Landscape in progress

Version 1.0

Version 2.0

Version 3.0


I am not sure where this is going but it's not there yet. Funny, it's a tiny painting (5 x 7 inches) and it's giving me a lot of trouble. Keeping me up at night even.

[Update. In the morning light I decided I liked it. Made a couple of tiny tweaks but I decided it's done.]

Version 4.0

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Still life

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Interstate 55 in Illinois

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Landscape

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Work in progress

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Still working on this

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R & R

I'm going to do some painting over the holiday week -- I'll be posting sketches and paintings instead of the usual posts for a few days.
Landscape fragments from along the interstate, along with some painting plans. More sketches here.

Painting in progress.

Let me know what you think -- your thoughts and comments are most definitely invited.

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The probabilistic age

Q: Why are people so uncomfortable with Wikipedia? And Google? And, well, that whole blog thing?

A: Because these systems operate on the alien logic of probabilistic statistics, which sacrifices perfection at the microscale for optimization at the macroscale.

Q: Huh?"

Read on for enlightenment.

(Thanks Richard!)

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A letter to Friendster

Dear Friendster,

We used to be close, but somehow over the last year or so we have just grown apart.

And then there's these emails you keep sending me:
"Dave, Friendster misses you"
"Dave, Friendster really misses you"
"Dave, check out the all new Friendster"

Well, I have. I have checked out the all new Friendster. And, well, maybe we can be friends some day, but for now it feels a little like you're stalking me.

So I'm breaking up with you.

We had some good times but it's over. Someday if I'm ready to be friends again I will let you know. In the meantime please don't call or write.

Sincerely,

Dave

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Visual thinking practice: Body language

Your body language conveys more than you may be aware. Whether you are happy or cranky, you broadcast your emotions by the way that you sit, stand and move. Your level of enthusiasm and participation in any group activity is easy to gauge, even from a distance.

Visual thinking is about using pictures to enhance your ability to solve problems, think about complex issues and communicate effectively. Are you ready to work on your visual thinking skills? You don't have to be an artist. Pick up a pen or pencil and try the following exercise.

1. Find a public place where people tend to congregate, like a plaza, shopping center, cafe or bar.

2. Take note of peoples' body language, and see if you can capture the essence of their emotion by drawing simple stick figures.

3. Limiting yourself to simple stick figures will help you focus on gesture and pose, rather than getting caught up in the details.

Doing this will improve your skills of observation, improve your sketching skills, and also fine-tune your ability to "read" the body language of others.

Read more about visual communication in visual thinking school.

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Noguchi + transparency = productivity!

Dave Mohrman had some ideas for enhancing the Noguchi filing system I wrote about last week.

At my request he took some photos and wrote up a brief description of his method. Take a look.

Thanks Dave!

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Visual thinking at work

The web development process in simple pictures. From PingMag.

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Visual thinking practice: Finding your visual voice

Finding a personal voice is about discovering what is unique to you. It's one of the things that makes you sincere, meaningful and worth listening to. Companies struggle with this as much as individuals. Which companies have a unique and personal voice? You know who they are:

- Volkswagen
- Apple
- Southwest Airlines

I'm sure you could name several more.

Visual thinking is the practice of using pictures to enhance your ability to solve problems, think about complex issues and communicate effectively. Are you ready to work on your visual thinking skills? You don't have to be an artist. Pick up a pen or pencil and try the following exercise:

Find your visual voice
Your visual voice is that intangible which makes your sketches, doodles, and whiteboard scribbles uniquely yours and no one else's. You could think of it as your visual signature. Here's a way to discover it.

This exercise will require a bit of time. You'll need an hour or two to complete it, and to be effective it needs to be done in one sitting.

1. Find an object that's visually interesting to you; something you wouldn't mind spending some time with. It could be big or small -- anything from a water tower to a stapler. The only rule is that you need to be able to observe it from life.

2. Get a pen and a stack of 100 index cards.

3. Now draw the object 100 times -- that's right, 100 times -- once on each card. It's important to do this in one sitting no matter how long it takes. Part of the exercise is to discover things that will only reveal themselves if you are bored or tired. In the corner, number each card from 1 to 100 as you go.

4. When you are done, put the cards away and don't look at them till the next day.

5. The next day, spread the cards out on a table, floor or other large surface. Take a few minutes to digest what you see. What themes or patterns emerge? As friend to arrange them in groups and put similar drawings in clusters or groups. You will have a few favorites. Ask yourself,
- Why do you like them?
- What do they have in common?

This kind of exploration works because the sheer volume of work breaks down any artifice or pretense and exposes your natural voice in its purest form.

Please share your favorites in the visual thinking school Flickr group.

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The visual thinking club

Visual thinking school is gaining in popularity -- it's number 13 in the top 100 at Seth Godin's new online community, Squidoo.

I created a blog so everyone interested in visual thinking can share their projects, pictures, thoughts and ideas. It's a place where people can post images, ask for feedback and comments, post thoughts and ideas, etc.

The image shown here is a bossman/geek drawing by Chris Brogan.

I also set up a Flickr group to share images, which will be visible on the blog via a Flickr badge.

If you want the "power to post" in the visual thinking group blog, just send me an email at dgray (at) xplane.com and I'll add you as a member.

Please join the visual thinking group blog and the Flickr group. I can't wait to see what develops.

Join us!

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The M curve

Interesting post from Noah Brier:

"For anyone who has ever been involved in a brainstorm, or just been trying to figure out a problem, you know about how there's always that low point. It's normally the time when everyone has come up with a bunch of good ideas and it doesn't seem like there are many other interesting places to go. Often brainstorms even end at this point. However, as I learned while having a drink with a friend of mine currently getting his MBA, if you push through that valley of ideas you will see another, even more fruitful peak. That's when the really great ideas come out. The innovative ideas."

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