Top Tut points to top tutorials

I am always scouting about reading tutorials. In part it is because I teach and like to point students to resources but in part I just enjoy discovering good well written and illustrated tutorials. I recently added TopTut.com to my reader as they constantly dig out good tutorials. They describe themselves as being dedicated to web development and design, but have a look at Photoshop tutorials category and their most popular posts for a bit of reading.

 

SL Education has a blog

SLED (Second Life Education) has a new blog for educators in Second Life. It “is written by educators and for educators, for those who are seasoned Second Life veterans and for those just starting out, for those who are die-hards and those who are skeptics.”

 

Art Demonstrations online

For anyone who is interested in developing their drawing skills pay a visit to ArtDemonstrations.com as the site is a blog in which the author collates together links to tutorials, instructional material and art demonstrations on the web.

 

Blogs and blogging

With the new year there is numerous articles about blogs, blogging, starting blogs, improving blogs, using blogs, increasing readership of blogs etc. I too am reading articles, as in Australia students will be returning to study at the start of the new academic year. So I am taking note of articles I can point students too.

To set this in context for readers who are just swinging by, this blog is mainly written for my face to face visual arts students who take part in course run out of the Computer Art Studio at the School of Art which is part of the Australian National University. The course focuses on using the web to promote their work created in their studio/workshop as artists and designers. Part of the course I teach looks at blogs as a means of developing a professional network and self promotion.

So at the moment I am treating this blog like a note book these are a few articles I have found that I think students will find useful or of interest.

These two articles on Blogging Consistency and Posting frequency from I Blog You Blog offer good advice

Jason Kaneshiro on The Blog Herald has published a list of 25 Blog Improvement Tips For The New Year

For those that are new to blogging there is plenty of blogs on blogging Blogging Basics 101 is really useful and the sections contain many useful tutorials and tips. One of my favourite blogs on blogging is Lorelle on WordPress who consistently populates her blog with good articles.

 

A blog about copyright theft

Jonathan Bailey writes Plagiarism Today, is a blog which podcasts information about plagiarism, content theft and copyright issues on the Web. Great to listen to while working in the studio

 

What makes a successful art blog

Katherine Tyrrell of Making a Mark has written a very good piece on creating a good ‘art blog’. There are a number of points made in How to improve your art blog but what stood out for me was her point to be clear about your purpose in blogging. Katherine points out that blogs are about people getting to know the artist a bit like private views before an exhibition opening so for her, developing a relationship with readers is important.

Moving to focusing on content Katherine states “Be authentic. Be real. Be knowledgeable” which is excellent advice. I like what she says about blogrolls as it echoes her “be authentic” philosophy.

Kathrine’s final point in How to improve your art blog is what I think is the most valuable to new bloggers which is to keep blogging as success is not instant.

What makes a successful art blog for you?

 

Freshly Blended a blog

Nicole Lecht a bookbinder and print designer writes a regular blog, Freshly Blended which I have been reading lately. The design process, inspiration, techniques and products sold in her Etsy shop are reported consistently.

 

A newly discovered blog

I have recently discovered a wonderful blog which is written under the title of Gionale Nuovo by Mr H. By accident, I stumbled across Tales of the Arabesque which tracks the history of arabesque design from the Renaissance and the piece was so good I investigated further.

This is not a daily dose of links or trivia but a couple of times a month, well researched articles on the history of graphics and art appear. It’s well worth adding to your RSS feeds.

 

Upgrading to WordPress 2.2

I am currently going through the process of upgrading WordPress to 2.2. So if anything strange happens around here kindly avert your eyes while I get changed. I will let you know when I am done! Thanks!

Later
The upgrade is done and everything seems to be fine … Thanks for your patience

 

13 percent actually create

A new Forrester Research report Social Technographics breaks down the activity of social computing into 6 areas of activity. Authors of the report, analysts Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, use the term Social Technographics to describe a population according to its participation iat various levels.

Joe McKendrick of Fast Forward blog has a summary of the reports findings here

“Creators” (13%): Publish Web pages, publish blogs, upload video to sites like You Tube
“Critics” (19%): Comment on blogs, posting ratings and reviews.
“Collectors” (15%): Use RSS, tag Web pages
“Joiners” (19%): Use social networking sites
“Spectators” (23%): Read blogs, watch peer-generated video, listen to podcasts
“Inactives” (52%): Yeah, the rest of the world.

The figure I found interesting was that 13 percent of people actually make something. Sounds like a similar percentage to real life – but I have no figures to compare - it is more a hunch than anything else.