Where Art, Design, and Technology Meet, with Brenda Long
Creator/developer of Mabell’s Zoo and Mabell’s Days available on the App Store.
Be sure to stop by LinkedIn and GitHub for most recent activities.
Mabell’s Zoo is a multi-touch experience for children available at the App Store and Google Play.
I was recently inspired by a student’s art piece that utilized old scratched records to make flowers. I began to wonder, what else can you make from old records. How about a fish? With Father’s Day approaching and the children’s dad being a fly fisherman – that could be fun. We decided on a trout. Continue Reading…
I teach a basic programming concepts class. We cover variables, data types, loops, functions, logic, and best practice techniques. I try to employ meaningful examples as much as possible to give abstract ideas value. The idea that variable names are created by the developer and can essentially be anything is sometimes hard to grasp. Beginning Continue Reading…
I believe in sketching your ideas. Whether it is programming or art, sketches give you direction. They allow you to discover what is going to work or not, prior to spending a great deal of time with the actual materials. Another benefit, at least for me, is that the little drawings and notes end up Continue Reading…
I am working on an children’s interactive picture book, Mabell’s Zoo. The target audience is 2-5 years old. Luckily I have a test subject in the house and she is not afraid to tell me what she thinks. She has told me the color of particular animals is wrong and some animals looked sad or Continue Reading…
As an artist, I believe I must understand what it is I want to create. This can be very literal from colors and drawings and when creating multimedia, something more abstract. Painters have always studied the subject and contemporary artists still practice plein air – taking easel and supplies outdoors and painting the scene in Continue Reading…
We have a collection of power and hand tools. This includes numerous saws – each one has a specific purpose and works well in a particular situation. These tools have been around for a long time. It seems like whatever the wish, there is a tool that makes the task easier. I needed something to Continue Reading…
My client sent me an email with “the thumbnail images on my website are dull”. I took a look and yes, they were dull and yet this only affected the images the client had uploaded. I anticipated the issue was related to color profiles. The original images had a color profile attached, the thumbnails did Continue Reading…
While updating our kitchen I incorporated a built in microwave that really meets my needs. We had already purchased a stove top and vented microwave. When the time came to install, I looked at the space and placement of the microwave and decided “that is not the best solution”. I am 5’3″ and reaching above Continue Reading…
Test your memory.
An experiment with HTML5 and the Canvas element
