SEEing You Around: Where to Find my Visual Creative Projects
Recently in preparation for an interview on visual thinking with the Bedley Brothers I jotted down my seemingly ever-increasing menu of sketch-related and other visual projects on the Web. Some are individual (though most are shared) and others are meant to be more crowdsourced and collaborative. It goes to show that some projects need to be abandoned…I lose interest or they lost momentum…but that is not to say they cannot be resurrected, or adapted or morphed into other things. I look forward to what new adventures await in my visual playground.
Hopefully some of you will find these useful or interesting to peruse at least.
Visual Thinking G+ community
this is an OPEN community I use for workshops and post to frequently. Anyone may join and there are all kinds of categories!
Image is Everything Workshop Trailer
(for my workshop, which can be anywhere from 2-8 hours if you are interested in booking me)
Graffikon Website
(for my new side business, sketch services): bear in mind that I don’t do traditional “sketchnoting” per se – which is more detailed, comprehensive and literal. I am more of an impressionistic type of archivist and although I prefer my usual pink and black, will negotiate with you if you would like brand colours.
on Paper’s MIX https://paper.fiftythree.com/60885
I use the app Paper by 53, which has recently changed drastically and to be honest I haven’t yet updated 🙂 On MIX, which is their remix site, I occasionally upload work.
I upload all #oneword, #hashtaggerie, #birthdaysketchquotes, #makeoutpoetry, and of course photos to my Instagram.
Just started using this to house some series and will probably use for conferences. You can definitely find #makeoutpoetry and #cuteboys there.
My-conography Tumblr http://my-conography.tumblr.com/
This is my primary archive (click ARCHIVE ) for what I like to call my “metaphorical iconography”- i.e. what most my images, especially the ones I use in slide decks, are. They are Creative Commons but please attribute 🙂
Drawmour Tumblr http://drawmour.tumblr.com/
Another portmanteau! I was doing quite a few sketchquotes that had to do with love or passion or heartbreak so I decided to create a special blog altogether.
3:30 SketchQuote Tumblr http://threethirtysketchquote.tumblr.com/
I explain more about the beginnings of this project in this blog post, but I do try to do at least one (sometimes up to 5!) a day and this is where they all go after they are tweeted out.
Slideshare (all decks sketched) http://www.slideshare.net/amyburvall
I do upload all my slidedecks (most are between 150-300 slides long) to Slideshare and they are available for download…warning…most are just the image. Please respectfully attribute. Blog post on my personal artistic influences
(you can search this blog for other posts related to visual thinking and art)
Hashtags:
#blimage
this is an image-based educational blogging challenge I started with Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth) that has become a global “thing” within months. Read more about it ( and see my animated film) in this post.
#3ofme
this is a personal project anyone can participate in by using this spreadsheet I sketch the results and it might become a coffee table book or something. I’ve really enjoyed peeking into the wisdom of my friends.
#makeoutpoetry
this was a combo analog cut-up poetry project mixed with iPad sketching and Instagram/ iphonography…I’ve almost done enough for a calendar (almost 365!). I was doing it- binge-like – for a couple of weeks and then completely dropped it. You can read more about it here.
#oneword
I try to do this every day as a personal reflection- to synthesize my day in 1 word, but also play with the typography and make it metaphorical. Yep…wrote a blog post about the background for this one, too. You can filter in my Tumblr and find about 32 (the rest I might not have uploaded, but they are all on my INSTAGRAM)
#serendipidoodle
I presented this at Mozilla’s Mozfest in October 2014 and you can find it @Serendipidoodle – basically experimenting in creativity in constraint and metaphorical/ visual thinking. I really love this project and have dropped the ball but want to pick it up again.
#hashtaggerie or #100daysofhashtaggerie
this I did with Dan Ryder (@WickedDecent) as a 100 Day Project…he would shoot me a whimsical hashtag (he is king of those and I always tease him) and I would have to sketch it; I would shoot him a sketch and he would have to hashtag it…like a volleyball game of sorts. We didn’t quite make the 100 days but it was fun while it lasted. Here’s the post if you would like to read more.
#friday5
new reflective project done on a weekly basis (Friday night, because it’s not like I’m at the opera or something, sadly) with 5 big takeaways from my week. This is a bit of a spin on #oneword, though there is more text and I don’t worry about metaphorical typography…just a little nugget of wisdom or poignant observation (poignant comes from “stick” you know). More about it, of course, in this blog post.
#lessandmore
this started as a sketched prompt and after I’d collected them and had written some of my own (I liked to rhyme mine) I made one of my little animations. You can read about the process here.
Lesser known hashtags:
#becauseSF
these are impressions I sketch – usually with text- whilst dining alone in San Francisco so that people leave me alone. It’s funny things like “I used to be an activist designer”.
#sketchtions
these are sketches of random questions I have about life. I think this would be great for little kids. I haven’t done very many, actually. And, like, #becauseSF, I tend to do them when dining alone.
#sketchportrait
sometimes I just draw portraits for people’s birthdays or because they intrigue me. This is rare, but when I do, I say they have been “pinkified”.
#birthdaysketchquote
sometimes I tag my sketchquotes with this if they are in response to an individual’s birthday. I usually pick famous literary figures but sometimes rulers or actors!
#cuteboys
this was a series, because I love series, about what I think the perfect “cute boy” should do or how he should be..it is very tongue in cheek.
#saturdaysoundsketch
I tried to do every Saturday but tapered off..it was a sketch of a song but annotated in Thinglink with the audio or video of that song. Here is the post about it.
#XIM
I did this project with Sean Ziebarth, Brad Ovenell-Carter, and Honoria Starbuck at SXSWEdu this year as an experiment under the auspices of Paper by 53 app; it stands for “Experimental Impressionism” and the idea was we would do collaborative impressionistic sketches of the conference as we experienced it. We used Paper’s remix feature called MIX. Brad wrote about it in his blog.
#loveisblind
This hasn’t really started yet (except for 2 lovely friends), but I got to beta test Paper by 53’s iPhone app and I came up with this project. If you would like to participate let me know.
#SalvadorDollies
Playing around on Paper by 53 for iPhone (on my teeny tiny iPhone5) has led me to think about ways to play with existing photos in my camera roll. First off, I did a #cryinggirl series and really enjoyed it…
so thought why not carry over to photos? They started to have a Surrealist-yet-Chola-Anna Sui aesthetic..I don’t know (and if you don’t know what I’m talking about look it up). I might use magazine photos too – not sure yet.
#visualverse with Erin Olson (@eolsonteacher)
Erin is a gal after my own heart- spunky, creative, brilliant, kind, and poetic! She and I meet about once a year on Boston at Alan November’s BLC Conference. We’ve just decided to do a little scheduled visual game of sorts – a volley called #visualverse. Every Sunday we will take turns either sending the other an illustration or a piece of poetic verse (both original of course!). We tried the first one 9/27/15 and here is what she sent:
I couldn’t get the “burning blue” out of my head so I used Paper for iPhone and made this, which I think is very Disney 1950’s era …
#oneword #threethirtysketchquote #loveisblind #sketchnotes #myconography #sketchtion #blimage #becausesf #xim #SteveWheeler #saturdaysoundsketch #visualliteracy #seanziebarth #3ofme #graffikon #drawmour #sketch #makeoutpoetry #100daysofhashtaggerie #paperby53 #friday5 #amyburvall #danryder #serendipidoodle #visualthinking #hashtags