Winter

Mughal art at the British Library

Look at the British Library website for a preview of the current exhibition of art from Mughal India (from 16th to 19th century). The detail in the paintings is amazing, and the British Library website lets you zoom in on some of the pictures to see the detail.  For example, Try the squirrels in the plane tree.

Two brilliant stop-motion animations to watch.

First is DOT

The world's smallest stop-motion animation character shot on a Nokia N8

Next is GULP

The world's largest stop-motion animation character shot on a Nokia N8 

Both were created to show off the possibilities of the Nokia N8 camera phone. GULP was made on a beach in Wales. See the videos which shows how they made them!

The making of DOT:

The making of GULP:

In the sand

Archaeology round Leighton Buzzard, courtesy of the Sand Museum.

Shadow Art

Something to try with the standard lamp and an assortment of front room artefacts now the evenings are drawing in.

Dr Livingstone, I presume?

This week I made Find Me, Stanley, notebook for scholars of Livingstone.

I don't think he's taught at school. He's probably very non-PC. Hope so.

Find out what you can.

(I think he definitely should have had my notebook.)

Find out about fracking

In the news today, you can read that gas extraction by fracking is again allowed.

So we can outline arguments for and against, read the full BBC article and listen to My Water's on Fire Tonight.

1960 Hong Kong

In The World of Suzie Wong

Understanding scale

Here's a neat animated graphic which helps us understand scale - from the tiniest subatomic particle, to the universe.

http://scaleofuniverse.com/

When it opens, it shows human scale. Move the slider to the right to move in closer, or to the left to look at bigger things!

I got the link from Christine Gaskill in Hong Kong.

Go back in time

Look closely at the clothing worn by people in these recently discovered photographs of Victorian Newcastle.

Street scenes of 19th century Newcastle.

(Don't forget, ladies, that we have a challenge to produce four authentic Victorian costumes by Christmas. Choose the style of your outfit!)

The Lone Ranger

Read about the film we're all going to see next year! Where did the Western as a genre come from anyhow?

And while we're on the subject, see if you can answer this question. Who is Natty Bumppo?

Water Lives

'Water Lives..."is a science communication animation designed to draw attention to the important (yet largely invisible) life that underpins and sustains our freshwater ecosystems. Produced by Paul Jepson and Rob St.John at the Oxford University School of Geography and the Environment for BioFresh - a European Union project on freshwater biodiversity - the animation brings artists and scientists together to collaborate and communicate the concept that freshwater is more than an inert resource: instead a living, dynamic system inhabited by beautiful, important organisms largely unseen by the naked eye.'''

Read the write-up and see the animation here.

Ingenious solutions

When you don't have a limb, and can't grow one back, then make one.

Simon's cat

For the illustrators, here's how Simon draws the cat.

Non violent communication

Look at the NVC lists - when human needs are fulfilled and when those needs are not fulfilled.

What do you think?

The education debate continues

But can we stop having that debate about school versus home?

Education extends from radical unschooling in all matters living and breathing, through to vaguely autonomous, via a bit of strewing, bypasses my parental concern about the GCSEs/A levels, goes by CGP books, takes a turn to school-at-home, can stop at private tutors, flexi-school, alternative provision, college, full-time school, and passes back round to Internet school.

You choose.

The alligator in the shop

Like the red and white striped pole signified a barber's shop, what shop would display a model alligator?

Answer here.

Scale of the universe

Travel down, beyond the size of the cell, to quantum foam, string theory and yoctometer.

Then up again, beyond the planets, to the other side of the universe.

Use the scroll bar or click as you go. The Scale of the Universe 2.

Learn how to make a merman

Get going with that wire, papier mache and balsa wood. I want a merman!

Race to the bottom of the sea

Who can explore the profound depth of the Marina Trench? Start from here, with the BBC.

Photojournalism

Photographer Samuel Aranda wins the World Press Photo of the Year award for the New York Times. He captured a moment of a veiled woman holding a wounded man, following a demonstration in Yemen.

See the photograph, and others, at the World Press Photo site.

Who lived here?

Press freedom around the world

"Reporters without Borders" monitor which countries have an open and free press, and which ones limit what can be published, harrass journalists, and generally make it difficult for the public to find out what the government and big business is doing.

Here is their report for last year. The African country Namibia actually scores better than the UK! China is down with the worst.

http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2011-2012,1043.html

El Greco

A film I want to see. I'll ignore the poetic licence, historical inaccuracies and total fabrication. It's historical story-telling, after all.

El Greco.

Food means more than nutrition

Can we create a vegetarian version of the jiaozi dumpling?

NASA

Go looking for planets, moons and stars with NASA.

Bubbles

Video of toroidal vortices. I know it doesn't sound promising, but you should see how a dolphin can play.

Making a date with Pitt Rivers

‘Just occasionally, an artist comes to work with the collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum with such a sympathetic but different take that it changes everyone’s way of seeing. Such an artist is Sue Johnson.’ Jeremy Coote, Curator and Joint Head of Collections.

I doubt I'll undergo a profound change-of-vision conversion, Jeremy. But anyone who helps me take myself out of my brain for a couple of hours is good in my book.

Ladies, let's book ourselves an Oxford trip before 10 June.

Stuart Blackton & animation

'James Stuart Blackton (January 5, 1875 – August 13, 1941), usually known as J. Stuart Blackton, was an Anglo-American film producer of the Silent Era, the founder of Vitagraph Studios and among the first filmmakers to use the techniques of stop-motion and drawn animation. He is considered the father of American animation.' (Wiki.)

I think we should find out. Watch early animation over at Youtube.

When you're ready, spend A LONG TIME looking at the Pixar site. Check out How we do it. Also take time to look around the index of short films; click around to read the stories and look at the pictures.

The 10 most expensive books in the world

They missed off the one your mama hasn't writ yet, obvosly.

The 10 most expensive books in the world.

Listening to the deep ocean environment

Listen live to the sound from deep ocean sites around the world!

listentothedeep

See the BBC link

'I felt something was going to happen. It was the morning the wind changed direction.'

What next?

Weeping...

...is a response, to the 15 most toxic places to live.

If you want to try and balance out the depression, try 14 most amazing waterfalls.

(I particularly liked Blood Falls.)

Three-Dimensional Goldfish Embedded in Layers of Resin

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/01/riusuke-fukahori-paints-three-dimensional-goldfish-embedded-in-layers-of-resin/

Don't stop me...

...when you see me, heading out the door wearing my vintage knickers-and-bra set, strapping the ice cube tray to my head and holding a sparkler.

I do it in homage of wearable art, and thank you, New Zealand.

Before we tour the fashion gallery in the museums and go to see the show, if you are feeling strong, click through the theatrical costumes of Lady Gaga, since she's known for dressing up with ice-cube trays and the like.

I think I may use her for my inspiration with the fridge magnets.

Nigeria

I feel the need to worry about life and death in Nigeria.

Why can't everyone just be nice to each other?

America in Colour 1939-1943

The more I see of history, the more I see how we humans, we're just the same.

Thanks to the Denver Post photoblog for extraordinary quality colour pictures of a particular time in rural and small town America.

Life, it changes, and it stays the same.

Yuri Norstein animation

Coming very late indeed to the animation of Norstein.

Better late than never.

Hedgehog in the fog.
Seasons

Tale of Tales I, Tale of Tales II, Tale of Tales III, Tale of Tales IV. (I see the debate continues whether this should be considered the finest work of animation ever, or the second finest.)

Clip from The Overcoat, the film Norstein and team had completed 10 minutes of, after 2 years. Norstein explains a little of the film in this clip.

I want to be a scientist

They can play all day long!

I'm convinced. Shark found this: a hamster-powered submarine.

(I went off to find out how to bake a geologic time-scale cake. ... which reminds me, I want to compose the Periodic Biscuit Table... Shall we be scientists today?)

See? Your mother is RIGHT

Even the BBC says she is RIGHT.

Lentil and tomato soup it is then.

And you do not need to buy ready-made soups ladies, unless you're ill or can't be bothered. Mother's potage bonne femme is easy! Stew onions, carrots, potatoes, celery in butter or olive oil, add water and Boullion stock and hubblebubble it.

You can eat it as is ...or scrape out and add: left overs from the fridge; a handful of peas or spinach; tomato puree; tin kidney beans; whatever you like, because Gordon Ramsay's sure not coming round to eat it.

Another alternative I like is plenty of garlic and ginger in the original stewy steam.

Tell me your favourite veg soup.

How I fell in love with a fish

A TED talk by a chef - so, sorry Shark, he is interested in eating fish. But this talk is not really about eating, it is about sustainable fish farming. I like the idea that the fish farmer's measure of success is how many of his fish get poached by flamingos.

TED talks are about inspiring ideas - usually told by someone who stands in front of an audience and speaks without a script. TED stands for 'Technology, Entertainment, Design'.

Sculpture with underwater ink

Aqueous Floreau

See a deliciously sculptured world by coloured ink.

'It's rude to stare'

Well, I kept on looking, because I knew it was just a photo. And maybe I kept on looking just a little too long for comfort, but I knew she couldn't see me, right?

You go and look.

What do you think?

there can be no mastery over anything if you have no mastery over yourself -from gweipo.

Is 'losing control' any part of the creative process?

Papercraft architecture

From the Canon Creative Park site, the Architecture Museum.

Pick your building from around the world, download the paper model and instructions for assembly, then off you go. Make another papery mess all over the floor.

The love/hate relationship

I have a lot of sympathy with China; the country has a tremendously tumultuous recent history, and now faces enormous issues. And they don't half piss me off.

The Sketchbook Project

Lamma Island.

If you lived here... by Debra Morris.

I am enthusiastically imagining doing this myself - making a story of words and book art. In my mind, each page is rich and resonant and meaning-filled.

By page two the disappointing realisation will dawn on me that I can never compose or create such a living work. I shall abandon it in a drawer, where it will shamefully remind me of failure. Maybe that should be a story in itself.

What sketchbook story would you compose?

The Great Barrier Reef

BBC publicity for new series starting January.

(Shark, you can watch it on my iplayer while I'm cooking dinner.)

The panda census

Pandas are counted once every ten years. It's reported that numbers have increased since 2001.

Try this article from The Guardian.

Here's a report with video. (I defy you not to sigh aahhh when you see the babies.)

Royal Institution Christmas lectures

Try the experiments on the Ri Channel.

And on the BBC iPlayer for a week.

Bookbinding extraordinary

The 2010 Bind-o-rama.

From a woman who has just stitched four signatures without making a mess, this is one place to aspire to.

Discover Antarctica

You think it's cold today in Hong Kong? Try finding out about Antarctica.

Swimming reindeer

A mere thirteen thousand years old. Still beautiful.

(A bit like me.)

For the podcast. And the close-up.

History Cookbook

Pick a recipe that we can use today, given our more limited ingredients.

I followed the Stuarts, and clicked to discover Stuart 'food facts'. See what you can find too.

Luminarium Encyclopedia Project

Check out the bar on the right hand side! It's like Christmas come early!

Use rope to bind sand

Explore Colossal

Art and design to seriously destabilise your thinking.

This is Colossal.

Drawing the face of the sun

the sun 'with a broad toothy smile seems a commonplace fixture ... but it seems to me that the Sun was an impressively dour character ... disappointed, and dark'.

What do you think? Are we making the sun too happy? Is it time to make the sun miserable again?

'Neil, your bedroom's on fire'

Ladies, when you argue, I sometimes recall scenes like this. Then I can laugh, and not cry.

Draw a stickman

The first stickman I drew just crawled off to die...

Red and green for Christmas

Who colour coded Christmas?

What would Banksy do in Hong Kong?

But the Chinese probably wouldn't get the humour.

Banksy here, here, and there.

Tell me a story

'Oh no! We were making such good progress! Now look what you've done. How are we going to explain this?'

Lunar eclipse, Hong Kong

It's not a man who lives in the moon, it's a rabbit. Look at the moon; you can see the ears. Or read the story.

Tonight the rabbit is covered by the earth's deep shadow, and we're all unreasonably excited. We'll be out on the roof tonight, and when it becomes too cold, watching the webcast.

Learn about the lunar eclipse on starryskies and on wiki.

British Film Institute on Youtube

So long as no-one wants me to do anything else all day long ...

I'm finding out about Pepper's Ghost, Lantern slides, and watching movies courtesy of the BFI.

Witch cottage

A brilliant find! Ordinary country England under James I brought slap into the twenty-first century.

Great for Lancashire tourist industry, too. I'm looking forward to what they do with the find. Um, I hope they're not going to demolish it. (How did they find the cat?) Let's hope they give us intelligent historical interpretation and sensitive reconstruction.

More background here, and check out what's with hero Simon Armitage on the iplayer here.

Remember the exhibition about the Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins, in the fantastic Colchester Castle Museum? Let's visit again. Go here if you're brave enough.

(All the more info to help us talk about feminist interpretations of witches, about witchcraft in popular culture, and the practice of paganism.)

Of course I couldn't leave the subject without laughter.

Goldfish Salvation

Artist Riusuke Fukahori, who - alarmingly - has been salvaged and suffered by goldfish.

(When I first read that, I thought it said savaged.)

Nice fish though.

Le Voyage dans la Lune

Watch a black and white screening of this 1902 film by Méliè on Youtube. (I turned off the spoken narrative for the full silent effect.)

Hand-coloured versions were also available; one hand-tinted copy, discovered in 1993 and now restored, is touring from 2011.

Women in art

Beautiful, tender, modest, beguiling, graceful, fragile, here.

Alongside that, can we also hang out the flags for women who are fearless, determined, ruthless, cruel, angry, courageous, rebellious, pained, distressed, traumatised, vengeful, driven, triumphant, powerful, and downright scary.

Artemisia Gentileschi could lead the procession.

What's the story?

Beats our courgette space rockets

Food art.

One cable car ride I want to take.

I turned off the chattering and enjoyed the views.

A little bit of me is dying inside

Remember girls, they're new to you, but they make me feel a thousand years old.

Here are the songs V has asked you to learn.

I wish it could be Christmas everyday. (Not.)
The video they tried to ban. (I wish them every success.)
Snow is falling. (I hated it then. I hate it now.)

Seriously, did she not also suggest you knock out this one? Merry Christmas everybody. (I can tolerate this one more, mostly because by the time I hear it, I'm already anesthetised.)

In another fifteen years, you will feel exactly as I do.

Negligent seals?

Seals can't be bothered to pup check?

I would suggest that does not demonstrate a casual attitude to sealy motherhood; that demonstrates complete confidence in their offspring.

The Secret of the Unicorn

Let's make a date for the cinema for Tintin.

Ice, ice, ice

Visit Otzi's life, five thousand years ago.

Frozen salt water? Visit the BBC to discover the Brinicle.

The Gamburtsevs, mountains in storage, under the Antarctic ice.

Flowers that party all night

The night-flowering orchid.

If you were going to discover a flower, what would you like to find?

Street art or graffiti?

We don't see too much street art/graffiti in Hong Kong.

Click through the images here, at Cafe Babel. What do you think? The captions make several interesting points - graffiti is a means to create a community memory for example - but when you look at street art, what's your reaction and opinion? Do you like it? Would you want to see more of it? Does it make you feel included or excluded in a public space? Can urban art be great art? Should it be celebrated or repressed?

I still haven't made up my mind about this and I've been struggling with it for 30 years.

Andy Goldsworthy

Ah! I fondly recall the afternoon in Ashridge woods constructing the Andy Goldsworthy homage from thirty-two twigs and a puddle.

How it rained! IT RAINED. The puddle became a bog and we all stood on the twigs by accident. But we went home happy, for that day we made art.

Review some of the extraordinary output of the real Andy Goldsworthy here.

He has set me on a lifetime of deliberate arrangement.

Tell me a story

'Talking with hands'

Find out about chironomia. Who talks with their hands?

'Talent is pointless'

Discuss:

'Talent is pointless. Talent is transitional. Fleeting. Nice but dull. Fervour, enthusiasm, diligence, passion, bravery, naivety, fun - all way more important.'

- Mme Smoking Gun

'The point of education is to change lives'

Do you agree?

The full article is here.

RSPCA Young Photographer of the Year

Click on the images. Which one would you have to win?

I'm voting for the solitary sheep. That looking-very-stupid face is a cunning plan. All sheep do it. But they are brighter than you think.

'Would you want to be homeschooled?'

The New York Times ran this article and invited comments.

It's worth spending time reading through them; they start from mostly school-attending children, but quickly the homeschoolers discover the site and start to voice their opinions!

What comment would you add?

What to do with Wyoming's wild horses?

Here is the BBC news article.

The horses are apparently quite a sight. (But I can't get rid of the ad.) Can you see different sides of the debate?

I guess it's a little like the issue of stray dogs and cats on the island. Should we keep them and find them homes? Or is this poor management which leads to problems?

Remembrance Day

Review the faces of men who fought in the First World War, 1914-1918.

Click on some of the thumbnail images and bring them to large size. Could you imagine seeing these faces today on the streets, in the shops and as you move around England?

In some cases, the families of the men are presently alive as great-great granddaughters and great-great grandsons. They may even live on our street at home.

What do you feel, looking at old photographs?

Remembrance Day is also known as Armistice Day.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Visit Rotten Tomatoes to read the reviews for the 1939 film starring Basil Rathbone.

Watch this film with me!

What would your review be?

Photography

Set the slideshow in motion. Which image stays with you? Which image is the most beautiful, or the most strange?

Tell me a story

About how someone misread a sign.

From that moment, life was never the same again.

Are there jokes we shouldn't tell?

Jesus came upon a small crowd who had surrounded a young woman they believed was unfaithful to her husband. They were preparing to stone her to death.

To calm the situation, Jesus said, 'Whoever is without sin among you, let them cast the first stone.'

An old lady from the back of the crowd picked up a huge rock and threw it at the young woman, hitting her directly on the head. The young woman collapsed, dead.

Jesus looked at the old lady and said, 'Mother, sometimes you really piss me off.'

Should we tell jokes that might offend?

'The house stood alone in the middle of the wood'

Tell me the story.