Visual Creativity

Today I played with images as part of the Images4education course I'm taking and it was great fun. I tried a collage that couldn't save but made me re-think some issues. I discovered the fun potential of Flickr Toys, BigHugeLabs.

I thought about my origins, which was very hard, but in the end managed to write a simple poem and select a picture that represents these. Task two looked to the future, and that was much easier. And i enjoyed reading and browsing my coursemates' photos and poems.

Yesterday I drew on sketchfu, and coloured one of the templates that some members create. I love to see the creation of the sketchfu drawings. I was coy at first and my first pictures were two black telephones. Yesterday I drew a sunburned pig (site's suggestion), a sleepy red frog (lost in cyberspace), a beach for one of my students and, with the template, I began to experiment with shades of colours and light. And had what felt an epiphany when I realised how to get the effect of erasing something -if the canvas is white and you paint it with the same shade of white, you can't see it. If you use white on top of other colours on a white canvas, you erase it. Simple -it took me at least a week to figure it out, though...

Choose a title -OR, WILLIAM BLAKE'S MAN-MADE MANACLES AS INTERPRETED BY ME

This past week I learned.


This past week I lagged behind with assignments.

I stressed out fretting over assignments.

And I put 2 and 2 together. I experienced something I hardly ever experienced as a student in formal education. The need to complete the task no matter what.

In other words, I put product before progress (Freudian slip -meant process). A notion completely against my teaching beliefs. I don't intend to analyze why at the moment, but I did it. And it sucked -forgive the explicitness.


Especially because I was enjoying all the things that made me get behind. I engaged in different levels of communication and connection with various people;
                          I tried out new things and felt that cherished desire to improve for pleasure. I asked questions I'd  have never let myself ask -in the words of J.R (wonderful NLP Master Practitioner): I asked for my fried egg.


I received a few comments not intended to cheer me up, even though they did -simply a coincidence, serendipity, that brought me back to focus. From a team partner, from a tutor, from my inner voice, from someone in a website team, from my PLN, from some who will perhaps be part of my PLN (perhaps they already are).



I like process. I like pacing - wandering off - losing data that makes you revise and edit without intending to.



I like continuity and constancy in progress. I like fun. I like people.



                                                  And I could never enumerate all the things I learned this week.