Sainsbury’s Christmas ads

UK department store Sainsbury’s features Judith Kerr’s famous book character, Mog the cat, in an advertisement for the Christmas season. These ads are also excellent examples of persuasive visual texts.


Sainsbury’s official Christmas advert 2015 – Mog’s Christmas calamity


Sainsbury’s official Christmas 2014 ad – 1914

And the current ad is:


Sainsbury’s official Christmas advert 2016 – The greatest gift

What’s cookin’?

What's cooking?

Any idea what’s bubbling away on my cooktop? I’m dyeing two customised puppets!

Giraffe/dog composite & spare tiger puppets
And this becomes…

Bat & Panther
… this!

Yes, they are a pair of customized puppets, now dried in the washing machine spin-drier. The completed bat has wings cut from brown felt and the new eyes are flat beads in a pink plastic, Supaglued over the original black giraffe eyes. 50 cents for a packet containing lots (of future replacement eyes?) I love bargain shops!

The panther’s eyes are some teardrop-shaped yellow plastic “jewels”, originally bought for a different project. The only reason for turning a tiger into a panther was to give the bat a dunking buddy, and use up the leftover dye.

Cat & Frog
These two new additions (above) look rather sedate after the cooking pot episode!

Blast from the past: Fish’ook (1978-1979)

Fish'ook 1
(CLICK ARTWORK TO ENLARGE)

When I was a student at the Guild Teachers College, I created a comic strip based on some cats of my acquaintance, and used them to poke fun at some of the boring bits of our textbooks. Classroom management, reinforcement techniques, behaviour modification, the Oedipus Complex… all good fodder for a little satire.

Fish'ook 2, 3
(CLICK ARTWORK TO ENLARGE)
Fish'ook 4

Fish'ook 5

Fish'ook 6

Fish'ook 7, 8

30 Day Challenge


“Try something new for 30 days”, Matt Cutts

My NSW Department of Education and Communities colleagues on Maang have decided to embrace the advice of Matt Cutts in his TED talk, “Try something new for 30 days” (above).

First up is the Photo Challenge (click for the cumulative slideshow). For the next 30 days, we take a photo a day and post it under the dedicated thread for the day. Day threads will be numbered according to which day we are up to. Subject matter? “What’s happening in your life/work today?” (I’m already experienced in this type of challenge, have done the 365 Photos project in 2009-2010.

Here’s my pic:

Fish'ook and Bluey
DAY 1

These homemade stuffed cats date back to my teachers college days (1979), based on my cartoon characters, Fish’ook and Bluey, who featured in a comic strip in the college newspaper, “Dugil”. They turned up in a vacation cleanup this week; hadn’t seen them in years! (Ah, Hobbytex – remember those roll-on paint-in-a-tube things you bought on party plan like Tupperware?)