At the end of last month, I was invited to sign up for a technology-enabled population health study by the Health Promotion Board. By accepting, I was expected to commit over a period of 2 years. What really appealed to me was that the study will be able to help me track my physical activity, nutrition, water intake and sleeping habits. Of course, I also received a Fitbit Ionic smartwatch that I must wear a minimum duration per month for data tracking as part of the deal (sweet!) However, if I leave the study mid way I have to either return the watch or pay the remainder cost if I wish to keep it. Aside from the watch deal I look at the exercise as another way to track/improve a few of my habits, and it’s going great so far (e.g. I am noticing my sleep and water intake has been averaging horribly).
A community service organization had also invited me to conduct a digital illustration workshop for some tertiary students in early December. I thought it would offer me the opportunity to create artwork and resume my infrequent forays into digital painting as I develop my teaching material, so I gladly took it up. To make the workshop more accessible, I decided to explore open source digital painting applications and found a really cool one in Krita. The software is light, its interface is pretty friendly, it has a decent set of tools and easy-to-remember shortcut keys. It feels less intimidating than Photoshop to me. I got up and running pretty quickly, and am really looking forward to using it more often. I definitely need more practice in digital painting compared to traditional sketching. Getting up to speed and into the flow naturally takes a bit longer in digital. I’m not big on fancy/custom brushes or advanced features so I think the basics should suit my needs fine. I should be able to craft a decent plan for the 2-hour session that I hope will help participants transition comfortably from drawing in pencil to drawing in pixels. Wish me luck!
I’ve got a couple other interesting projects I’m currently involved in and those should give me some more things to blog about soon enough. Until then, see ya! 🙂
