Today, we're going to play a game and in this game, we're going to try to figure out which of these things I have here are blickets. And Skylie, you can't tell that something is a blicket just by looking at it, but they do have blicketness inside of them. And luckily, I brought my machine. And guess what? Blicketness makes my machine turn on, okay? So I want to figure out which of these things I have are blickets. Most of these things I have are not blickets. Only a few of them are blickets, okay? And it's very important for us to figure out which are which, okay? So before we get started, other people sorted other objects and they put blickets into one box and not blickets into the other. Look at how many more not blickets there are. Can you help me count them? One, two, three, four, four not blickets. And let's count how many blickets we have. One. So only one of the things we counted was a blicket. Almost all of the things we counted were not blickets, huh? Yeah? Okay, I'm going to put these away for now. And should we look at these things that aren't sorted yet? Yeah? Okay, let me take some out. I'm going to take this one and this one. Okay, so it's very important for us to figure out which of these things are blickets, okay? So let's call this one cube. What should we call this one? Blicket? Can we call it diamond? Can we call it diamond? Yeah? So we'll call this one diamond. And what should we call this one? What shape is it? Circle, circle, that's a good idea. Okay, so let's see what happens when we put cube on the machine, okay? Let's see. It did not turn on. Let's see what happens when we put diamond on the machine now. It did not turn on. Now let's see what happens when we put circle on the machine. Did not turn on. Now let's see what happens when we put cube and diamond on the machine together. Are you ready? It did not turn on. Now let's see what happens when we put cube and circle on the machine together. Are you ready? Let's see. Look at that. The machine turned on. And now let's see what happens when we put diamond and circle on the machine together. The machine did not turn on. So Scarlett, do you think that cube is a blicket or not a blicket? A blicket. And do you think that diamond is a blicket or not a blicket? No. No. And do you think that circle is a blicket or not a blicket? A blicket. A blicket. Okay, so I'm gonna put these aside. Should I take out some more?  Gonna take this one out, this one out, and this one out. And it's very important for us to figure out which of these things are blickets. So let's call this one star. What should we call this one? Gate. Gate. It kind of looks like a gate. Could we call it bridge though? Would that be okay? Kind of looks like a bridge too, right? Yeah. And what should we call this one? Pyramid. Pyramid? Yeah? Okay, sounds good. So let's see what happens when we put star on the machine. Are you ready? Let's see. Look at that. The machine did not turn on. Now let's see what happens when we put bridge on the machine. It did not turn on. Now let's see what happens when we put pyramid on the machine. Now let's see what happens when we put star and bridge on the machine together. The machine did not turn on. Now let's see what happens when we put star and pyramid on the machine together. Look at that. The machine turned on. Now let's see what happens when we put bridge and pyramid on the machine together. Are you ready? Let's see. the machine did not turn on. Okay, so Scarlett, do you think that star is a blanket or not a blanket? A blanket. And do you think that bridge is a blanket or not a blanket? No. And do you think that pyramid is a blanket or not a No. No. Okay. So let me put these down here. Oh, Scarlett, I forgot one. Let's call this one cylinder, okay? And we'll see about this one later. But do you think that cylinder is a blanket or not a blanket? A blanket. Okay. So I have three more things here and then we're all done. Should I get them out? Okay, let me get them out. Okay. So Scarlett, it's very important to get for us to figure out which of these are blankets. So let's call this one triangle, okay? What should we call this one? Square. Square. And what should we call this one? Ball. Ball. Sounds good. Okay, so let's see what happens when we put triangle on the machine. Are you ready? Let's see. Look at that. The machine did not turn on. Let's see what happens when we put triangle on the machine again, okay? Look, the machine did not turn on. Now let's see what happens when we put triangle on the machine one more time, okay? Let's see. The machine did not turn on. Now let's see what happens when we put square on the machine, okay? Look at that. The machine did not turn on. Okay. Now let's see what happens when we put triangle and ball on the machine again. Now let's what happens when we put triangle, square, and ball all on the machine together. Are you ready? Let's see. Look at that. The machine turned on. Okay. Now let's see what happens when we put triangle and ball on the machine together. Are you ready? Let's see. Look! The machine turned on. Do you think that triangle is a blanket or not a blanket? And do you think that square is a blanket or not a blanket? No. No. And do you think that ball is a blanket or not a blanket? Okay, so Scarlett, which of these should we use to make my machine turn on? Those two? Yeah. Do you want to give it a try? Why don't you give it a try? Go ahead. Do you want to try it one more time? Yeah? Okay. What are you trying to get? Yeah? Thank you. Great job, Scarlett. I just have to get Emily to let her know that we're ready to go.


Visual cues. So you're sitting out there throwing, are you working on the right things? Where do you put your left hand, your right hand, your sweep leg, your block leg? What's a really good simple thing to add into your training to help you put all those things together to focus on the right things? We're gonna talk about it in this video, so check it out. Hey everybody, it's Eric Johnson from Airtate Throws Nation, and in today's video, what we're gonna talk about is visual cues. One of the things, if you look through our videos and we're trying to help more people understand the sport and a lot of times we get in the ring and we just throw. And one of the things we talk about constantly is throwing is critical and you do need to throw a lot. Throwing is unnatural, the positions, how we move out of the back of the ring, all the things we're coordinating. These things take years and years to develop. It's super critical to understand that if you just get in and throw, the results are typically going to be limited. One of the things that we do wanna do when we throw is we wanna start thinking about visual cues. And so today what I have is set up and you'll notice I'll have my clock down and you're gonna notice my red cones basically represent my core positions on the clock. 12 o'clock, so what we refer to as pillar one and two, they start here in this position, in this location, so one, two, 12 o'clock represents pillar one, two, but then we have our nine o'clock, six o'clock, three o'clock and so we have these small cone sets and what we do is we want the clock marked out with the red cones and then we want the colored cones to represent visual cues. So if we're gonna be working on the sweep leg position, so here's an example, we have our sweep leg and again, some people say to sweep out here, we always have advocated sweeping out and so we're getting the sweep leg to go wider, longer. Again, a chain reaction, if we set a longer path, we're gonna have a longer path through the throw. If we start a little bit shorter rotational path, we're gonna have a shorter rotational path. So the idea here is to have cues, so where would we put our left hand and our sweep leg and one of the things is like here's a green cone, we wanna visual cue for where do we want the entry arm as we come around, we wanna be careful, we see a lot of kids cutting in, we wanna see that hand coming out over that cone first before we open up the left aggressively into the ring. The blue cone is a good cue. Like you said, we're looking at a visual cone is where are we turning and where are we pointing our feet and what direction are we moving and how are we sprinting across the circle. Old John Powell videos, right, would have the inverted seven and that's a good cue. We wanna be driving kinda down that left sector line, but oftentimes positioning a cone, a visual cue on where we're gonna put our knee or our arm or our sweep leg, these are the sorts of things. When we wanna get our throwers to understand how we're gonna enter in and where do we push the foot, we can put a cone inside and let's say we wanna have our athlete turning our knee to this direction so we can feel that kind of loading motion into the ring. So again, just a really simple video to help a lot of you guys out there. If you're looking to add something cheap and kinda good in a visual cue into your workouts, click the link below, we've got some information on how you can grab a cheap set, these things. Okay, so basically the point of today's video was to really help you guys understand that visual cues are super important to help you put together your throwing. Again, where's your sweep leg, where's your arm, that's why this sport tends to be complex. Once you learn the system, that's the whole point of the throwing chain reaction system. We're trying to help you have that vision to see the throw so much faster, see those two seconds, learn what you to do. The six pillars show you what to do at every stage of the throw and pillar connection again is putting that together and our system breaks it all down so that you see it quickly and can apply it and learn faster. And then when you add coaching elements into your program like this, visual cues to help you see and understand positions, where's the left knee, where's the sweep leg, again, entry leg, block arm, where all these sorts of things, visual cues are just really simple, easy tip to add in. Mix up your training, try the visual cues. If you'd like any information on cones, check out the link below. If you'd like any information on the throwing chain reaction system, help you learn the throw faster. Simplify that complexity. Links below as well. Thanks so much for watching guys and if you liked this video, find it helpful, comment below and be sure to hit that subscribe notification button and we will see you on the next video. Everybody it's Eric Johnson from Airtate Throws Nation and in this video we're gonna talk about real quick are the use of our drill cones for training. Now this was just something that


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John Kerr, Lord Kerr, you are former British ambassador to the United States, but more importantly, in a sense, former British ambassador and representative to the European Union Commission. And you're also famously the author, the writer of Article 50, which could be the end of Britain's presence in the European Union. Is there any possibility in your mind that Britain could change its mind and remain in the European Union? Yes, there is a possibility. I don't know how long it is the likelihood. I mean, Mrs. May's government believed they have a duty to carry out what the country voted for, 52-48. I think it is clear that we will, by March, she says, we will trigger the procedure I rationally wrote down in Article 50, you recall, which takes one into a negotiation, which should last for up to two years, and is primarily a divorce negotiation. I think we are definitely going to sue for divorce. However, as the terms of the divorce become clear, and the months pass, and possibly some downside economic effects are felt by the British citizen, whether 52-48 might reverse is another question. What will be the fashion of buyer's remorse on a grand scale? It's possible. I mean, my advice to anybody wants it would be one should act on the assumption that the British are probably going to leave, but it's not absolutely certain. Now, you're at the World Policy Conference. What do you get from it? Oh, I find there's an extremely interesting mix of people. For example, today, I heard things about Turkey, which I didn't know, and I find that extremely useful. I run a London, a chair, a London think tank, and I do a certain amount of foreign affairs in the House of Lords, and I do need to keep in touch. I learn a lot. It's also a very nice forum for networking lots of old friends like you. John Kerr, thank you so much.


Hello everybody hoodedCoverCommander788 here and it is time to do a Patrons Choice Review. This is when I give my supporters on Patreon an opportunity to vote on what will be reviewed on this channel. It's been a while since we've done one of these, that's a downside of theme months. The subjects have to be chosen in advance so that doesn't give me much opportunity to get input from my supporters. It's high time we did a poll so let's look at the options. For this Patrons Choice Review for November of 2018, I decided once again to go with all 1990s G.I. Joe action figures. However, this time I am not choosing the worst of the 90s, I am choosing the best. Option 1 is Rampart. From 1990, I've talked about this figure before, it's a figure I like a lot. The colors, the details, his specialty, the accessories, there's a lot to love about this figure and I would be very happy to do a full review on it. So if you would like to see this figure review to just go to Patreon and be a Patreon supporter and choose option 1. Option 2 is Big Ben from 1991. This is another figure that I think is just great. The details, the colors, the accessories, everything goes perfectly on this figure. I really love it and I would love to do a full review. There it would be so much to say about this figure so if this is the one you'd like to see reviewed just go to Patreon and choose option 2. And the final option for this Patrons Choice poll is Heavy Duty also from 1991. This is a figure that admittedly has some pretty crazy accessories but the figure itself has a lot going for it. I really like this figure and I would be very happy to do a review of it. So if you'd like to see a review of Heavy Duty, choose option 3. Those are your 3 choices for this Patrons Choice poll. I wanted to make this a difficult decision for you. Instead of choosing between figures that will get ranty reviews, I wanted to give you options that you might really love. To vote in this poll, you do need to be a supporter on Patreon. Support at any level gets you the right to vote. So please check out my Patreon page to find out how you can participate. As always, if there's a tie, I will break the tie but so far we haven't had a tie in one of these polls and I really do want you guys to choose which one it will be. The polling will start as soon as you see this video. You should see this video on November 5th. The polling will end on November 9th and the winner will be published in a review on November 18th. I cannot wait to see which one of these you choose because no matter which one it is, I will really enjoy reviewing it. So go ahead and check out Patreon and start voting. The voting starts now.


In his book, The Art of Game Design, Jesse Schell composes a list of over 100 different lenses through which we can view the craft of designing games. Inspired by Christopher Alexander's pattern language, it aims to devise a vocabulary for the many ways designers approach their craft. For example, Lens 1 tells us to understand the emotional experience we are trying to build for a player and then craft a game around this. When Subnautica was being developed, the designers explicitly used this lens to shift the game towards a horror one because the core emotions of scavenging in the seas is one of abject terror. The most prolific exponent of this lens is Jenova Chen, whose emotional perspective on design has led to the creation of games like Flower and Journey. This insight about emotions isn't intuitive, as historically we have built games around mechanics and fun, an understanding of which we have stumbled on over the history of games. Space Invaders introduce difficulty modulation by accident, and this phenomena maps onto Lens 21, Flow Theory, Pac-Man popularized power-ups and AI state machines, Lens 28 if you were curious, which gets us to think in the context of new mechanics and objects being introduced to a game. However, both Space Invaders and Pac-Man converged in Shigeru Miyamoto's revolutionary game Super Mario Bros., which combined difficulty escalation, power-ups, and mechanics into his design philosophy of putting the player first. He was an engineer of fun, which happens to be Lens 5, but also insisted games need to just be joyful to play. These insights have been formalized in books like Steve Sweeney's Game Feel, and Raph Koster's book A Theory of Fun. If we step far enough away though, regardless of whether you start with mechanics, themes, or emotions, most designers emphasize how they need to be tightly aligned, which happens to be the lens of unification. We now have a whole suite of theories that reinforce this claim. The mechanics-dynamics-aesthetics framework tells us to think about the reasons people play games and craft an experience around this. Lens 30 is the lens of emergence, which asks us to think of games as systemic devices that generate strategic or narrative possibilities, and lenses 26 through 33 outline the relationship between mechanics and emergence, and how simple objects can be combined to create something that is more than the sum of its parts. This is expanded on in the books Game Mechanics, Advanced Game Design, and Advanced Game Design-a-Systems approach, formalizing the many-way systems interact in games. The utility of shifting design lenses is it gives us a way of challenging our assumptions, and perhaps guiding us when we go astray, whatever the medium of creativity you are in. It's an earnest attempt at crafting vocabulary for game design, something many suggest games are in need of. However, what if these design lenses converge at a high enough level, suggesting an even deeper purpose to the design of games? In his GDC talk, The Nature of Order and Game Narrative, Schell explains how inspiration for his book came from Christopher Alexander's Apatone language, which similarly presents a series of lenses through which to view architecture. A few of them even have powerful utility when it comes to game design. Lens 68 is called Connected Play, which asks architects to create environments that encourage children to interact with each other, something cooperative designers and multiplayer designers can learn from. Another is called Pats and Goals, which is about leading players through an environment using conveyances and signifiers. However, what really binds Christopher Alexander's work is the suggestion that all these lenses are pointing towards something a little more abstract, ethereal and universal. It remains elusive to Christopher for the duration of these books, but in his later work, he finally came up with the name for this intangible objective for design, something he calls Life. What is Life? Christopher is not defining life in the formal sense, but as an aesthetic property that transcends the sum of its parts. He states, It is a case of understanding the interaction of man and nature and making a harmony out of that interaction, which has the beauty of nature and the zest of life. In essence, life is some intangible property that we assign with the label's truth, beauty and wisdom. It's something that speaks to all of us and is contained in all the great works of science, art and design. Anything, even decidedly dead things, can have life, and that means that we can, through our own creative capacities, bring life into the world. He states, Intuitively the beauty of a building, its life, and its capacity to sport life, comes from the fact that it works as a whole. Wholeness is a property of integration, of unity or purpose, of life. For example, he heralds the design of Tofukaji Temple, which is somehow both cultivated and overgrown, reconciling nature and humanity, and has a clearly designed path that is integrated harmoniously with its environment. He shows how the space is designed so impeccably that insects and animals coordinate with the rhythms of the person walking through, mobilizing nature into a synchronized dance. How do we detect this ethereal force, though? This is where Christopher lays out an additional 15 principles, and Shell takes this and translates it into our understanding of games. Alexander argues that these properties exist inherently in nature, and it's up to us to intuit these principles and apply them in design. He shows examples of this in the context of architecture, like how the Musk of Cairo one shows the principles of strong centers, or how the Alhambra has beautiful instances of scale and local symmetry. Since we are focusing on game design, though, we can illustrate these through Shell's interpretations of these principles. Scale is a property that reveals beauty at multiple resolutions, and can be seen in the layered design of Pac-Man, to the quest you embark on in Shadow of the Colossus. Strong centers are about having a strong central theme, idea or sense of orientation, seen with clarity in the opening of The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild. Boundaries establish the beginning and end of an experience, alternating repetition is expressed in games' tension modulation, positive space is about articulating space clearly, good shape about drawing objects with intent, local symmetries can be seen in level design, deep interlock about integration, and contrast roughness echoes non-separateness and simplicity, reflect a bevy of different aesthetic lenses we see in art, design, and animation. To manage this complexity, there seems to be commonalities between a few of them that might allow us to group them together. Simplicity, non-separateness, and boundaries all seem to be speaking to what we identified earlier as emergence, where a series of interconnected parts that are discreet but interacting combine to create something that transcends the sum of its parts.  Scale, alternating repetition and gradients map onto the many things we spoke about in terms of the flow channel, general pacing, and having a game that works at multiple levels of resolution. Strong centers, positive space, contrast, interlock, and symmetry all speak to spatial and temporal design constraints that designers always implicitly invoke, whether it be how the mountain in the distance and journey draws the player to the horizon, how negative space is a powerful reason why levels like facing worlds is as popular as it is, or how having juxtaposing elements can be seen in everything from Undertale's invocation of humor and tragedy to the intentional dissonant shadow of the colossus users to subvert the traditional hero's journey. Once more though, the divisions between these categories eventually breaks down, giving way to something more intangible. Echoes is about how all parts of a system echo one another, and Shell says this happens when you get a match between gameplay and story, as well as having the themes of a game present at all levels. A fascinating example he uses is that of Cuphead, where the frenetic gameplay of jumping into the fray is paralleled by a story that is about the same thing. Also, the idea of two ambitious young upstarts making a deal with the devil, in his mind, parallels how the two brothers who developed the game made a deal with Microsoft for the game as well. The concept of the void is analogized to the stage in the hero's journey, called the belly of the whale, where our hero reflects and recuperates from a failure of some kind, but this is also indicative of alternating repetition and pacing. Shell argues Go exhibits deep interlock because the decisions you make are predicated on the decisions of your opponent, but the game Echo also exhibits this principle by using its mechanics to reinforce its story about love and companionship. Shape can refer to space, whether it be level design or characters, or it can refer to the shape of a story, how it is structured and the beats that constitute its primary conflict. Whether it be spatially, temporally, or psychologically, and whether mediated by the impulse for play or story, these principles seem to pervade design in some form or another. Christopher Alexander, however popular he may be, is not without his critics. Many argue that his obsessive invocation of objective standards for beauty actually stifles creativity, and others suggest that not everything needs to be built with the explicit objective of life in mind. We have works of art that are intentionally disjointed, rife with dissonance, and profoundly unpleasant to experience, as well as design sensibilities from different cultures that may have different standards for what constitutes beauty. I'm not here to answer the question of whether Chris or his detractors are correct, but to use this dispute as an opportunity to explore a new vision for design. The question remains though, why does Chris think this way? The first few pages of his book, The Nature of Order, can help clarify this question. He states, This book is about a more realistic conception of the world and of the universe, which comes into existence, and can come into existence only when we acknowledge to a very large degree that we are all the same. Sometimes, I think of it as a mass psychosis of unprecedented dimension, in which the people of Earth have created a form of architecture which is against life, in name, image-ridden, and hollow. Harsh words, perhaps, but not without merit. His argument boils down to the fact that our hyper-reductionist conception of the world, in conjunction with the continued commodification of artistic products, has destroyed our perception of beauty, and hence, the artifacts we now produce are completely devoid of higher purpose. One misunderstanding that needs to be clarified is that Chris is not advocating for a top-down imposition of beauty standards, but saying that if we allow art to manifest from an authentic creative place, it will naturally converge on something more objective. In his talk entitled The Medium Is The Message, Jonathan Blow outlines how he thinks the craft of design has been impacted by commercial and cultural forces. He starts by outlining how the kinds of works being produced by television radically changed owing to the structure of the medium. sitcoms had to be built around the needs of advertisers, and long-form content could not be explored. This means the pacing and storytelling chops of artists in the field were severely impeded by these constraints, and hence why television of the early era was generally terrible. With the introduction of serialized content thanks to new platforms, this gave way to the golden age of television, where creators could push the boundaries and tell seasonal long stories. When we turn to video games, Blow applies this logic to suggest that the free-to-play model is fundamentally broken, in that it is constrained by commercial forces in such a way so as to make designers employ predatory practices. Additionally, if we look at the general structure of our medium, we see large corporations having the lion's share of control when it comes to production, and unfortunately, the need to meet a corporate bottom line stifles innovation from the outset. Recently though, we are seeing the blossoming of the indie space, where although budgets are lower, innovation continues to come in spades because creators are not held back by arbitrary forces. In light of this, Christopher Alexander's points become more powerful because although the constraints that impose themselves on architecture are different to that of game design, the fundamental point is that it is outside forces mediating design, not our actual creative instincts. However, games and architecture do have a connection that may not seem apparent on the surface. In her talk, Architecture and Level Design, Claire Hosking illustrates how architecture can inform game design. She shows how works like Peter Zomther's Booter Chapel inspired games like Journey with its monolithic structures, sense of isolation and dark interior, or how the material and decor used in Bioshock and Mirror's Edge create completely different atmospheres of oppression or emancipation. We see architecture give way to city building in the beautifully realized cities of the Assassin's Creed franchise, and these cities are adapted for the purposes of player interaction and engagement. However, the objectives and purpose of architecture, although overlapping in many respects, are slightly different to that of game design, and so it requires we take the spirit of Christopher Alexander's argument and adapt it to video games. According to Christopher Alexander, the division between form and function is an illusory one. He states, In nature, there is essentially nothing that can be identified as a pure ornament without function. There is essentially no system that can be identified as functional, which is not also beautiful in an ornamental sense. Today, we have function as a mechanistic concept, an ornament as a superficial and stylistic one. In essence, beauty in nature always has a function, whether it be the fact that the beauty of flowers is meant to entice insects, or how the peacock's plumage exists to impress mates. Furthermore, if we look at the principles that underlie even the most functional of nature's creations, there is an austere beauty there. To go back to flowers, petals exist in precise mathematical ratios to one another, and symmetry of all types permeates every kingdom of the tree of life. As Bertrand Russell said about mathematics, mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth but supreme beauty, a beauty cold and austere, like that of great sculpture. Alexander continues by saying, because of our still prevailing 20th century viewpoint, students are convinced that beauty comes about as a result of the concern with practical efficiency. If a thing gets its nature from its field of centers which help each other, then form is function. In essence, if we listen to the process of authentic creation, the forms that arise out of this will be intrinsically beautiful, reconciling the divide that splits many of the arts to this day. Forget the debate, form is function. Alexander suggests the function of architecture is the production and cultivation of life, to enliven and create communities that bring out our better angels. Architecture is one of those fields where form and function seem more tightly coupled, as the work of art always exists in a social context, and has to, presumably, fill the function of providing someone a home. Perhaps other art forms can be more subversive and deviate from life, because they don't have a social or functional role to play in the persistence of our species. One of the most famous game designers in our medium, Shigeru Miyamoto, argues that form should follow function, and the function of a game is to be engaging and fun. He argues that an avatar should just feel great, independent of a world, that we should use a staggered level design that rams things up incrementally after introducing players to abilities, and that we should use signifiers or conveyances to build our levels, so players implicitly know how to play. The first level of Super Mario Bros. exemplifies this perfectly. These design principles overlap with Don Norman's ideas of affordances, and human-centric design, introducing a real science to the construction of games. However, let's take another designer who contrasts this ethos. Fumita Weda uses a design philosophy he calls Design by Subtraction, where he strips away anything that does not reinforce the core theme, tone, or story he is going for. Instead of starting with the principles of fun, engagement, or game feel, he starts with an emotion or idea, and hones every facet of his game to realize this vision. In E.C.O., you play a disempowered and persecuted kid, so you stumble around and are hard to control, and the fact that you have to protect Yorda simulates love, intimacy, and selflessness. Both of these designers are seen as revolutionary, but for seemingly opposite reasons. To preserve the continuity between architecture and game design, Miyamoto and Oeda fundamentally defer even on that dimension. Miyamoto has spoken about the importance of building levels that accommodate the avatar you are playing to craft an engaging experience, again emphasizing how the function of the player experience should dictate the world's design. On the other hand, for me to way to have spoken about how his approach to architecture is that of creating a world that seems to exist independent of you, reinforcing his themes of isolation and disempowerment, and enhancing the immersive trance of his games. What does this duality about the divide between form and function tell us about our medium, though? Brilliant games can be conjured either by starting with a purely functional mechanic, or by starting with an aesthetic or theme, suggesting form and function are interchangeably useful when it comes to our priorities in design. In my humble estimation, the principles of emergent design alter based on the function of the art form and question, and hence, we need to adapt Christopher Alexander's framework in light of the utility of play. Play is and always has been a pluralistic notion, articulated in Brian Sutton Smith's seminal book, The Ambiguity of Play. As we explored earlier, there are different aesthetics of play, different kinds of players, and different competencies and predilections that games of every type engage. So having a general theory of the utility of play will always seemingly fall short. In his book, he outlines how the culture we are a part of frames the function and purpose of play. Smith delineates seven metrics of play that have been used to explain and privilege certain forms of play, including progress, fate, power, community, identity, imaginary, self, and frivolity. Owing to this incredible array of purposes for play, having a discrete series of lenses through which to view design might actually lead us towards a different destination than the singular one Christopher Alexander proposed. You could say that ultimately all forms of play are in some sense about perpetuating humanity, what Thomas Henrich argues as the purpose of play, self-realization, about realizing ourselves in a social context and becoming integrated beings. So we've established that there can be many functions of play, but what is the form that exists alongside this? The idea that Christopher Alexander put forth is that by the gradual synthesis of coherent principles, we can build towards great design from the bottom up. First we can go back to Blo's point about creating an industry context that actually allows artists to express their creative voice. The question here then becomes how do we configure the industry and its business practices in such a way that the authentic drive of creators can see the light? However, to properly abstract Christopher Alexander's points about form and function and adapting it to video games, my guess is that the principles of great design, whatever shape they take, are ultimately instrumental towards the realization of a particular purpose. Purposeful design is what both Christopher Alexander and Jesse Shell advocate for, a design sensibility that understands what kind of experience you want to create, and then using the many tools we have at our disposal to realize this vision. As intangible as life is as an overarching goal, there are some interesting ways it expresses itself in the context of games. Games are inherently systemic constructs that emerge out of a substrate of rules, similar to how life emerges out of the interaction of a few chemical elements. In Fritjof Kapra's book The Web of Life, and Stuart Kaufman's book At Home in the Universe, each argue for the idea that life is intrinsic to our universe, because elements can naturally generate the required feedback loops to produce life. Life is emergent much like games are emergent. In John Conway's Game of Life, we see how a simple set of rules can generate self-replicating patterns, life of a kind. Emergence in the context of game design can help us analyze and see systems of life, whether it be the arc of history and civilization, the dynamics of urban decay in SimCity, or the evolution of life itself in Spore, The combination of existing elements in novel ways is what Douglas Hofstadter argues as the origin of creative thought, so life can be seen in how patterns, analogies, and metaphors can be repurposed to create something new. Thinkers like Daniel Dennett argue consciousness itself arises out of the recombination of symbolic patterns in our head, such that the agent it arises from can exercise metacognition of being self-aware. To reinforce this point, artificial intelligence research has already devised systems that can actually be musically creative using the recombination of discrete elements, suggesting creativity itself is emergent and is in some sense derivative. We also now have systems like Angelina that have attempted to create games, although the results are slightly less convincing. Jesse Shell even speculates that it might be Christopher Alexander's heuristics for life that imbue artificial intelligence with this creative spark, making these rules for life instrumental in a new genesis. In my estimation, perhaps instead of continuing to call ourselves wise, homo sapiens, we should defer to Johan Huazinga's term, homoludans, we are a playful species, we exist in a universe at play and perhaps we should rethink our understanding of games in light of this. However, to bring things back to Earth, truly getting at what the art of game design entails, at least from Christopher Alexander's perspective, comes from a quote in the closing chapter in his book. He says, living structure is the substrate which provides us with our freedom, with the ability to be free in ourselves. Maybe instead of thinking of the art of game design from an end product perspective, we should view it as the life contained in the process. Life in design can be seen as the capacity to truly express one's creative voice, not a product that necessarily creates it. The expressionist movement altered the artistic lens from painter to painter, observing the process of creation as what makes art art. When Blow was lamenting the encroachment of extrinsic factors in game design, my sense is that he is fearful that artists are designing with something other than what they want to make in mind. The lenses that Shell and Alexander present us with allow us to get in touch with that inner voice that might be led astray when considerations other than our vision come to the forefront. This is my interpretation of the art of game design, or if the design of anything really, creating a medium that allows designers to make what they want to make, or in Chris's words, to be free in ourselves.


He's like, Jill, you do that in clinic. And again, in real time, I didn't know we were saying anything profound, but as I'm watching it, it's my favorite, one of my favorite parts of the documentary because I'm like, that's right. And it's just like all of us need someone, we call it like wind beneath our wings or someone who really believes in us. And when some, when a patient is separating and going through something, they don't know the outcome and I can be that person or any doctor can be that person that says, no, I believe in you. They can actually borrow our belief and that can carry them through. I love that. I love that.


Okay guys, can't see my own chat. Let's see. Hold on. All right. Hello. Yay. I'm back Hopefully the connections better this time stream yard when I turn around to look at the desktop, which is where we broadcast from Had an error message that said that YouTube's connection wasn't very good So it wasn't me. It was YouTube. There was an error message. I'd never seen on stream yard before Anyway, now I forget what we were talking about I don't know Somebody's gonna have to remind me. Hello Lisa. Hello Linda. Hello Petra. Hopefully everybody can migrate over here. I Will say that I know From watching Yeah, we're back. I know I will say I know from watching other broadcasters lives lately That high high Lisa Hubbard, how are you? That I am not the only one that's had a problem with YouTube live lately So I don't know what's going on. I've seen a couple other broadcasters that have had issues And they've had to like restart live broadcasts because there's been connection issues or buffering or something So it's not just me. Oh I'm getting messages from a friend of mine who lives in Alabama I think That she's having bad weather She just posted no tornadoes. I hope or something like that. Let's hope not So we are going to continue making these little canvases just abstract patterned canvases that will later turn into Journal covers and I may You know add more to them at some point, but I may not I mean, okay, for instance this one I kind of like where this one is going and it may be when it's done I just like it the way it is and I don't want to add too much Moon Tigers path. Hello. Good morning. I'm gonna take my big crystal pen Should put my reading glasses back on as long as we don't have any buffering issues or anything now when you're doing these like sort of Mixed media canvas pieces and you know, it's you know, not anything that's ever intended to be washed Whether you have a primed, you know canvas like this one is or not You know, you can use anything on it water is never going to hit it You don't intend on ever washing it so it doesn't matter And that being said if you want to protect it if it is going to be a journal cover You can always hit it with a light coat of some kind of clear finish coating You're all Matt migrating back over here to the new broadcast. Yay And this one does seem to be more stable than the other one. So whoo Try to keep my hand moving so y'all don't think I've frozen again So I'm just using my big crystal to add just some kind of I don't know random marks little X's little Yeah, X is just gonna I'm just gonna do that much for now because I'm I like that where that went Put it on the drying rack with the other one And let's grab another piece Because my goal is to not only use up some of this paint but to use up these canvases again like I said in the other broadcast I have these pads of primed canvas Like artists canvas and I think I bought them like years ago to experiment with and then you know, just they just sat in my Our closet and so I think what I want to do is use them up and make Journal covers with them.  It doesn't have to be super busy and complicated It can be if that's what you want, but it doesn't have to be so again I got a little bit of paint on my brush It's probably still too much and I have a tendency to be heavy-handed So I'm just kind of tapping it off on this stencil Until I'm getting almost no marks and then I'll very lightly go in and do a swirly motion That usually gets me a Decent impression with the stencil not always I'll be honest. Sometimes I still mess it up, but you know Well, that's not bad And right now I'm using sky blue light yellow ochre and yellow green I don't know why they're just the colors that appealed to me this morning.  I appreciate those so much more 99% of the time than the Store-bought ones. Hey, how are you Shana? And and you know, there's the whole Let's use it up thing, you know, we have again all these parts in our closet Let's use them. They're just sitting there. You don't have to save them for some day because maybe someday never comes Hate to say that but and again as I said in the other Broadcast I'm using some of my own stencils like this is one of mine some of Tim Holt stencils I grabbed this morning off of my rack and some of Mike Deacon stencils homemade gifts are great. I love homemade gifts and You know again, we've all got if you're like me, you've got paper sitting in your art room in you know piles You've got fabric Maybe you don't have this art canvas fabric. Okay, that's great. You don't have to just get out some cotton fabric that you have That you're not using for a sewing project. It could be plain or patterned. It doesn't have to be one or the other You might want to prime it with some gesso if you have gesso or some white paint and then once you get that done Then you can make some of these journal covers with it Maybe it already is just a plain colored fabric and maybe it's like an off-white color like what the natural color of this canvas is But you still want to prime it white Just use up what you have Now in paranoid to keep checking the iPad, which is where I'm watching The broadcast from and I'm looking at your comments from because I'm worried that It's going to start buffering again anyway, use what you have I was chatting with somebody yesterday and Via text message and she's really trying to Go through her stash of crap creative stuff.  She's trying to make sense of her room. I don't remember if she said she was moving rooms or not She might have been Anyway, she was asking me my advice because she knows I've done a lot of purging in the last, you know year or so More than that actually, you know just You buy things in your part of your art journey because you want to try them You think they're interesting and then you try them and sometimes you fall in love But sometimes you're like, well, I have it now I should use it, but I don't really like it and you almost have to force yourself to get it out and use it when you are creating Stop forcing yourself if you really don't like it and it's really just not appealing to you And it's not something that you feel you can use up Then just let it go Just let it go. I Wasn't gonna do this, but I want to do one more row of those in the middle Petra. I think that sounds wonderful That's a beautiful idea for a gift. I mean to be honest at this point in this stage in my life. I Don't need more stuff and When I do need something I just go buy it So I would rather have a handmade gift even if it's a note You know a kind word goes a long way And yeah, so the other thing with making homemade gifts if you're Even if you're right are writing a note You're using up if you're like me you're using up old stationery you're using up You know some of that fabric stash if you're making bags like Petra did or like I'm doing these, you know journal covers And any of these that don't turn out that I don't think will work for a journal cover We'll get cut up and made into some of these small Mix media embellishments where I you know, maybe so I'm on the machine with some Other fabric and trims or paper and I may even do some sewing on these later. I mean, this is just the first stage I just kind of wanted to show you guys, you know the first stage in this process and have a little talk with you all about Just you know again using up what you have and not going out to buy something Unless you really need it one of the things that You know, I've really learned by trial and error is I really like my Handmade I'm going to try to line that up kind of okay. I like my Manual tools My paper punches my rulers my Xacto blades. I'm not a huge fan of the silhouettes or the crickets So fun fact I used to have a cricket back in the day with the cartridges Figured out pretty quickly. I didn't like that. I gave it to my cousin I don't even know if she still has it anymore and You all know if you've been watching me for a while my kind of saga and journey with the silhouette I ended up giving that away and actually donated that to charity because I just Found it the most inefficient thing on the planet. It just wasted more supplies than it saved me time and I would rather have paper punches to cut things out any day of the week then Then just waste my time with fancy tools. I'd rather have basic tools.  I Like the way that looks I do want to add some green to it But I like the way that looks and I like Laura's comment Petra. Can I be your friend? That's funny I don't know why these colors are appealing to me except that although I do love winter because my asthma does great in winter I am with the rest of you at this point and I would like spring to come So maybe that's why Now I am working on my table which is covered part of it is covered in a big piece of canvas So at some point this big piece of prime canvas Which I got from a friend years ago Is going to have enough marks on it that it too will get made into journal covers or Little small mixed media embellishments or something No problem Michael and I mean, you know, it's the decade of Mondays So why I'm not surprised that you know things are weird, you know Nothing surprises me anymore Expect the worst hope for the best Of course, I'm like that on a regular time. So, you know, I I like that Do I want to add pencil marks to that maybe Maybe just my big pen See, there's just something about this You don't necessarily have to do more than this But how cute of a journal cover would this be with some nice mixed media or a 70 pound drawing paper in it and You know, if it was one that I either I used or I sold in the Etsy shop You know, this is the kind of cover that has enough on it that you could leave it as it is and have a cute little Journal or you could add, you know, more bits and pieces and customize it on your own, but you've got a good starting point Hey Barbara Yeah, decade of Mondays. It's a decade of Mondays If you think about it, I mean, it's just the decade of Mondays. It's just yeah Even in my Annual checkup yesterday, although everything, you know, I'm doing really well health-wise and the doctor thinks I'm on the right track We're waiting for the blood labs to come back, but she's not really expecting anything She did put on there that, you know, I'm experiencing like COVID fatigue I don't know what she I don't think she worded it that way, but there was something in there about that I wasn't surprised she put that. I mean, you know, it's the decade of Mondays probably turn my Phone off because I'm filming some of this for the vlog next week All right Do I want to start with now? I think I want to start with this one I know it's a spider web, but I think it's cool But do I want to put something like solid and big in the background first? I might I might not Well, we're gonna just go for it.  Yes, please thumbs up like share and subscribe Geez 13 watching is that not more than we normally have I normally don't get a ton of people in the broadcast Maybe I should do Wednesdays more often. So if you are a subscriber A viewer a follower a supporter I do try to do a broadcast every week But due to COVID and the fact that it's that time of year when I normally get, you know Medical checkups and we're having contracting work done at the house and all of those things Sometimes I'm not able to do the normal day So I Have to switch the days. I usually announce it over in a Facebook group chat that I've got to switch a day. I Will try to schedule the broadcast, but we were on this is my second time on today because The first one didn't go well buffering a lot of buffering issues Yeah, this is another Tim Holtz stencil and it's called shattered. I think it's just called shattered. It says THS 014 It's one of my favorite ones of his stencils. I've had it for a while. I do think it's probably still available somewhere I mean Amazon is the obvious place to look for things like that, but it's one of my favorite one of his stencils Isn't that cool? I mean, yeah Wednesday seems to be going well Might be a better day than Tuesday You know, I got to be honest with you all this yellow ochre color is not one I usually gravitate towards a lot unless I'm needing it to highlight something or accent something But I'm liking it today. I think it's just because it's reminding me of sand Hey, Donna So if there's a particular day of the week like maybe Wednesday's work better for you all than Tuesday's Let me know. We you know, I'm up to changing the day. I mean, but the days do fluctuate a little bit Depending on my schedule and like I said, what's you know going on, you know, due to COVID I when I have to get Checkups and you know have lab work done. I have to do it when they have time Which seems to usually be Tuesday I'm okay with Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday works for me. Okay Next I'm enjoying using these stencils on here, you know, I haven't just done some like stencil stenciling and like free painting In a while I have a lot of stencils. I love my collection of stencils. It's one thing I don't purge often that being said I used to have a lot of like 12 by 12s I do still have some but I don't use them I like the littler ones Acrylic April now do tell us what acrylic April is because I haven't heard of that. I have no idea what that is So tap and swirl tap and swirl by the time you do the swirl you just want just a little bit of paint on your brush Again, this is one of my decon stencils Okay, Donna. Thanks. And okay, Michael Anne I always try to let you guys know in a Facebook message if we're connected on Facebook I have a friends chat a couple of friends chats and I try to let you guys know over there When I need to change a day if you're a patron or supporter. I try to let you guys know Either on YouTube membership or over in patreon. I Try to you know hit all the bases and let everybody know Who's running acrylic April now? I haven't heard of it. This is the first I've heard I do want to tell you all if you haven't heard yet. I am going to be doing a class I think early bird pricing is out already with Bea grob Chelsea Peg Robinson Petra Fuchs and Marie Linder the class starts June 1st and I think again, I think that early bird pricing is out already for that It's called a colorful art journey and I think I brought something new and different to it that you all might enjoy Hopefully I'm not sure the link is in the video description, but I'll add it after the broadcast if it's not You can probably find it by googling Bea grob a couple of colorful art journey Be a is our first name and grob gr. OB is our last name. Oh, that's a it's a good idea for a challenge I like the way that one looks holy cow. That's cute. I like all of them. What is with me today? All right, let's see what other remarks can we add to this or do we want to add to this? Do I want to do Maybe a few of those maybe Need some more green paint. Oh like inktober. Okay. Do we want to do stencils? I want to just do I don't think I do actually I'm fighting with myself and I shouldn't do that So I never have a plan when I do these never never never. I'm just going for it You don't need to have a plan and again if you don't have any fabric and you want to try something like this You know wait for like a joe and fabrics coupon 40% off go to the back section Where they have their duck cloth and they have plain colors of duck cloth and you can get Canvas or duck cloth. It's the same color. That's nice and thick Okay, wait now you got injured. What did I miss? I? Miss something Are you okay now? How did I miss that? How cute would a journal cover that be like a cute travelers notebook? No, if you're like me you have plenty of fabric. Yeah, I don't I Rarely I have to be working on something really specific that I seriously do not have fabric for for me to even think about it because yeah, I Have so much. I Still have so much and I've gotten rid of so much Now when you're doing these kind of fabric pieces and you're not really waiting for the paint to dry like I'm not I'm Definitely don't use an expensive pen and even if the acrylic paint is dry it can clog up your pens so Be pretty careful about drying over the paint This is just a cheap bit crystal. So if it gets clogged up at some point, it's not a big deal I wait until Like back to school and then I buy him like 10 for a dollar. Oh now I am so sorry Yeah, so that's a good tip Barbara. Yeah, if you have a thin a thinner fabric You can always put something fusible on the backside to make it thinner I mean thicker and give it some more weight You can also cover it with a couple coats of like gesso or something to like give it some more weight The clips help. Oh good Yeah, I'm so sorry Okay, so I like the way that one looks I'm gonna stop putting marks on that because that one looks good Next another piece All right, we're gonna go back to this stencil because this stencil is really cool And this is can I read the book on this on the bottom? Let's see. It says THS 07 9 It doesn't have a name on it like that shattered one does and stencils are something that when I am buying a new one and adding to my collection I really kind of look at it and See is it a design? I can use more than once it is is it a design? That's very different from things that I already own because at some point your collection gets to be so big and The designs no matter how you knew new and unique the designer may think they are are not that different than what's already out there and so I really just kind of do a double-check and think and I Usually I move that just a little bit put things like in my Amazon shopping cart I'll just leave them there for a while until I can go through my like say stamp or stencil collection and just really make sure that I Don't already own something that's similar Yeah, this is a good one. So this is again Tim Holtz THS 0 it says 07 9 It doesn't have a name on it anywhere like the other one did and when you are working on like projects like journal pages or something You could have a piece of this fabric either underneath your work surface like I do right now or Just off to the side and maybe instead of wiping your brush off on a piece of paper Maybe you brought wipe it off on a piece of fabric at some point It's going to make a composition that's interesting and that you might be able to turn into a journal cover or something Yeah, I like the size of the Tim Holtz stencils again. I like the smaller stencils I do still own some large 12 by 12 or bigger stencils I don't use them often And there are designs that I just can't find anywhere else normally but My preference is to grab these smaller ones almost always I need more blue paint I was trying to make that stretch, but it wasn't just not going to go Just not gonna not gonna happen and this of course is one of my stencils I don't remember the name of it. Is it etched in the side?   They're just they're really big and bulky and most of the time I'm Working on small projects, you know as I was purging and doing art and learning mixed media Some truths about myself. I discovered were one I Just I detest charcoal and pastel To I just like working on gigantic journals when I first started working on mixed media and our journaling I For some reason thought your journals had to be big and my first couple journals Which are mostly like from the lifebook classes are huge like 11 By 20 or something. They're gigantic I Just like working on huge gigantic journals. It just really is not my thing and I'm glad the clips worked now I'm Anyway, so, you know, there's some truths about my thing. I just like working with pastels I kept a couple that I know their colors I would enjoy adding to projects at some point so I kept them But most of them went away because I just realized when I discovered my own truth So they're just not my bag. What if I break out a new color? I have a Gray it's neutral gray value five Yeah, so my the big journals are just not my thing. They're just not and that's okay So I have some of the big journals with the paper in them, but I ended up cutting them up to make these smaller ones Which is fine. I'm gonna do that just because I can see all my brushes are like The paint is coming off the handles the ferrules are loose like I'm terrible with brushes That's another truth about myself Don't give me an expensive brush because I'm gonna mess it up I'll leave it sitting in water too long I'm gonna get paint all over it and then I'll feel bad because it costs a lot of money Like so I just don't buy expensive brushes and some people love the big journals But they can't do the small journals and that's totally okay I just know for me the big ones are not my thing and when I work big I work on a canvas at the easel and maybe that's why Yep, I like that put some numbers over here see so for instance like a Lot of my brushes are like that and I ended up gluing the ferrule back in a couple times which I'll have to do with this one Yeah, I'm just terrible with my brushes So that is Donna. It's Liquitex basics neutral gray value number five It's a nice light warm gray I would classify it as a warm gray not a cool gray That's the other thing. I love my acrylic paints and my watercolor paints, but I like working with Matte finish or gouache paints in my art journals and I like working with the regular standard artist acrylics on my easel But I have too much of both and so trying to use up Some of those has been another thing that I've been doing. I get rid of some sometimes if there's a brand or type or finish of paint I don't enjoy working with But for the most part, I'm just trying to use up what I have and I'm not buying anything And if I for instance run out of this gray, I will just mix some Which I've been doing I Do know how to mix paint.  I'm not the frugal crafter. That's Lindsay why we're So you can take these once they're dry and of course add more marks to them You can decoupage tissue paper napkins dictionary paper to them You know, there's a lot you can do to them. You can sew around the edge or not. You can add trim to it. I Just like doing this. I don't usually finish the edges if like some of the strings come out. I just pull them off Yeah, Lisa. So I prefer like Princeton Neptune watercolor brushes. I like a synthetic brush and But even with those I don't usually spend too much money on them because I'm just I'm really hard on my brushes next But you can take a loose brush like this as long as the bristles aren't falling out if the handles come out Take this shove a bunch of e6000 down there and stick the handle back in and let it dry and it'll be fine It'll work for I have one. I did that like five years ago. It's still working and this is a Stibbler brush Lowell Cornell. I think stibbler brush But see yeah, the handles they get it's left in the water too long and that paint peels off the handle And then the handle gets loose and yeah, it's just a crazy nightmare all right We're next let's do this one. We haven't done this one yet This is called. This is one of my stencils. What did I call this one? single-cell Look like an amoeba to me need more yellow ochre tap tap tap get some of that paint off the brush Do some light swirls. That was probably a little bit too hard at tapping, but we'll find out in a minute. That's all right Not too bad.  What are some of those? Pieces and parts and products that you haven't gotten out in like forever Can you create with them? Can you make something interesting with them to keep to use to gift? Or does it maybe just need to go on to somebody who's going to love it more than you are? Lord knows I'm still finding stashes of all of that and if you need, you know thoughtful encouragement When comes time to purge your space well, we as a art community are here for you and as I said earlier, I have had somebody just Yesterday That was messaging me because they need to do their space and they were asking for tips the biggest thing is When you're going through your art supplies Do one category at a time don't overwhelm yourself trying to do the whole room believe me. I've done that before and it doesn't work Because then you just get overwhelmed and you don't get rid of anything So do one category whether it's paint or paper or canvas and guarantee you right there. That's too much paint Whether pens maybe mark making tools Punches and stamps whatever it is do one category at a time and Really go through that category and pull out the things You know you love that you use every single time you create you grab for that thing. That's the thing you keep No Look at what's left. Okay. I really just like these. I hate using them.  They just make me nuts those go away The ones that you're not sure about in my opinion Hang on to them a little bit Maybe set them aside in a box or a space and when you are creating if you go back to any of it Then those you keep and then after a while the rest of them you get rid of Yeah, so I don't disagree with you. So at some point they turn into a glue brush and Then after that if they get really bad like this one's probably right about there They become sort of a art salvage piece that you use for something like a brush person or we did a Art sort of paintbrush exchange a couple of years ago Which was a lot of fun to do this one again It's really great when you have to buy new tools because you've you know used up something or you know, you've Got in the last bit of life out of your paint brushes. They don't last forever You know if you can of course wait for a sailor or coupon. I used to love it when Michael's and Aaron brothers who is owned by Michaels Had there buy one get one free sale because that's when I would go Replace some of my messed up brushes. I don't even know if they do those anymore. I like folk art paint brushes I like Princeton paint brushes and I like low Cornell paint brushes I do own a couple of these simply Simmons brushes and they're okay.  I think because when I learned to watercolor I learned with a synthetic brush and So now for me when I'm watercoloring especially and I'm trying to use a natural bristle brush They just they work differently and I know for some people they prefer it because they hold more water and all that But I just I'm not used to it. I'm sure I could get used to it, but I just have like the patience of an ant so So that might be stress and I get it believe me I Think all of our muses are taking occasional or frequent sabbaticals or vacations Sometimes you just need to not you know necessarily be inspired. You just need to create something and these sort of abstract Just little pieces of fabric That works, you don't need to have your muse be inspired by anything a particular just get up some paint and some stencils and just start creating I know and I talk about this in my vlog, but you know sometimes The painting is not enough. I use my painting and art as a release for my anxiety but things are such that sometimes that is not enough and And It's one of the reasons I started going for walks around the neighborhood. We have the duck pond nearby and We are near a Community park with a river and We live in a really nice neighborhood friendly family neighborhood and so I just go walking around the neighborhood and Just get some fresh air. I have my phone with me and I do vlog while I'm walking, but I Don't have the radio on I don't Unless it's somebody calling like family lately has been sick or injured and so then I if it's one of them calling then I will answer the phone because it might be an emergency but I just for the most part I'm just in silence and It just lets me sort of recharge It's playing in the dirt outside that works Michaels is stopping the coupons. Yeah, Hobby Lobby already did Joann's I think is still doing them, but yeah, I'm a big fan of Princeton brushes So whether it's their acrylic brushes or there it's their watercolor brushes My two favorite brands are Princeton and folk art now folk art used to be way more popular And so you could go into the display and just buy one or two brushes now I think the only way to get them is in a pack But those are my two favorites neither is expensive even if you have to pay full retail I'm gonna hold this down by the feral because it's so loose And yeah, sometimes your muse goes on vacation And so then you need to do like what Kathy's doing and go work in the garden or you know Go for a walk or or something like that. I mean Don't beat yourself up about it. We've all been there and or are there currently It's okay, and that happens during regular times much less the decade of Mondays My mother is calling and it's probably just to tell me like good morning or something and I'll call her back when we're done She doesn't know how to use her new phone So that's a thing let's see Next week it could be Princeton Lisa Hubbard. That's you're so funny Yeah, I just I stopped trying new brushes unless Something that's a favorite of mine is like not being made anymore Then I'll of course then I would have to investigate trying some new brushes to see Which one I like and to be honest I would probably just purchase like a half inch flat in a couple of different brands To try them and see which one I like working with and that which one kind of holds up over the long haul before I buy a Whole bunch of brushes that I've also learned don't buy a whole bunch of something that you might not like I'm always you know open to new ones But for the moment, I'm just really kind of not looking because I do have a particular couple favorites that I like I have plenty of brushes at the moment. I don't really need to buy new ones like has been said earlier in the chat I'm really hard on my acrylic brushes. They get really nerfed up really quickly to borrow a phrase from Shannon Green and So they really just have to be literally falling apart For me to just have to go replace one the ones that I always have trouble finding are the stippler brushes Those are like usually kind of challenging to find This and this one is my favorite. This is a folk art. It's called a scruffy brush and They are a kind of a stiffer stiffer brush in that they have very short very stiff dense bristles And they're great for stenciling and scrubbing and blending your paint, but the Princeton the folk art brushes are Something you almost have to just mail order because they're just almost folk art sort of out of their brushes at least are kind of out of favor, I think and They're hard to find at the stores because there's just not that many places that carry them and When they do they have them in only packs. So you have to buy like a whole pack of brushes So I try to just buy a whole pack of stippling brushes There's lots of brushes out there. You have to like with paint or anything else decide what your budget is Pick an amount and then try to find something that fits in that budget Don't feel like to create and be a wonderful creative That means you have to have you know paint brushes that are like a hundred dollars each. You don't trust me I've had those and you know what I just liked working with them They are not my favorite. I am a cheap brush girl. Oh, yeah, I like that that look that's a cute one That is a really cute one. I Could see this bound and up the center maybe use like this if I have some thread. That's this green color That would be cute. Yeah, I'm gonna stop there because I like the way that turned out Walmart has them Lisa Swank. Thank you very much because I'm always looking for them the stippler brushes. I use a lot. That's like Princeton Neptune half inch flat and the Folk art stippling brushes my two favorites Wow has almost an hour and a half gone by already wow Yeah, I just I prefer the you know, there's some really good Synthetic brushes out there and you know, you don't need to spend a lot of money I do have some other mark making tools. I've just been stenciling, but I did pull out like this wine cork. This is good for making dots I Should say champagne cork Okay, it is good for making dots if you don't slide it around and have too much paint on it That's okay. I mean, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect, right? Yeah, time really does fly when you're having fun. Do I wanna? Let's see. I think I want to do this. This is just cardboard. I have enough paint on it So I'm trying to be delicate. Why am I trying to be delicate people? There we go Delicate my fanny So that's just cardboard. Oops. That's not the color I wanted I have a piece of a silicone pot holder My phone is just going crazy this morning all of a sudden You can use anything as a mark making tool Mark I you know I can't keep track of the date 99% of the time and that was before covid So This is a wooden stamp I got from somewhere and to be honest, I don't remember where I might have picked it up At the craft store. I don't know Oh, it does have a mark on the side. It says mini wood block I don't know. It was five dollars Somebody could have sent it to me. I don't honestly remember. Let's see. Let's try This one This I think will be our last one today. I'm gonna use up the paint that's here on the Palette And I have out Probably a good thing. This is our last one because my phone is going insane Just using up like all of the paint that's like on the side of the paintbrush I hate to waste paint yet now I will check I will check it. Yeah, it's Probably not important because I know my family and there's just some what can I say there's some family drama going on this morning And my opinion isn't going to change anything So that's all I can say about that And one of them is my daughter and I think she's coming over to look through my horde slash stash Of storage bins because she said she needs a couple of bins or something at her house And before she goes to buy some she knows her mom has a horde of storage bins Mom can do you have anything that would work for this and can I come look through your stash tomorrow? And I think that was probably just a message from her saying she's coming over Thank you, Michael and I wasn't you know necessarily intending on using these colors But I have to agree with you. I kind of like them And where they went today Very much. I'm kind of I have to admit I'm a little surprised It might be that I'm channeling, you know wanting to go to the beach Because although I love you know winter and I love the cold it's great like I said great for my asthma I don't like it super hot, but I do love the beach and so it could be that I'm channeling wanting to go to the beach and spring all right So I think that's it for today. I want to encourage you all to You know get out Those pieces and parts in your art room that you haven't used in a while get them out Take a fresh eye to them You don't have to have any intention with the fabric if you have fabric like this Just paint on it. Just get it painted. It's not doing you any good stuck in the closet But maybe when you do get it painted like even this one you might look at it and go I don't know if I like that one as much but then if you take it and fold it in half and do this That's a cute journal cover You could also like do this and that's a cute embellishment, right? Um, you could also make them into a journal that's full of fabric pages Um, and you can add words. I might add, you know collage words and stuff to them later But anyway, I want you to get all those little bits and pieces out of the corners of your art room that you have Use them use it or lose it. It's not doing you any good. Just just sitting there in our room never getting used I have these visions of when at someday hopefully a long long long time from now when I pass away My daughter wanting to dig me up and yell at me because I have like this horde of art supplies And she's like wants to say w t f mom like Yeah, so I don't want to be that person So, you know, I want to encourage you all to use what you have and you know, just be we all myself included Needed me more conscientious about what we do buy and why we're buying it And I'm not saying that to lecture you all I'm lecturing myself because I'm just as guilty as anybody else um Really think about whether you really really need it or not And if you are trying to destash you're trying to lighten your load in your art room You're trying to figure out ways to use new things Well, you know First of all follow me on social media and if you're friends with me on facebook Then you can always, you know message me over on facebook We do have a couple of creative friends chats over on facebook one of them's for patrons only And so if you're a patron and you're not in that chat and you're on facebook, let me know um Support the free content On here on facebook or youtube and over in the facebook art groups not just for me Any of your favorite creatives? They probably all have a way to support them whether it's merch or an etsy shop or something And so think about ways to support them. They probably like me have ways in their video description So check that out. Um, the not the least of which is my etsy store and my art foemies Hey, and you're joining us. I'm leaving. I'm sorry um I want you all to be kind to each other and remember again to support each other If you can times are tough right now for all of us and please stay safe stay healthy stay creative Please go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it And i'll see you later Bye guys