Raw Thoughts Blog | amyburvall.com

Jun 27, 2019
4 min

#rawthought: What’s the Big Idea? A Thematic, Inter-disciplinary Approach

“It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night” – David Ogilvy I’ve been thinking a lot about learning lately, and how best to make what we choose to teach in schools poignant: meaningful, relevant, and memorable. Reflecting on the quote above, I think educators can learn a lot from the marketing sector. from Disney’s 1959 “Sleeping Beauty” – the e

4 views0 comments

#girlgroupgraffiti : My New Women’s History Month Project

Amy Burvall

Mar 4, 2018
1 min

#girlgroupgraffiti : My New Women’s History Month Project

Just a quick post to prep for my new March Women’s History Month project. I’ve done a few in the past, including Greek black figure-style portraits of famous women (this is a selection but I did about 100…just haven’t organized them) and of course curating my Historyteachers relevant videos…. This year (March 2018) I’ve decided to practice my special hand-crafted font I call “1962”, which I create on my iPhone 6 with my finger in Paper by 53. I love 50’s-60-s girl groups – th

1 view0 comments

Mushroom Moments: Art and the Hawaii Ballistic Missile Alarm

Amy Burvall

Jan 16, 2018
7 min

Mushroom Moments: Art and the Hawaii Ballistic Missile Alarm

from my #digitalDADA #mushroommomments collection For a while now I’ve been at extreme unease regarding the possibility of nuclear conflict with North Korea. I live in Hawaii, and grew up in San Diego – both extremely attractive targets due to their military bases, and in the case of the 50th state, its vulnerability. My mom used to recount tales of duck and cover drills during the Cold War, and she said she always asked her teachers and parents if San Diego (due to the Navy)

1 view0 comments

#rawthought: The Only Two Things We Should Teach

Amy Burvall

Nov 15, 2017
5 min

#rawthought: The Only Two Things We Should Teach

Forgive me, but I was a bit tricksy in the title of this post. I’ve been thinking about this for years, probably, but as I see society seemingly crumbling before us in recent months it’s become more of a nagging preoccupation. I’m a big fan of simplification…abstraction…distillation – of getting to the “ness” of something. What if our curriculum – any curriculum in any school – was based on just two domains…lenses through which one can peer and prod at everything? PHILOSOPHY

1 view0 comments

Amy Burvall

Oct 14, 2017
5 min

#rawthought: Autonomous Art?

This morning I woke to a post on my Twitter feed sharing an article from Prospect Magazine – “How the Human Got His Paintbrush”. It’s basically a well composed critique by Philip Ball of scientist E.O. Wilson’s new book, The Origins of Creativity. The topic is something I’m obviously quite interested in, and I’m a sucker for genetics (I blame the mesmerizing Mendel’s Peas film we watched in 8th grade Biology). I encourage everyone to at least skim this review, for it brings u

1 view0 comments

Visual Thinking: Image is Everything and Mad for Metaphor

Amy Burvall

Oct 4, 2017
3 min

Visual Thinking: Image is Everything and Mad for Metaphor

One of my favourite workshops I’ve developed is “Image is Everything”. It’s a visual thinking experience that can be anywhere from 1-6 hours (or all day, or over a two day conference). The point is NOT to “learn to sketchnote” as so many related workshops are. In fact, although I do drawings to represent my or others’ thinking, I would not identify as a “sketchnoter”. A lot of my friends are, and they are fab, but I need to distill…I need to simplify into one icon only…that’s

0 views0 comments

#rawthought: 10 Ways We Can Do Cancer Differently

Amy Burvall

Oct 2, 2017
10 min

#rawthought: 10 Ways We Can Do Cancer Differently

my minimalist self portrait It’s my ten year anniversary of being diagnosed (ironically in October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month), with a Stage 3 breast cancer. Since then I’ve had more than 20 related surgeries and have lost my mom to a double whammy of colon and breast cancer. I don’t have many photos of myself from that time period, though there’s a scarf-clad me popping up in a slide during my TEDx talk, in which I discuss the healing effect of collaborative creativity.

0 views0 comments

Thinking Like an Artist: Be Porous, Push Past, and Play

Amy Burvall

Sep 29, 2017
4 min

Thinking Like an Artist: Be Porous, Push Past, and Play

What seemed like ages ago I did my first TEDx talk – TEDxHonolulu 2011 – with my creative partner from “History for Music Lovers”, Herb Mahelona. It was really tricksy because we didn’t live on the same island and therefore couldn’t practice together until the day before the event, each having memorized our respective parts of the script and practicing with voice recordings of the other punctuated by pauses. To be honest I thought I’d never do another one until several months

0 views0 comments

#neruDADA and #DADAdelrey for #poetrymonth

Amy Burvall

Apr 10, 2017
3 min

#neruDADA and #DADAdelrey for #poetrymonth

‘It’s not Dada that is nonsense–but the essence of our age that is nonsense.’ One of my favourite creative movements (really more anti-art so I’m hesitant to call it ‘art”) is that of the Dadaists. You’ve heard of them – Duchamp, Man Ray, Tzara… Here’s a list of the major players (taken at the fab Dada exhibit at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art this past summer) As a girl who loves her remix, I’ve always adored the Dada approach. I’m even contemplating starting a workshop or onlin

0 views0 comments

#rawthought: In Defense of Black Stars and Blue Hearts

Amy Burvall

Apr 7, 2017
5 min

#rawthought: In Defense of Black Stars and Blue Hearts

image taken from a vintage book on my shelf The other day I came across this shocking (or sadly, perhaps not so shocking, but rather, appalling) photograph on Pinterest: Let it sink in for a moment. To be frank, it brought back all sorts of horrible memories of my years as a student. I have always tottered on the brink of wanting to please others and do well and at the same time pay heed to my innate “rebel” qualities, nurtured by an artistic, devil-may-care mother and an ext

0 views0 comments

Holiday Gifs: Bringing Magic to the Still Sketch

Amy Burvall

Dec 10, 2016
2 min

Holiday Gifs: Bringing Magic to the Still Sketch

Just a quick tip with an appsmash (credit that word to @gregkulowiec). I recently chanced upon a series of Christmas / Winter / Holiday -inspired sketches I did in 2015 for a series I called #novembrrrr. In fact, I even spliced them together at the end and made a quick film: I ended up losing several when my phone crashed but managed to salvage the bulk of them via my Instagram Lately I’ve been tinkering with a few apps, mixing them together to create new media. My favourite

0 views0 comments

Artistic Voice: Get Your Dirt In It (with Homage to Prince)

Amy Burvall

Apr 22, 2016
6 min

Artistic Voice: Get Your Dirt In It (with Homage to Prince)

Prince died today. He was one of the people from my heyday, though I was more in the Cyndi Lauper camp at the time (note that he did write her When You Were Mine). As I grew older I could appreciate how clearly talented and innovative he was – a true Renaissance Man in purple brocade. In the rainbow of posts documenting his career, I chanced upon this video of Dick Clark interviewing a very self-assured yet casual-cool 19 year old Prince. In this screen shot he’s explaining t

0 views0 comments

#gridsgestures with Nick Sousanis and #ds106 Daily Create

Amy Burvall

Apr 18, 2016
2 min

#gridsgestures with Nick Sousanis and #ds106 Daily Create

Last week I really enjoyed a little collaborative creativity exercise proposed by Nick Sousanis, author of Unflattening, and taken up by the #ds106 crowd as a Daily Create. I talked a bit about it in my previous post, where I admit to my difficulty in confining myself to grids. Here are all my doodles for the #gridsgestures project, and what I really liked was the fact that I didn’t have to explain them. Some people did…either in words affixed to their image or in the corresp

0 views0 comments

#rawthought: Learning Curve: Mondrian or Gaudi?

Amy Burvall

Apr 12, 2016
3 min

#rawthought: Learning Curve: Mondrian or Gaudi?

Today I had the pleasure of watching (and reading) Howard Rheingold’s interview with Unflattening author Nick Sousanis. Like Howard, I am a big fan of Nick’s work- not only for the content (which is phenomenal), but for the essence of it- the “ness” I mentioned in an earlier post. I love the way Nick maintained a process journal of sorts on his “Spin Weave Cut” site and always points people there to be a part of his “living” work. That is what the #showyourwork movement (via

0 views0 comments

Getting Picasso on Learning Technologies

Amy Burvall

Apr 7, 2016
5 min

Getting Picasso on Learning Technologies

my version: bull with wifi A few weeks ago I was in one of my favourite Twitter chats – #EDENchat – with Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth) as host. The topic was “Which Personal Technologies?” (check out the Storify), and overall was lively, helpful, and civil. But something about the conversation struck me about halfway through – it occurred to be suddenly that a preoccupation with devices, hardware, and software persists. Don’t get me wrong – I think most people have moved int

0 views0 comments

Making like Charlemagne: Paper 53 Takeover on Instagram

Amy Burvall

Apr 4, 2016
7 min

Making like Charlemagne: Paper 53 Takeover on Instagram

This weekend I had the supreme privilege of doing a #53takeover of the Instagram account of my favourite app – Paper, by Fifty-Three (@fiftythree). The folks at Fifty-Three have been nothing but lovely in all respects and the app has veritably changed my life and how I work – both professionally and creatively – so needless to say I was tickled. I approached the takeover from a teaching perspective – to me it wasn’t about showcasing my art but rather a few thematic “lessons”,

0 views0 comments

From the Lips of Vincent: Life Lessons from Van Gogh

Amy Burvall

Mar 31, 2016
5 min

From the Lips of Vincent: Life Lessons from Van Gogh

Today is Vincent Van Gogh‘s birthday…and there are so many thoughts going through my head. Perhaps the most spot on thing I’ve ever learned from him is the concept of “active melancholy” – yes, that is what he called it and it’s just perfect to describe the sort of creative frenzy one can go into while one is in a very dark place. My most creative moments have been in these times and I’m sure I’ll have many more. It’s a mixed blessing, of course. Given that Vincent wrote so m

0 views0 comments

#getsmART spotlight: Lessons from Andy Warhol

Amy Burvall

Feb 24, 2016
1 min

#getsmART spotlight: Lessons from Andy Warhol

In honor of the day Warhol passed away, I created this little film. It’s an extension of my #getsmART: Lessons from the Artists keynote I presented at Alan November’s Building Learning Communities. I’ve added more images and points, and this of course is only about Warhol. I’ll be doing more, but if you haven’t seen the Pablo Picasso one, please check it out. (I really need a better mic) #art #creativity #teaching #lessons #life #andywarhol #getsmart #pedagogy #picasso #amybu

0 views0 comments

An Artful Year: Getting Serious with the Series

Amy Burvall

Jan 13, 2016
10 min

An Artful Year: Getting Serious with the Series

typographic art by Sean Ziebarth (@MrZiebarth) I few blog posts back I took inventory of my various “series” on the Web – and even challenged others to think in “series” when they create. It’s been a few months and it seems I have thought of a few more, so here is the full annotated list. Most of the titles are hyperlinked to the Pinterest board where I’ve tried to organize and collect, but I have undoubtedly missed a few. You can also search my Instagram (all are posted the

0 views0 comments

She’s Alive!!!!! My Frankenstein Experiment with Motion Portrait app

Amy Burvall

Nov 28, 2015
2 min

She’s Alive!!!!! My Frankenstein Experiment with Motion Portrait app

This week I discovered the new Motion Portrait app. Basically, it takes a 2D image (ideally a face) and renders it so it looks 3D and the eyes blink and mouth moves slightly. There have been some amazing posts by some of my favourite Instagram artists like @blairz and @unskilledworker. I still don’t think I have it down perfectly but wanted to take it to another level and make a mini music video with the clips. I tried out two – the first was using my minimalist sketch of Nic

0 views0 comments

Amy Burvall

Dec 28, 2020
6 min

Also....Advent (an Alternative Advent Calendar, 2020)

This year I decided to once again use the digital Advent calendar creation site https://tuerchen.com/ However, I noticed that they don't...

7 views Write a comment

Amy Burvall

Nov 29, 2020
1 min

The #globalthankswondercut project

If you were to write a love letter to the world what would it be? A Crowdsourced Creativity Project In the midst of this global pandemic...

193 views Write a comment