Briefings

When people are taught to paint landscapes, they will often be told to make things further away tend towards lighter and bluer. Unfortunately sometimes people tend see this as a rule, rather than a painting trick to emulate the effects of distance and atmosphere on colour saturation. There are lots of similar guidelines that can… Read more: Art and Vision

In one way or another, I’ve been studying and doing art and craft for more than sixty years. I’ve also been involved with performance of various kinds, crossing art boundaries. For more than a decade I’ve taken people round the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, on the historic West Bretton Estate and talked to every sort of… Read more: Why Art, What Art

I had an accident when I was young that means that I am more aware than many how useful our hands are and what a nuisance it is when you can’t use them properly. I can’t easily use my right hand to pick up or hold things and often use my left to manoeuvre things… Read more: The Story of Opposable Thumbs

I’ve been reading a book where there is much extended and slightly repetitive musing about our experience of Time. Partly because Ruth is currently in a time zone that is thirteen hours ahead of me, I had a think about it. Without getting too technical, I thought I’d put down some thoughts that might clarify… Read more: Your Time or Mine?

I was around 7 or 8 when a teacher showed us how to make a version of an origami dragon head. It has just occurred to me that I did pretty well to make it, as just over a year before I had an accident that has meant that I can’t use my right hand… Read more: Skill without Purpose

There is a strong tendency in science to disapprove of anthropomorphism, meaning attributing human characteristics to animals. There is good reasoning behind that, but I suspect there is also a great deal of species snobbery involved as well. It is true that we can’t tell what is going on in animals minds. Sadly that is… Read more: Bring on the Zoomorphism

I am just reading ‘Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It.’ by Janina Ramirez. Coincidently I am also watching ‘Art that Made Us’ and also ‘Nature and Us: a History Through Art’ on BBC iplayer. All these cover some similar ground, weaving their own story around similar… Read more: Language, Trade and History

This is just a quick note on how my brain seems to have developed in relation to all the experiences I have had. I hope it might add an insight into brains in general and making the best uses of the human ability to see patterns. Who knows, you might start looking around you and… Read more: Joining the Dots

Ruth asked me try to explain AI briefly, so here goes. AI is, of course, Artificial Intelligence but, as no-one really knows what intelligence is, that isn’t very helpful. Artificial means that it is intelligence shown by a machine, though if we could engineer soft tissue that would probably count too. You get the idea… Read more: What’s it All About R2D2?

Addendum to the text below. Since this I have had all sorts of nuisance health problems, such as a failed hip replacement, but I now know that practice has enabled me to ensure that I generally make a better fist of painting such as this example. So the heading is even more apt four years… Read more: Keep on Trying