Teaching & Learning English
Having been teaching English literature as part of my day job for the last few years, I thought I really ought to put some of this knowledge together to create my own novel. So, for my 50th birthday treat, I set a little book-writing challenge for myself. I took some of the characters and plot … Read more
Here’s a short animation showing the Wutong Zakameeniat character from Mushroom’s Aladin-Man books painting Mushroom on the wall:
As many of my students know, I was, a long time ago, before I became a teacher, a professional artist. I am therefore going to be transparent about my own efforts at representing Shakespeare through visual art. I will update this post as I progress with my painting. The first step is to map out … Read more
The site is called MUSHROOM so let’s appreciate a random giant, blue mushroom I found in Hangzhou Park, Suzhou. It is a very cold day, but look at that beautiful blue sky! A quirky blue mushroom rises to meet the expansive blue sky 😀
This article introduces an interesting project that combined two of my professional interests: design and education. Specifically, I describe the educational rationale and creative process involved in the design of the Yinhai Academy (later Milton School) House logos. Background I moved to Yinhai Academy late in 2017 to work primarily as a high school English … Read more
The content on this page is part of an academic project intended to help students explore how visions of the future have been presented in art. The links are mostly articles about various mainstream works of science-fiction literature and films as well as introductions to specific sub-genres. The list is not intended to be exhaustive. … Read more
This is additional reading material for the Animation degree programme at QUST/Bradford It is uncontroversial to say that reading is probably the best way to extend your vocabulary and the more you read, the greater your vocabulary will be This week the readings are on different websites which you can find by following the links … Read more
This is essentially a follow-up lesson to my zombie painting tutorial. Both zombies and elves are based on the human figure but in both cases it doesn’t matter if the proportions aren’t precise because they are, after all, fictional entities. This relieves students of the pressure to be precise and (hopefully) free up their creativity. … Read more
This is the second painting lesson as part of a Halloween themed project that I taught at Yinhai Academy, Qingdao. The first lesson in the series was Pumpkin Painting. The artistic aim of this lesson is to paint a zombie and the educational aims are: to think about the human form, to learn about mixing … Read more
This is the first of three painting lessons that formed a Halloween themed project in Qingdao, China. The artistic aim was to paint a Jack O’Lantern and the educational aims are: to think about shape/form, to learn about mixing colours and to think about highlights and shadows. This lesson is a video walk through of … Read more
I first heard somebody say that the use of the word seagull was wrong in the early 90s but had largely forgotten about it until this week when somebody corrected me for use of the word and the next day I happened across a letter to the Metro complaining about usage of the word (see image … Read more