Sketching Studies

.Reading time 3 minutes.

In a bid to better my drawing skills and sketching abilities, I recently picked up Portrait Drawing by Joanna Henly. It’s a fantastic and concise series of exercises and tips on how to draw people’s faces and features. The first set of exercises are to study and practice sketching the skull, to get a better appreciation of shape and form.

I decided to initially try this out using Autodesk Sketchbook on the Samsung S4 Tab with the S-pen. With palm rejection fully enabled within the apps, it is quite a joy to use. I’m seriously impressed with the responsiveness of the tablet & pen. Other Android devices I have owned have never been able to deliver a truly capable drawing experience, having to pair third-party styluses and often leaving unwanted lines and artifacts on the screen when the side of my hand rests on it. I plan to try out several other apps such as Infinite Painter, Medibang and Artflow, and then write up a brief comparison.

Read More

Social Exposure & Digital Housekeeping

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Why is it such a pain to remove old URLs?

When it comes to leaving a social media platform, some websites make it incredibly difficult to actually delete your account. When leaving Facebook, it’s purposely awkward procedures would only allow me to initially “deactivate” my profile first, and would not permanently scrub me from their databanks until 90 days of inactivity had passed.

So I was pleasantly surprised at the relative ease of erasing my Instagram account by comparison.

Yes, I’ve done it. A couple of days after requesting my export link, the email dropped in my inbox. Once I’d safely downloaded all of my images, the deletion process was very straightforward. A couple of clicks, another to re-confirm my intentions despite a desperate plea bargain to stay, and I was gone for good. Ahh…

Read More

Curb Your Procrastination

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Is it me, or have the number of ads on Instagram shot up in the past few months? I swear it’s getting to the point where half my feed is sponsored, and they’re not just your usual gaming or corporate posts. It’s also the paid-for promoted content from other users that are starting to aggressively infiltrate my feed. I’m certainly not enjoying my time with the platform as much as I used to. I’m contemplating deleting my account and leaving the site altogether (as I did with Facebook several years ago), especially now that more of the dubious targeting practices seem to be gradually working their way into its architecture. It’s also contributed to what’s become a personal routine of procrastination. Something I desire to drastically change.

Read More