Crafty revival and future creation possibilities.

Hmm... my earlier craft project is still to be completed, it seems I need to improve my skills for the last part. A challenge is good though, I'll get there!

In the meantime, I've been doing some other bits and pieces. I've fallen out of the crafty habit for a while so it's good to try a few things out.

Using the templates in this photobucket album I've made myself a cardboard Katamari. I'll make a prince to match too - I need to downscale the original, that'll make it fiddly but I don't mind that at all. After that will have fun with cameras and paper models.... possibly also with glue. We'll see...

I've also put together this necklace. I'm not quite sure who it'll be for yet. Although I do like the colour combination it's not one I'm likely to wear.

Please excuse the rather grotty cutting mat. It's seen hard service in paper, jewelery and fabric crafting and both glue and a myriad of not-quite-healed cuts are starting to show. It still does the job craft-wise. I might have to rig myself up a better photo station. I have a great solution for very small objects but it limits my angles a great deal and isn't big enough for larger objects like the two crafts shown today. Time to learn how to do that...

Also, I'm seriously considering taking on another photographic project next year. I did a 365 photo a day which turned into 536 photos (on a previous blog). I'm not yet sure if I'll attempt another 365 or if I'll come up with something else. The last project I did was the found alphabet, it a great project though a few letters proved trickier than expected - that's not exactly a bad thing but didn't do wonders for keeping to schedule. There's also the possibility of experimenting with my interest in stop-motion though that'd be an entirely different creature. I've got a month or so to think on it.

Learning to Sketchnote

I've been seeing people's sketchnotes and hand-drawn infographics around the Internet for a while - I'd pretty much discounted doing this myself as my drawing ability is, if charitably spoken about, under-developed. Recently I've seen a few people developing their own skills in graphic note taking, one example being Kim Tairi, this being one of her more recent sketchnotes

Tx @kerrirusnak loved your talk #leadership #resonated #darefest filling my cup with #mojo #sketchnote #mystory pic.twitter.com/TYhdo1c72Y
— girl with fox tattoo (@kimtairi) October 27, 2014

While I'm between jobs I want to learn some new skills and keep on learning so this seemed like a good thing to try. I've had some small art sketch books about my house for quite a while and a lovely set of coloured fineliner pens so I picked them up and had a go.

I was surprised at how well they came out even if they're very, very basic. I didn't start by noting speeches, I started by making graphic notes and diagrams as a thought process to get me through a couple of situations that I was finding stressful. I found it a very good way of getting my mind through the situations.

Since then I've borrowed, on recommendation, The Sketchnote Handbook which I'll have to revisit from time to time. I've been using TED talks as practice and so far the notes below for Brewster Kahle's speech a free digital library is the one I'm most pleased with. Several others have had elements I've liked - headers or specific sections - but this one came together well with just the right amount of space to note the whole thing without leaving large blank areas.

There us space for improvement - the structured could use work, I'd like more typographical variation and I am not sure the emphasis always falls where I want it to but on the whole I'm pleased. I'm going to practice this more, both specific elements and actually producing finished pages - I'm gaining a skill and along the way learning quite a bit from the talks.

I might not be producing some of the wonders visible on Sketchnote Army but I'm very pleased with my progress.