2014: the year of learning - CreativeLive: time or money

Either you have time or you have money. That is what they say and it is probably the credo of the creators of CreativeLive: a fantastic learning platform with a huge range of online-courses for creative entrepreneurs of all kinds. It works like this: You can either watch the streaming of a course with no possibility of recording, forwarding or rewinding but for free, or you can buy the course and watch it whenever you want as many times as you need.

One of the advantages of watching the courses live, besides of having no costs, is the chat room where you can meet all the people who are watching at the same time from all over the world and you can even post questions to the instructors. On the other side, buying the course provides you with valuable additional learning material.

I have bought a couple of courses and they are of very good quality. Great professionals like Lisa Congdon or Ilene Strizver giving the best of themselves during days (most of the courses take longer than eight hours).

But I also have get used to go and see what is on live so that I have something interesting to listen to while I am drawing, doodling (see plants above) or working out. And I have learnt a lot of interesting things this way.

I could go on and on telling about all the stuff I have learnt this year. Through courses but also through fantastic books. Like "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards, which not only demonstrates that anybody can draw if she learns how to look (I knew that part) but also explains how school systems are guilty of frustrating teenagers when they try to draw and making adults who cannot draw at all, or why it is so difficult to draw and talk at the same time (unless you are talking about what you are drawing). A book that has kept me company at breakfast during the last month or so is "100 Years of Fashion Illustration" by Cally Blackman, I have had this book at home for some years and I had already admired its beautiful pictures but now I actually read it and discovered that it is not only a delight for the eyes but also fantastic material on what was going on during the XXth Century, in fashion, communications and culture in general.

I hope the Three Kings bring me a couple of new books for next year. You never stop learning. And that is fantastic.

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