Ok, so heres the situation.  In January I will be moving to China.  Unfortunatly the great firewall of china has blocked facebook, and it doesnt look like thats going to change anytime soon.  I’d like to develop coffee stains and ink spills a little more and implement a “wall” feature, so that friends can leave me messages that don’t need to be affiliated with any particular blog post.

The idea is that people will be able to (pending approval by me) register, and then will be able to leave comments on posts without the need for them to be approved.  Additionally registered friends will be able to leave comments on my wall.

I’m happier with this visual concept than the last one.  It doesn’t feel as ominous, and feels more fun and professional.  This is the current blue print I will be working from, but let me know what you think, constructive critisism is always appreciated.

The great firewall of china blocks facebook and twitter, two online services I update from coffee stains and ink spills.  When I post on the blog, coffee stains and ink spills updates my twitter message to inform twitter friends that I have done so.  Twitter also updates my facebook status.  Additionally, whenever I make a new post, it syncs with facebook notes, and becomes a post in my facebook account.  As kiamo.co.uk is hosted in north America, these updates should continue to work, despite my living in China.  However, I will not be able to log in to any of them directly, and will therefore not be able to read any messages people leave me on either facebook or twitter.  So I encourage you all to comment or contact me on Coffee Stains and Ink Spills.

Filed under: web by kiamo
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Enjoying the company of old friends you haven’t seen in years is something I’d imagine brings everyone happyness, even if they arrive at a slightly inconvenient time.  I read an article about our train of thought the other day and some articles linked from it.  It got me thinking about how I can spend time with my friends at the same time as maintaining my train of thought, focus, motivation and inspiration.

First of, I’m working on an architectural piece of art.  So naturally I can draw inspiration and insight from other awesome architectural pieces of art.  Today we explored some of the more interesting parts of Leicester and I took lots of photos.  Tomorrow we are going to explore Nottingham castle.  Train of thought… check!

Music is something I listen to nearly all of the time, the last few days I’ve only been listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings soundtracks.  I’m going for a really epic feel to my environment, epic music really helps me stay focused.  check!

Time’s a precious commodity I cant afford to waste.  Between putting in as much work as possible into my FMP, working at gokidsgo for money, taking part in various Baha’i activities and spending time with Dima and other friends, when I do take some time out to play a game or watch a film, its only time well spent if its something that inspires and motivates me.  Tonight I watched Speed Racer again, easily the best film I’ve seen in a long time.  Actually I’d like to write a review of that at some point.  Motivation, check! Inspiration, check!

Having blocked out the basic siluet of my environment, I now need to think about the details.  I dont feel that I’ve worked nearly as hard today as I did yesterday, but looking and photographing old buildings has kept me thinking and planning in my head which is valuable in itself.

Shown above is a painting I did today.  Apart from the technical observations I also learnt that theres something of a balance to be found between listening to ones gut desires, and forcing oneself to keep working something that your not feeling.  I really should’ve just stick to 3d today as my brain wasn’t working in 2d very well.  The whole time I was working on it I just wanted to be working in 3d and painting texture pages.  I’m a bit afraid of getting distracted and going completely of task, but I suppose sometimes its ok to just role with my feelings, so long as they are somehow focused on the project.

Filed under: Art, life musings by kiamo
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