Portent

As you can see I won. Mind you it was on the easiest level and when they mean easy they mean very easy.

Playpen is an interesting idea. They’ve taken the mediawiki software that drives Wikipedia and a host of other websites) and created a Ceefax type graphical click and point adventure game.

Being a Wiki type site anyone can edit the screens and add new ones and there are something like 1,500 of them. So enjoy and if you’re creative or artistic add some more!

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I love it when you see somebody talented do something extraordinary with everyday objects. It gives me the hope that maybe, just maybe I could do that. Though deep in my heart I know I can’t and never will.

A point in question, this photograph and many others (Link goes via Google.com translation as original site is in Spanish). You can also see his art on the online Saatchi Gallery.

These are photo quality but drawn by hand using ballpoint pens from photos he has taken by the Spanish artist Juan Francisco Casas. Apparently he goes through 4 pens per painting! They are of the “i can’t believe it’s not a photo” quality. Just amazing!

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The trend towards online packages that can do everything that desktop applications continues. We’ve seen drawing packages before eg MyOats but that’s coded in Flash.

But i think Sketchpad is a remarkable example and an advance on the art. it’s fast, pretty powerful compared to some drawing packages and you don’t even have to register to save the image. Just click the save button in the top right and it opens up a png in another browser window.

Whats even better is that it’s coded in JavaScript and you can view it on an iPhone/iPad. However I think using it there would be an exercise in masochism as apps meant for a mouse don’t work so well on touch devices. A version that works with an iPhone/iPad version would be pretty clever.

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This is not about building sand castles but is a remarkable video of a live performance on “Ukraine’s got talent”. An artist called Kseniya Simonova tells a tale of love in World War 2 using just sand and her fingers and artistic talent.

She conjures up images in the sand with her fingers then wham they’re gone, wiped clean and replaced by something else. A truly remarkable performance.

Link