did 3 rows alternating 4 and 5 columns of photos on the panels in our hallway. I don’t think they need to be done so neatly, but with the writing on each image, I suggest space between the photos and not an overlapping collage.

Here is part of this year’s wall with student faces blurred with an app. The pictures are very sharp.

The overall effect is pretty powerful and the wall really makes a statement. I love that everyone’s voice in the community is shared.

I first did this with a Grade 9 class 22 years ago, and it’s still a favourite project that I enjoy doing. And with that, I’ll leave you with my photo. Out of respect for privacy, I won’t be sharing clear photos and readable quotes of students, you’ll have to visit the school to see it.

AI generated art: DALL•E

I finally got my invite to use this amazing tool:

You’re invited to create with DALL·E

The wait is over, your invite has arrived! We can’t wait to see what you create.

My first request:

A water colour sunset on a beach with palm trees

This is what DALL•E came up with:

Next request:

A photo realistic image of a chimpanzee with the body of a turtle

Next try. This one wasn’t as accurate:

An oil painting of a man wearing a purple space suit in space with a space ship and a planet behind him

Asking it to paint a painting by a known artist:

A Dali styled painting of people at a party

Playing with a few more:

A pastel drawing of a dreamy world filled with Platonic solids

Pixel art of a surfer on a massive wave

An abstract painting of a watermelon planet

There were a few attempts that I didn’t share, just because they were not very interesting or missed the mark and I didn’t want to retry. Next I tried uploading a few photos, and these were generated:

The bottom left looks like a mix of me and Jerry Seinfeld. 🤣

The original of this next one has the sun as well, it’s just hidden by the ‘original’ banner:

Next I uploaded a doodle:

I think I’m going to enjoy using this tool. It’s hard to believe that each of these renderings are created by artificial intelligence, and that in a few seconds five or six different versions of your request are created. Here is one more that I really liked:

A 3D rendering of a man escaping from a colourful vortex

I think I’ll be using this tool to create some of the images I add to my blog from now on.

Lost for words

The past few days I’ve been really stuck on my daily ink. The ideas are not flowing, and when they do come they feel more like essays than short daily writes. But then I’ve wasted too long staring at the blank page to have time to write long, drawn out ideas. So first my writing feels rushed, and then my whole morning routine does too.

This exercise of writing daily has been very positive for me. It has helped me feel creative. It’s not just an outlet for my writing it’s a drive to produce, to create something every single day.

Every. Single. Day.

Well recently I have felt like I don’t have a lot to share. I feel like the things I want to share infringe on the lives of people close to me that may not want their story shared publicly. And most of all I question myself, wondering why anyone would bother reading my daily dribble?

I remember a while back some people were sharing a daily photo. I love photography and tried a couple times to do ‘A Photo a Day’, but my love for photography made me stop both times within a couple weeks. I would look at these forced photos that I had taken and think to myself, ‘That’s a photo I had to take, not one I wanted to take.’ Then I’d quit.

I feel that way about writing right now… but I don’t want to quit. I don’t want a period of not feeling creative to undermine a habit I’ve built for almost 3 years now. What I’m fighting isn’t just writer’s block, it’s self doubt that I’d have anything else to share after all this time. Mental menopause preventing me from creating any fruitful work.

I’ll push through. I’ll accept that what I’m producing now will not be my best work. I’ll tell myself that the muse will come back. But for now it’s more of a chore than an expression of my passion for writing. I said earlier that I struggle with sharing stories of others that aren’t mine to share, well the story I can tell is my own. And for now, that story is how I’m struggling to write daily. The story to tell is that I’ll muscle through, and while it’s not easy, it’s not a time to give up either.

Sometimes it will suck

I’m going to have to rush my morning routine because I’ve been writing ideas for my blog and each one of them will require more time than I have this morning to write them. So, I give them a title and shove them into my drafts for another day when I will be up earlier. And then I stared at the blank page, stuck.

On days like this I think of Seth Godin, who has written over 7,000 posts in his daily blog. Something that he wrote sticks with me… no matter how much you write, 50% of your work will be the worst 50%. You can’t escape this fact. So don’t worry about what you write, just write… and so today I’ll accept this post as the bottom half, but I am metaphorically putting pen to paper and I’ll hit ‘Publish’ soon. And maybe tomorrow I’ll put something in the top 50%… or at least the top 50% for now… because after another few thousand posts, who knows where it will rank?

Letting go of the worry of how good my writing is allows me to feel freer, and more open to sharing ideas. There is a time and place to think of just the right words, crafting an idea or even a sentence just the right way. And there are times to start writing and letting the words flow with little thought of how good the writing is. Sometimes suck is far better than stuck.

Creativity and NFT’s

I think by now everyone has heard of NFT’s.

NFTs (or “non-fungible tokens”) are a special kind of cryptoasset in which each token is unique — as opposed to “fungible” assets like Bitcoin and dollar bills, which are all worth exactly the same amount. Because every NFT is unique, they can be used to authenticate ownership of digital assets like artworks, recordings, and virtual real estate or pets. – Coinbase

Right now I think many people see this as a fad, and there are all kinds of tokens being created and sold for ridiculously high prices, which both make the news, and seem like a silly waste of money. But there is something here that is pretty special in two different ways. And when the dust settles and the fad-y-ness goes away, it is creatives who will benefit from these tokens.

1. Re-sale of art.

When an artist sells an original, they get the sale price and then they don’t benefit if the art is resold. Often an artist will take years to get popular (much less famous) and their early work is essentially given away compared to their later work when they become known. With NFT’s, artists can get a percentage of the resale value. The token can be tracked and if sold on an NFT market (rather than a private transaction) then the artist can keep a commission.

2. Tokens tied to real world rewards.

There is a DJ named 3LAU (Justin David Blau) who sold NFT’s of his work in an auction,

“The way 3LAU structured his auction was very cutting edge and the mechanics of the auction should be noted. There were 33 available winning slots in total for the auction. Slot #1 was the Platinum Tier, slots #2 – 6 was for the Gold Tier, and slots #7 – 33 was the Silver Tier. Each tier contained digital artwork, music, and physical goods (Vinyl) connected with the project. The winner of the Platinum Tier also won a custom song created by 3LAU with the winner’s creative direction, tokenized as a 1 of 1 NFT.” ~ Dennis Martin

In another auction, the top tier included lifetime tickets to every concert he does. And since this is an NFT that can trade hands, it can be sold if the buyer no longer wants this.

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So while you’ll read things like, A Rare CryptoPunk Ape NFT Was Sold for $10 Million USD in Ethereum, and wonder why? Or how this can be sustained? Or if this is just a fad? NFT’s will have value desired by others. Yes, there will be silly collectables selling for way too much. But there will also be the ability to play games and earn items of value that can be traded rather than just hoarded. And that is another way NFT’s will be used to trade items people will want to pay for.

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Collectables and video games aside, NFT’s will be a game changer for artists and creatives. And in a world where automation is making items better, cheaper, and faster; and where jobs themselves are becoming more automated, there will be more time and space for artists to hone their crafts as a way of making a living. NFT’s will be part of that future where artists can sell their work, provide experiences for their fans, and benefit from the resale of their work as their popularity grows.

NFT’s might seem like a fad to you, but they are here to stay, and some time in the near future you’ll end up owning one if you attend a live show, or buy a piece of art, or maybe even choose to pay for a song of artist you love to listen to.

Know the rules to break them

On Friday afternoon one of my teachers invited me in to talk a bit about portrait photography. I had told him that I did a lot of photography and that I’d be happy to pop in at some point, but I hadn’t planned a lesson. And so I shared a few key concepts like the rule of thirds, and moving subjects away from the background to eliminate the look of a mug shot, and gave a few more suggestions.

As I did so, I surprised myself with how much I knew as a result of years of doing wedding photography. Except that when I did weddings, I did them on film. I didn’t have the instant feedback of seeing a photo right after I took it. I wasn’t sure that I got the shot that I wanted. It was a lot more challenging to photograph a wedding 25 years ago.

The students had an assignment to replicate a few photos from well known photographers, and so after explaining some key composition rules, I told the that they will probably notice that a number of the photographs they were emulating broke the rules I was sharing. I told them that the reason good photographers could break the rules is because they understand them extremely well. “You need to know the rules in order to break them and still get a good shot.”

To explain this further, I shared some artwork rather than a photograph. I showed the Picasso’s bull.

I described how Picasso truly understood art, and that for him to draw a bull and give the full essence of it with just a handful of lines, he had to understand and appreciate what else he saw and understood about the essence of his subject. And he had to know his craft well, to be able to see what was needed to represent the minimalist view.

Most new photographers are better off sticking to the rules and paying attention to them until they really understand them. Only then can the break the rules well and still take a good photo. I also talked a bit about the uncanny valley in photography. For example, if you are taking a photo and the horizon is off of horizontal by 3-4 degrees, then the photo looks awful. We know it’s crooked. But take that same photo and tilt it over 30 degrees to focus on something in the foreground and the photo can work.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but when it comes to photography, and the composition of a good shot, there are certain rules that make a shot aesthetically pleasing. Unless you really understand these rules it’s not easy to break them and still pull off a great shot.

I think this rule about breaking rules applies to a lot more than just photography.

Eye of the beholder

I did a little digging and found this:

The proverb, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder‘ is attributed to Margaret Hungerford who was an Irish novelist.Hungerford lived between 1855 and 1897, and she tended to write using a pen name: ‘The Duchess’. In her novel ‘Molly Bawn’ (her most well known book), she included the idiom ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder‘.

Plato said something similar, but the Hungerford quote was the one I was looking for.

In our basement my wife put up a painting and I really dislike it. To her, it matches everything nicely and she likes it.

To me it isn’t art.

I’m not opposed to abstract art. There are abstract paintings I can appreciate, and like. But to me this isn’t art. It’s visual noise. It feels more like a distraction than an attraction. I don’t see an artist expressing themselves, I see a mess of paint on a canvas.

While I believe beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, I also think art has an innate beauty. I can look at a photograph and tell you that it is good, or I can tell you that it is poorly composed, or that it is beautiful even if the subject matter isn’t.

I think abstract art is like that too, and I think this painting was not done by a good artist, or even if it was, it certainly wasn’t one of their best works. I’ve threatened to paint over it. My wife isn’t amused.

If you know an abstract artist (and you admire their work), please ask them what they think of this painting without an explanation first. I’m interested to see if they agree that this isn’t good art, or if it’s simply true that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and I’m simply not beholden to the beauty of this piece.

The future is on the blockchain

I know that there is a lot of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) about the future of cryptocurrencies, but the reality is that the future will be recorded on blockchains.

Here are 3 ways that transactions will be tracked ‘on chain’:

1. Smart contracts.

When you make large purchases like a house, that includes a loan, the paperwork needs to be handled by lawyers or a notary, because the handing over of debt has to handled correctly or the transaction could leave both the seller and new owner holding the same debt at the same time, or the debt not being owned by either. Smart contracts recorded on the blockchain eliminate this by having the necessary transactions happen simultaneously only after all parties agree.

2. Decentralized finance.

If you have collateral for a loan, you won’t need a bank to borrow. These loans will provide opportunities for people who tend to only be able to access high interest loans to find more appropriate financing. And, the door will be open for loans slightly larger than micro loans, in many countries where this is currently challenging. When finance becomes decentralized regulations become a challenge, and the limits of borders and centralized control break down. There will be a Robin Hood effect where people with small amounts of equity can be both lenders and borrowers, taking the the decision-making and profit-making out of the exclusive hands of the rich.

3. Artists profit.

NFT’s – Non Fungible Tokens are baffling to many people and there are a lot of uses cases that seem silly. But usually when an artist sells a piece of work, they don’t get any value in the resale. NFT’s allow an artist to get a percentage of resale value. This is a game changer for creative people and NFT’s will be a way to track both digital and physical works of art in the future.

There are many other reasons to record transactions on a blockchain, but I think these three uses will be paramount.

The Van Gogh Exhibit

Here are some images and a short video from the Van Gogh Exhibit at the Vancouver Convention Centre:


This was truly a visual experience to be had. It begins with written information shared in socially distanced panels, then opens to the room in the images I shared above (there are 6 to scroll through on the Instagram post). If you get the opportunity to go, you will enjoy it.

Power to the artist

I shared some background on NFT’s – Non Fungible Tokens – in a recent post, ‘Digital, collectable assets‘. Since then I’ve thought about them a bit more. One of the things I think is most exciting about these tokens is how they are being used by artists not just to share and profit from their digital art and music, but also how they are providing opportunities for fans to share experiences with them.

See this article: AS 3LAU MAKES $11.6M FROM NFT SALES, HIS MANAGEMENT COMPANY EYES MORE AUCTIONS FOR MORE ARTISTS

“The top NFT sold during this particular auction, which included an opportunity for the buyer to record a song with Blau, fetched $3.6m…

“At a time when artist income has been severely impacted due to the loss of touring income and other factors during the COVID-19 pandemic, NFT auctions offer an exciting opportunity to monetize new aspects of creative output and Justin [Blau] demonstrated that in a historic way this past weekend.”

But probably the most exciting thing about the sale of NFT’s is that there is a digital trail of the sale of these, and many platforms that share them give 10% of the resale value to the artist. First, if a piece of digital art sells for $1,000, the artist will get almost $850 (far more than they would normally get if they sold art in a gallery). But then here is the really exciting thing, let’s say the NFT that originally sold for $1,000 then re-sells for $5,000. The artist gets 10% of that follow up sale, or $500. This is amazing! Often, art collectors make 100% of the resale value, but now artist can share in the success of their works being resold.

These two things: selling experiences as part of the sale of a digital item, and artist profiting from the resale of their work, are empowering artists in ways that were not available to them before. We could see artists that used to struggle creating niches that allow them to move from ‘starving artist’ to career artists that make a decent living sharing their art and passion for creativity. And in doing so, artist rather than producers, agents, and galleries, will see more revenue from the works they create. This could be a new renaissance period for artists.