10/09/2007
This is my favourite recent discovery. A fantastic site for the new Simpsons Movie. The site is so good that I may go and see the film again.
The site is full of brilliant ideas and lots of cool games to play.
The part that has captured my imagination most is the create your own Simpsons character bit. Once you've made one, there are lots of ways to share it with your friends. What a brilliant piece of personalised viral marketting.
Here is my attempt, although I couldn't quite get the hair right.
07/08/2007
When I went to the first GeekUp event in Leeds I became very jealous of everyone's lovely business cards. I decided it was time to sort that out and make my own. I wanted mine to be a little bit different and hopefully be something that people would remember.
I've loved origami since my trip to Japan in 2002 and thought this would be an excellent thing to use. I'd also tested the idea in a previous project and it had been very successful.
Now the design is done, they're quite easy to mass produce. The hardest part of the design was drawing the diagrams and making the instructions clear. It's good to flex my artistic muscles though. The true test of how good the instructions are will be if people can follow them.
You can download the origami crane business card template and have a go for yourself.
This may be the first in a series of different origami business cards.
16/07/2007
Kirkstall Festival was fantastic this year, and we had good weather for possibly the first time this summer. I'd helped Pyramid of Arts' Youth Group make an armada of sea creatures for the parade. We joined various other groups and schools from Leeds marching through the streets of Kirkstall. Everyone’s work was fantastic, and we were particularly pleased to be given the best group prize for our underwater parade creatures.
I'd gladly volunteered to play a giant drum in the parade. I like making a lot of noise, but I didn't realise how much pain a drum can cause repeatedly hitting your legs. I now have the bruises to remind me. I was able to ignore it was the most part, but it did mean I was a bit out of time.
Our sea creature parade consisted of a giant octopus, a sea horse, various fish of previously undiscovered species and many jelly fish. The whole group had helped with the ideas, design and building of them. Kate Woodfield was the artist leading the group and did a wonderful job with this project. We also had a few samba music workshops to help us work out some music to play on the parade.
We made the creatures by first making wooden frames from withies. Withies are bendy sticks from willow trees and are fantastic for making large light frames with. We then covered them in cling film to give them a solid surface. We then covered them in tissue paper soaked in glue and paint, and finally painted on extra decoration to get them looking just right.
We were all really proud of what we'd made, and it was great to be part of that and to show it off in the parade. I'm hoping we'll make more giant things out of withies and tissue paper in the future.
09/07/2007
I've made a 3D model of Pyramid of Arts' sculpture at Thwaite Mill. Pyramid of Arts is an arts charity bringing together artists with and without learning disabilities to work on large scale arts projects.
I wanted to have an experiment with creating 3D models in Sketch-up and see if I could get it added to Google Earth. Google Earth is a program by Google that displays pictures of the whole world and 3D models of some of it.
Pyramid made this sculpture about 3 years ago and had just finished it when I joined. It's Pyramid's first permanent work, so it would be really nice if it could be added to Google Earth. Hopefully more people will get to enjoy it that way.
I've submitted it to Google Earth, but it needs to be popular to get added so everyone can see it. Please visit it and vote for it.
For more information about Pyramid of Arts and this particular sculpture project, you may find the following links interesting: