hi.im.kunal.ramchandani

You should never fail an art student

kunalramchandani — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:11:04 +0000

I started drawing again recently. Because drawing is awesome. I’ll upload it when I’ve finished but here’s my other stuff. Art became fun for me after school was over because getting a C for my AS levels annoyed me, and the subject was thereafter dropped. Point. How does an art teacher tell a student they don’t deserve an A when the artists up on the wall at places like the MoMA produce things like “Abstract Painting“?

We’re taught about tone, form, ’seeing not just looking’, scale, subject, intention. We were taught things like sticking a pencil in the air in front of us to get the right angles which should then be brought down to the piece of paper in front of us. Draw and paint what you see. Stop imagining things you want to paint because it doesn’t look like that. People don’t have lines around their faces right…so how should you actually go about drawing a face?

The best students still got A’s though. But how can you define ‘best’ in the context of art? They got A’s because they produced amazing looking things for their bracket. Seriously though, don’t think that you can really.

Art should be about perception. I saw a cool image once that said:

MODERN ART = I COULD HAVE DONE THAT + YEAH BUT YOU DIDN’T

Question. How does a student become a famous artist? How do they make it at MoMA or the guggenheim? Do they paint how they are told to paint and then produce odd things when they’ve made it? No idea. If Monet’s child drew scribbles why does Rob see baby scribbles and walk away while Bob see’s the stroke of a future artistic genius and offers squillions of Pounds for the paper?

Because art is bullshit.

Art should be whatever we want it to be and if we’re told we’re not meant to take art on further, then take a look around in your local modern art gallery or museum.

Isn’t it?

Filed under: Random

Meeting people out of context

kunalramchandani — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:14:49 +0000

Isn’t it strange when you meet someone that you know relatively well and see relatively often in a place completely out of context and unusual….to the extent that you possibly won’t even recognise them in this new context? And then it clicks. Wait you’re my friend, hey.

Filed under: Random

Comparing my mouse movements to those of a designer

kunalramchandani — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 02:01:38 +0000

So I found this guy who is obsessed with tracking his own mouse movements when using Photoshop. Thought I’d give it a go….

This was between 2.30pm and 4pm on the 21st of Jan 10. No real clear picture going on here. The blobs represent a stationary mouse (lots of reading and typing if you’re a web analyst. Or tea breaks, duh).

This one was between 3.30pm and 5.30pm on the 22nd of Jan 10. Way too many blobs. Oops. Compare to Hollie’s below (designer) over a similar time frame which is much busier. Spot the Photoshop behaviour

Set up is easy. Windows here et Mac link here.

Posted in Online

Do holidays actually ignite higher levels of stress?

kunalramchandani — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:02:18 +0000

Here is my holiday stress graph. They do for me it would seem….

Posted in Random

People who buy this, also buy that – the Amazon upsell

kunalramchandani — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:19:00 +0000

So for whatever reason I was on the German Amazon site. I cannot speak German and have never bought from the site. For whatever reason thereafter I was looking for Baseball bats on Amazon.de. Interestingly i’ve never played baseball and don’t intend to, we have a wii for that.

So this fine looking baseball bat caught my eye…..

Amazon are renowned in the web world for using clever algorithms to find the best selection of other products you may be interested in. i.e. People who bought X typically also buy Y. They are actually so good that 30% of the time i’ve been sold – that’s a great conversion for a cross sell.

Anyway. In Germany, people who typically buy the very fabulous Aluminium Baseballschlager 30′ American Baseball typically buy the following items (this still hasn’t been taken down by Amazon.de)….

Yup. People who buy the bat typically buy leather black gloves, a balaclava (wtf…) and what appears to be pepperspray….

Good God German people, you scary!

Update 30th Oct 09 – hmm its gone

Posted in eCommerce

What would happen if Google ’stopped’?

kunalramchandani — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:58:00 +0000

I can’t help but think i’d be seriously confused if Google’s products were to disappear. Just going through my bookmarks and realised how many Google things I use on a regular – semi regular basis….very weird.

Gmail
Android Phone G1
Calendar
Analytics
Youtube
Latitude
Talk
Chrome
Adwords
Reader
Alerts
Keyword Tool
Maps
Docs
Webmaster
URL builder
Trends (for websites)
News
Insights for Search
Shopping
Picassa
Images
Adwords Editor
Blogger
Feedburner
iGoogle

OK those are the regulars! Less regular….
Local Business Centre (when needed)
Blog Search
Filter Creator
Notebook
Health
Finance
Earth
Web Optimiser
Checkout
Ad planner
Orkut

*sigh* the one I hope I get an invite for on September 30th is Google Wave!

Seriously. Could my life be any more dependent on a single brand?

Posted in Google