Lunchtime Sketches V

...And Now It's You
Medium: Pencil
Slightly touched up in Photoshop, too, to remove some of the nasty sketch lines. This one was a bit of fun. It's odd, though: you're staring at something as you're drawing it for an hour or so, and it's not until you are finished and uploading the sodding thing that you realise what you should have done differently. It's all a learning experience, and I still like his expression.

Answer Boards

Slamming the boards? Sounds uncharacteristically violent for librarians, doesn't it? (Although, the next time someone asks me what I do and then says 'oh, that's nice, you must read books all day'...)

One thing about the answer boards: as soon as I saw some of the questions, I had a sudden and enormous love for the reference interview. People often just aren't that good at framing their question well.

Or spelling it well.

Or at all.

Or spending two brain cells and the common sense given to the average chicken at perhaps having a stab at the answer themselves.

Ahem. Sorry. That whistling noise you may have heard was the vent. But seriously, I don't think of myself as a grammar nazi or anything, but when you see something like this, you're not supposed to take it as a challenge.

I think librarians participating in these answer boards is a fantastic idea, by the way. It's one of those activities that can be a little tricky because, while it's benefiting the profession as a whole, you're not likely to see statistically significant improvements in your immediate area as a result of it. I like to see an organisation be willing to take a bit risk on an activity or program for more than short-term payoffs. Much like 23 Things, really.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Portrait
Medium: Photoshop
I wasn't going to post this one, as I'm not too happy with it: but then that's true of practically everything, so why not? Unusual for a few reasons- it was drawn from a photo reference, whereas I normally just sketch without references, and it was done entirely in Photoshop. That's a little challenging, as I normally rough out a sketch and scan it in first, but I could really get used to the fluidity it give you, too.

Passwords Aplenty

So, how's everyone been going with this 23 things, eh? (Sorry, went a bit Canadian there). One of the little issues that has cropped up for me in doing this has been the sudden proliferation of passwords. I have a big pile of them anyway- just about every site or service that allows you to post content is going to want one, for a start. It soon adds up.

After a little messing around, I've settled on a rough system. Sites where I'm not posting much content or that interested in get my 'generic' username and password, and a link to my hotmail account if I need a password reset or anything. Sites like blogger, where I'm spending a bit of effort, get a unique password. (That, incidentally, is one of the reasons I like Google so much: Reader, G-mail, everything all with one login. Nice)

So what does everyone else do? Has anyone tried one of those 'password list' applications? I'm open to suggestions for a better way of organising this. Any ideas?

Lunchtime Sketches IV

Fury

Medium: Ballpoint pen

Another rough sketch in ballpoint. Tried to mess around with the perspective a little, but didn't come out quite as I planned. Done mostly because, well, you just have to have dragons, right?