Ze (pronounced zeh) Frank is an amazing man, magician, imagineer on the net. His work (conceptual, comical, social, compassionate) is that of a true original, out-of-the-box thinker. He uses social media, the internet, software games and interactions as his media, and comes up with kindness.

This 2010 TED Talk is a great introduction to Ze if you have 20 minutes now - or later -- well worth the watch. (TED also has other talks by Ze, Chris likes him a lot!)

I've long used Scribbler, one of his online tools, to make interesting sketches, cards, and, lately I'm trying it out in a new-to-me version that includes color and more user controls than the original tool did. A collaborator Mario Klingemann, added the enhancements to the original, and looking at the website, I see that there are iPhone and iPad versions as well.

Since I am working on my Joggles online class (an on an upcoming iPad online workshop series) I played around last night with Scribbler and text images. If you want to play, head over to this site. And take some time to explore the rest of Ze's site, too! You'll find answers to questions you never thought to ask.

I was late scheduling my September workshop, From Scribble to Symbol, Personal Mark-Making, and now I need at least a couple of more people here for it to be fun (and profitable) for me and everyone participating. So for those who sign up for this workshop (including those who have already registered), pay for the September workshop before Sept. 20, and I'll give you a certificate worth one-half off the next workshop/retreat you sign up for here at El Cielo -- that's an $80 value. This offer is limited to the next four people who take me up on the offer, email me and then send the check! I also take PayPal.

A reminder of what we'll be doing:

In this workshop, start with simple sketches and doodles and end the weekend with an arsenal of new surface design tricks and tools. Explore doodles and scribbles as sources of unique and personal imagery that will give your art quilts, wearable art, or mixed media work personal depth and layers of meaning. Any artist will benefit from these exercises, whether you make your mark on paper, clay, quilts, art cloth, metal or any other media that has an element of decorative motif or imagetic narrative.

Take a favorite symbol -- for example a heart, star, spiral, circle, leaf, apple -- and by taking it (and yourself) through a series of creative generative exercises, you’ll make something new and different to incorporate into your design, composition and surface design. Then develop something even more personal from the kinds of doodles and marks that show up on your notepads and napkins! Tools and techniques explored include paper lamination on fabric, large scale “mark-making” rollers and monoprinting -- also some hands-on work with some computer programs that you can download for free and use in your image generation process. (bring a laptop if you have one.)

Some examples of some of the kinds of mark-making that I'm interested in are shown below in these photos (the one at the top of the post was developed with a program called SCRIBBLER).

xs and os