I am now co-teaching a graduate level course in the Communication track of the MA in Organizational Leadership program at Rider University. The course, COMM 563, is Digital Media Communication. In the class we focus on the issues, concepts, and problems of organizational communication using digital media. The course uses WordPress as a learning and posting platform, and participants learn how to develop effective publishing skills, integrating various digital media, and developing an audience for their brand.
In January of 2011, I was able to propose and deliver three sessions for a twice-a-year event at Rider that allows for focused faculty development at Rider University. My sessions were: 10 technologies Faculty should know about, co-presented with Shaun Holland, a session on the upcoming rollout of Blackboard 9.1 at Rider, and finally, an overview of Wimba Pronto, delivered primarily by Shaun Holland.
Today’s sketch is a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the greatest thinkers, writers and orators of our recent history, on his nationally recognized day of service. Using a famous AP photo, I used GIMP’s threshold tool to essentially break the photo into two colors: a highlight in white, and a shadow in black. Then, using the select by color tool I selected the black shadow and began to paint into a new transparent layer with a variety of brushes in a blue palette. I put a new transparent layer behind the blue painted layer, removed the selection, and painted from a gold palette, which showed through the remaining open spaces in the blue layer.
An excerpt from his brave and poignant “Letter from a Birmingham Jail. “
“Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds. You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.” – Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.] from
tags: mlk, martin luther king jr., service, reminder, of service, sharing, lemasney, GIMP, GNU, GPL, open source, 365, postaday2011, peace
So, today I decided to make a new header for the project to show the difference in the new series. I started off by importing the older blue header with the open location import tool to get just the right size. After making a text layer with my project name and choosing a font and applying kerning, I added a few transparent layers underneath it. On each of those layers I used the paintbrush or eraser and various brushes to make the marks you see here. Using the palette color selector and a built-in fiery palette was especially helpful to create a cohesive color scheme.
Event: Brookdale Computer Users Group general monthly meeting
Date: Friday, December 17th, 2010
Venue: Brookdale Community College
Abstract: In this session, I described the origins, problems, solutions, and outcomes of my daily digital sketch project at http://365sketches.org which made use of Inkscape, an open source vector design and illustration application.
I started with a famous album cover, brought it into Inkscape, converted to a vector using bitmap trace, removed everything but Paul’s face, then used it as a mask on a grunge texture. Simple technique, but I really like the result.
