Speed paint

Speed paint 90 min in Photoshop from photo.

Visualising Data

One of the biggest difficulties I think people have had understanding the economic story that has developed in Ireland in the past 2 years are the scale of numbers.  I heard recently about a solution a designer, David McCandless, had created a solution for getting that kind of information across in a glance.  

The Billion Pound -O-Gram is it

Digital Painting - Animals

When painting in Photoshop one of the big challenges is to use textures. Among the most challenging is creating fur effects. I have practiced this a few times. Sometimes going for the full on cute factor. 

Tomos Moped Oil Painting

I have been really bogged down with work since the holidays and have not had time to do as much art work as I would wish.  I really want to get a big project going but have not had the time.  Frustrating - but I got to eat and pay my dues to the Irish Government so they can pay the poor bankers.  
Anyway during the last break when I got to paint I wanted to do something different . I chose my Tomos Targa moped as though I really am fond of it but I will most likely have to part with it in my next move.  In advance of this I though it would make a good subject.  It is an oil on canvas, 16 x 20".  It took about 20 hours to complete.

Other oil paintings

Over the wall

Plough horses
Ben Bulben

Rory's Story Cubes

Rory's story cubes is a game played with 9 dice.  On the faces of each die are images.  The dice are thrown and the challenge is to create a story which uses all images on the upturned faces of all nine dice.  It is a lot of fun and asks people to creative in ways which most people would not ever be called upon to be.
While the game in itself is worthy just for its simplicity and uniqueness there is something else very interesting about this game.  

I heard the inventor discuss the genesis of this game.  Both he and his partner work in creative industries.  He describes how the initial idea came to him during a creative problem solving exercise he practices called Advanced Civilisation.  The principle is that you imagine a civilisation in the future where all the problems we grapple with today have been solved.
The only reference to this technique I could find was a Course called The Genius Code Personal Learning.  I have to be honest and say techniques like these I would generally dismiss but inventors reported the cubes sold 20,000 units in a few weeks.  I would say it worked for Rory!