My Drawing school is beginning to be quite successful, but it is noticeable that most of my hits come from California, the home of all things digital – a really wired society.
The trouble with UK viewings is that schools seem to disallow YouTube point blank, which is a terrible shame as there are amazing things on there. I’ve been trying to upload lessons to TeacherTube, but it is a horrible site to deal with. They don’t allow widescreen and it takes me at least ten attempts to upload a video. Once they are up, I seem to get good viewing figures, but I’m so frustrated with it. Can you help me? below is a test video from wordpress, who host my site. It’s a great service, but pointless if it can’t be seen behind firewalls. I know some education authorities ban anything from wordpress.com too. Crazy! Can you see this video on your school network? I’d really like to know. Do you have a special teacher login that lets you see sites the the kids can’t see? Can you have this site approved for viewing videos?
Snow: It’s Back
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It would be so useful to know. please make comments below. You can do this without having to give your email address.
It must be about ten years ago that I began writing lullabies with the idea of doing a picturebook. I had such negative reaction to the dummy I showed I kind of gave up. No one liked my hero and thought no one would by a lullaby books with unknown lullabies in it.
I’ve now realised that Youtube could maybe let me approach the project from a different angle, so, here for your amusement and delectation is a demo of one of the songs called City Lullaby, inspired by a hot steamy visit to New York. I was amazed at the noise and bustle that never seemed to stop. I wondered how any child ever got to sleep there.
If you like it, please tell your friends and rate the video by clicking on the stars in the top left hand corner. Enjoy – zzzzzzz
Here’s something to scare the pants off my author friends! I was wondering last night about the Nuss (see previous word of the day – my daughter says it should be nEss) of being an author.
How much of the desire to be an author is bound up in the physical property of a book? If books were replaced by downloads, intangible bits of data that you can’t find on a shelf in a library or bookshop, would so many people spend so much time and effort getting their first story published?
I think there is a difference between authors and writers. Writers can’t help themselves. Authors are people who have their names on books.
The author status is not the same in film or tv or computer games or the state as it is in the physical ness of being a proper book author.
The same goes for artwork. However beautiful a digital image it’s status will never compare with a real thing that you can hold or walk around. Or am I just of an older generation holding on to the old ways, while the new generation grasp new images and means of delivery without the burden of history?
If so, why, when we see something amazing on the internet, do we immediately click through to easyjet and book a flight to see the real thing?
Please vote for the Pink Car Rally coach to win the bling my coach competition by voting for them here
The Pink Car Rally is in aid of a fledgling children’s charity, called the Little Princess Trust, which provides children who have lost their hair (primarily through cancer treatments) with ‘real hair’ wigs. If we win this competition, we can take 49 pink passengers on the coach and if each one raised an average of £50 Sponsorship, we could raise in the region of £2500 for the charity!! How fantastic would that be? It means that the charity could provide wigs for 8 more children!! We NEED to win!! Please help us…..
Please look at the short film, which is introduced by Gail Porter, on the Little Princess Trust’s website (www.littleprincesses.org.uk) It tells the story of how the charity helped Melissa….
I’ve just removed my Cds and rd radio player from my studio. I realised that I don’t use them anymore. I get everything on my mac though iTunes, BBC iPlayer and Spotify.
I suppose this is quite a day, really. Anyone know what I do with all my old Cds? ( not to mention the Vinyl that has been in the attic for twenty years?) My old Cassette tapes are going to the dump. They are just unplayable now. If I try, I end up with lots of wow and flutter before the tape snarls up in the carriage system.
I’m listening to Chris Anderson Free: The Future of a Radical Price. I’m listening for free on Spotify.com. Yes, they found a way to get me to download the software. It’s on my desktop, I’m getting the feel of it and, if I’m never going to pay a subscription, I’m being advertised to, so they are getting what they wanted and so am I.
This week had an interesting talk with Marlene Johnson, MD of Hachette Children’s Books, and Rhydian Peters, Chairman of Peters Bookselling Services, about our digital future.
I think Chris Anderson will get to the Ubiquitous Candle argument about books soon. Candles used to be everywhere. people needed them and bought them. With electricity, candles had no use any more, so they became an art/gift item, made in smaller numbers so the price went up. The same will happen to books. They will become free. There is no way to stop the obvious without destroying the internet. Books will become gift items sold as souvenirs of the web item.
I now completetley “GET” the free thing. My job is doomed! Why go buy a book when you can get something similar on the net? specially now that Google is to turn Chrome into a net Os. Your netbook will startup and be online instantly. No waiting. The internet is your hard drive. I feel the moment I’ve been predicting for the last ten years has probably arrived.
But I just want to carry on doing what I do best. I guess that’s what the candle makers said and coopers and the fletchers and the lino manufacturers.
I know there is a demand for what I do – the difficulty is making a living from it online. I think I have to become an online author and illustrator. I think I have to build my name/brand so that I can begin to sell more than just books. Build a fan base, I suppose. The trouble is my fans come and go so quickly, I don’t really keep them as life-long fans who buy books. Perhaps I should have gone into something adult – each year I have to capture a whole new market. It’s exhausting!
So: I’m going to open up my artistic life. Include my fans. Let them know what I’m up to – maybe do more videos on YouTube, then maybe I could sell artwork and posters and cuddly toys too. I’ve started putting free content on my site already. See the Dark Claw Saga. Read the story and you will be able to buy merchandise from CafePress too. I think I should litter those free pages with adverts then offer a premium subscription service advert free. There has to be a way through this and I think talking, blogging and Podding about it can only help create interest. It’s going to be a massive amount of work, but should be fun too.
Now, back to my free audio book. Oh, did you want a review? It’s very thought provoking – how’s that?
Later… here’s the finished artwork from the video above.
For years I had radio 4 chuntering away while I painted. Then I started doing digital artwork and I found that I listened less and less. Recently I have worked through the day mostly in silence. I’d realised that when listening to talk programmes while working on the computer, I didn’t really listen. I’d miss important parts and want to hear them again. So recently I’ve listened to podcasts or bbc iplayer so I can replay parts if needed.
This morning I’ve been painting again and I noticed that I was listening to radio the way I used to.
Listening is a hard skill to learn. I wonder if computers in schools are making it harder for children to learn the skill.
