So last year I decided to try something a little different, and amazingly it was a huge hit!! I decided to hand paint custom baubles. I ended up painting and selling 116 over the course of 6 weeks. Let me tell you, I didnt bloody stop. But I loved it! I will be doing the same again this year, so get your pet photos ready!
Creative Juices
Been a couple of months of neglect on my part in regards to keeping my blog updated, but with everything going on this year I think I am be forgiven. 2020 has been absolutely nuts. We are all currently living the new normal while still trying to get back to our old normal, its very strange. I have actually found 2020 to be a blessing and a curse, obviously its a horrendous pandemic but I found it to be welcoming pause. I enjoyed the lockdown, due to being very fortunate in having a job and still working throughout, but also because I was able to take a step back and truly focus on my creative abilities which I had been ignoring for a couple of years. I hadn’t given up being a creative but it was sidelined by work and other life responsibilities. This year I was able to publish my own books onto Amazon, get them stocked in a local bookstore and then really pursue more freelance creative avenues. In the past 6 weeks I have been painting personalised baubles, 109 of them to be exact, which I am over the moon about. This has led to other requests including personalised portraits which I have been able to sell for a lot more. The rise in my social media followings and likes has been a boost as well. I try not to dwell on social media as I found it to be a false window of success but it is nice to have genuine followers who actually want to see my posts, like, save and share. From not drawing for months on end to now painting, illustrating and designing every single day I feel I have all my creative juices flowing and I love it. I hope to continue this small shred of success into 2021 and continue to build my creative abilities and social media presence. It would be amazing to one day be able to quit my day desk job and solely rely on my art to bring in a income but until then I will be sketching, painting and posting. 🙂
Write Blend Book Store
Very happy to share that my books are now available to buy at Write Blend an independent book store in Waterloo, Liverpool.
Get yours now! All books are also available on Amazon. 🥳😆
Book Updates
All my books are now live on Amazon which I am really pleased about. Been blew away by all the support on social media on Facebook and Instagram. I recently recreated my Bearpress page on facebook again and within a week I have near 200 followers which I’m trilled with. I am not interested in trying to get a huge following in a short amount of time as I want people who following my and my publishing journey to be actually interested. I have noticed on Instagram many people only follow you to get a follow back which I find quite annoying. But thats probably the only downside to IG, its very shallow. Other than that I am over the moon with getting everything online and available for purchase as a softcover and eBook.
Also so pleased to announce that my books will soon be getting sold in a Independent book store called Write Blend in Waterloo. This is probably one of my most exciting achievements. Cant wait to finally get them in and get photos of them on the shelves! 😀
Links to my books:
So Your Child Has Autism…: https://www.amazon.co.uk/So-your-child-has-autism/dp/B089M1FGGB/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
The Lost Little Bear: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Little-Bear-Alexandra-Parry/dp/B08BDXM327/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Books available to buy from Amazon
https://www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-d…/entity/author/B089RR1YC9…
Really excited to share that I have self published my books onto Amazon.
All About Ben and So your child has autism… are now live and ready to buy as a paper back and ebooks.
I was inspired by my little brother Ben who has Aspergers syndrome to create, write and illustrate these book. I wanted to share the everyday life of a child with Autism, and break the stigma around ASD.
Everything you read from ‘So your child has autism…’ is from my own personal take on autism/ASD and things me and my family have been through. Its a very humours take on dealing with the ups and downs of autism and how to basically cope and thrive.
I have another book which is still under review by Amazon but hopefully should be live in a few hours called The Lost Little Bear.
It is however available to buy as a ebook.
This is a story about self acceptance and making new friends. I wrote and illustrated the full book.
If you could have a nose at the links I would be so made up. Thank you!!
The lost little bear ebook: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B089T8C1TG
All about Ben paperbook:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/…/B…/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3
All about Ben ebook:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/…/B…/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2
So your child has autism…:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/…/B…/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
Remote Teaching
I have had a few remote virtual sessions now on Teams, some with the attendance of students… others non. Its quite frustrating but I understand the circumstances and its hard to get on the scheme of things working from home. I can imagine its difficult for a lot of students who have their own children, the same way a lot of teachers are now struggling to remote teach as they have little ones to look after. Its strange times but its good to be dealing with a problem that is facing everyone. I am trying my best to overcome certain barriers which mainly involves participation and engagement. I cant force anyone to log in and watch my videos or read my post, its just a sad but hey I will get over it. I want my learners to do well but like I said its hard times and I don’t know what they are going through at home.
The only good thing about this is I can deliver sessions from the comfort of my bed and wear jammies 3 days straight, and create Vblog videos which have guest speakers…. my cats. The only other uncertainty is when will things go back to normal. I don’t think I will see my students again for the rest of the academic year, which is a awful shame. I have absolutely loved teaching them. Even if they are a right pain ha. Hopefully in a couple of months things will be right and I will be able to eat out far too many times a month and maybe as a society we will all take better care of the planet. This seems to be one of the positives of the virus, the world is healing. I hope we can continue to realise this.
Final observation
I had my final observation today and i am honestly over the moon with it. Purely just filled with relief that I have conpleted all of my observations and I only have 1 more assignment really to go. Im also a little sad as well which seems silly, as much as I have been stressing over the past few months, I do think I thrive off it. Will be bored once it is all over. Anyways back to the observation. It was a good session, bit gutted about the turn out but hey ho. I gave the students a new brief – 8 words. Should be a nice one. I say that but it never is ha-ha. Once I delivered the presentation about 8 words and what it would be about I gave the students a introductory research task. This always goes down well as I can observe if they are actually documenting their research in session and able to get a better idea at what direction they might be going. At 11am, around 1 hour into my session we started to xreate our 3D books, which are going to be presented at the end of year show. I wanted the learners to realise that they can present work other than being in frames, it can be more out their and different. I want them to start thinking bigger, bolder, and better really. I was really happy with the engagement and motivation in class during this activity. Everyone got involved and it was a good laugh. I have quite a good relationshio with my leanrers and I do think it makes a difference to the motivation of the students. I was really impressed with one of my students who decided to follow my instructions but try and her own on the inside of the book. It worked really well and I was impressed with her using her initiative and creativity. We didnt get time to print the cover of the books out, however I am going to do this with them during next weeks session. Very happy overall. I moan a lot but to be honest I love teaching my students even when they are giving me giff, aint turning up and handing in unfinished work. 😭😂Its a learning for life process for all of us ha!
Primary Research- Leaving a mark
Had a lovely session this week. I once again went through research with my students (This is something that are still struggling to document properly) however thats a little harsh, some are doing it perfectly. I decided to have a full session mark making and recreating designs from my learners favourite artists. I tried to channel my inner pollock, which I think did work, a little. The students seemed to enjoy taking a step away from the computers. I think its good to sometimes take a step back and just experiment and play with different mediums and processes. I have told them this kind of stuff is amazing to have evidenced in their sketchbook as its classed as primary research. Overall it was a fab little session, everyone got involved and it was really pleasant. I just need now to make sure my learners are keeping up to date with all of their work that is expected to be competed in their own time. I think I am best making a weekly or even a monthly planner so they do not get overwhelmed with the pending assignments they have. I will get this ready for them next week.
Term 2- Penguin
Really happy with my learners at this point of the year. I was slightly concerned with the lack of research in their assignments but I changed around my SOW and lesson plans to try and tackle this head on when we came back after Christmas. I can definitely see an improvement. I have started using Teams more as well to put up all of my resources I have been using in my sessions whether that is question sheets or even more presentations. Only because I know some of my students have had issues with their attendance so I didn’t want them missing out of anything. I basically have told them they can use the presentations as research as long as I can see clear understanding through out their annotations.
Todays session I basically wanted to be more of a facilitator and I have stepped back so I can give out 1:1s to necessary students and look over everyones research for their current penguin assignment. I have really focussed and drilled into their heads the importance of documenting their research and even following the correct design process throughout their sketchbooks so I can see their development throughout the assignment.
I can see clear improvement which is great, next week they will be critiques the rest of their sketchbook work, I have told them it can be presented however they like to should be interesting to see what they all come up with. It was nice to see my learners just get on with things without me having more influence. I have obviously offered my guidance but a bit of independent learning will do wonders for my learners. One of my learners really cheered me up she hasn’t been in for a couple of weeks and I was slightly worried if she may have fallen behind but she has blown me away with the amount of work she has completed. Overall super happy with all their enthusiasm today.
Data Analyse
Look for similarities in my data. Start grouping issues and significant topics together. Significant in terms of my research question and what I hope to achieve.
Questionnaires, reflections, group discussions, lesson feedback. analysing and evaluating what I have got from feedback. Read it and pull out themes.
Appendix how did you work out the similarities and the commonalities. Talk about how you have picked out your theme. Basically take all the data and say this equals this.
My idea of Stages of Thematic Data Analysis
Read it through- transcribe/ getting rid of data that is not relevant.
Organise it.
find themes/commonalities (Coding, on a spreadsheet)
Hypothesis of the data- what I expect to find.
Stages of Thematic Data Analysis
Unitisation stage– look at the data holistically, try and find links between the different sources. Initial themes will be related to the aims and research questions. The units are likely to be words/ideas/events. Assemble the data into meaningful chunks.
Coding stage– coding themes and colour code them. Pull at really broad themes
dissection/analytical – Quality of support for certain themes- use multiple sources to prove or disprove what you’re saying. (could come from interviews, reflective journals, maybe data from registers if a students does not turn up) cross checking with other sources of data. qualitative research all match up. Pattern across all the data to justify a point. discard anything that is not important. Focus in one two or 3 main themes- talk about each these in the assignment.
Synthesis stage
explain meaning ( why something is happening) develop new understanding and insights ( why has something changed). Relate what you have learnt to known theory. The focus is on building a new understanding from the data collected – whats the big picture . This allows the research to be placed within a context and related back to the original proposal. Check who is going to be reliable and honest
Narrative stage
Telling your research story. (I did this and I did this, found this out and this meant this.) It will aim to extract ideas, principles that may be applied to other similar contexts. (it would of worked with other students or levels) Underpin theory and relate to subject specialism. <<< Level 7 should be talking about this.
Themes- Motivation, engagement, achievement.
Peer to Peer observations.
Details of who was in your group, steps one for 4 is really easy. As supported by- as researched by- as suggested by-
Reference list at the bottom of the page.
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