Author Archives: Izzy Parkinson

3 ways to find and support eco-friendly places on Maps

In an effort to be more eco-friendly, we all know that it’s best to reduce, reuse and recycle — and to support businesses and places that do the same. But it’s not always easy to know which restaurants compost or where you can recycle items, like electronics or clothing. Thankfully, Google Maps and its community of contributors are making it easier for everyone to make choices that are better for the planet. 


As an active member of the Local Guides program, a global community of people who share their local knowledge and recommendations on Google Maps, Karol helps people find environmentally-friendly spots in her hometown of Posadas, Argentina.


“Posadas is truly a blessed place surrounded by nature, but it breaks my heart that it’s just taking its first steps on the path to being environmentally-friendly,” says Karol, who used the list featureon Maps to curate and share hard-to-find recycling centers in her city. “Anything that can be done to promote sustainable consumption is priceless.”


A photo of Karol at Connect Live in 2019.

 A photo of Karol at Connect Live in 2019.

Karol is no stranger to connecting people who care about the planet to the local places that do too. Here are three tips she has for finding and supporting places on Google Maps that are focused on reducing waste, reusing items and recycling materials. 

Look for new recycling information on Maps and Search ?

Now you can find out where you can recycle or properly dispose of specific items by looking at Business Profiles on Google Maps and Search. Starting today, merchants who have verified Business Profiles on Google can easily add information about what items they recycle using Google My Business. You’ll be able to see what places accept materials — like clothing, electronics, batteries, household hazardous waste, light bulbs and glass bottles — so you know you’re keeping these items out of the landfill. Soon people who visit certain locations will be prompted to answer questions in Maps after their visit so they can let others know what types of materials can be recycled. 

Four mobile phone screens showing how to access recyclable materials information on Maps.

Now businesses can let people know the types of materials they accept for recycling.

Put sustainable businesses on the map ?

Just like Karol created a list for recycling drop-off locations in her city, she suggests building and sharing lists for all types of places and businesses that make it easier to consume responsibly. Create a list of nearby electric vehicle charging stations, local recycling centers or second-hand stores. Learn how to create and share lists of places here. 


Karol is also working on creating a list of local craftspeople who upcycle. “I would like everyone in my city to be able to find skilled craftspeople who give a second life to discarded objects like toys, furniture or clothing,” she says. “It’s another baby step people can take toward a greener style of living.”

A screenshot showing the city of Posadas with pins indicating where the recycling centers that Karol mapped are.

A map of Posadas showing Karol’s list of recycling centers.

Give eco-friendly businesses a boost ♻️

Finally, Karol stresses the importance of giving extra support and encouragement to businesses that are taking sustainability seriously. Contribute photos and reviews that highlight businesses that are composting and recycling — like your favorite take out spot that has minimal and compostable packaging or an image of a sign that lists what items a local recycling center accepts. If you recycle materials at a local business, you can alsosuggest an edit to their Business Profile to help let others know. 


“This is our only home and as such, we owe it nothing but respect and care,” Karol says.  “With all the technological breakthroughs over the last decades, with everything we know about what human development has caused to nature, we should be doing much more not only for ourselves, but the future generations and for all the other living things here.”

Tilt Brush Artist in Residence: Meet Liz Edwards

Editor’s note: Tilt Brush lets you paint in 3D space with virtual reality. Earlier this year, we launched the Artist in Residence (AiR) program to showcase what’s possible when creative artists experiment with this new medium. The resulting works of art have been amazing, and you can check some of them out on our website, or right in the Tilt Brush app itself.

In this series, we go deeper into these artists’ processes, explore their creative influences, hear about their experience using Tilt Brush and share any tips they have for aspiring VR artists. For this post, we caught up with artist Liz Edwards. Want more? Check out our previous posts on Steve Teeps, Isaac Cohen, and Estella Tse.

1. Could you walk us through your creative process in Tilt Brush?

Working in Tilt Brush has always felt very natural. At no point during my first doodles did I ever feel intimidated by the software, and I think that's a huge strength of Tilt Brush. Getting comfortable drawing in this new medium was just a matter of putting in the time and experimenting, which is easy to do when it's so much fun. Lots of moments of, "I wonder if this would work?"—even a year into working with Tilt Brush.

Wonder Woman

2. How is Tilt Brush different from working in other mediums? Is the openness ever daunting?

I don't find it daunting at all—it's a very liberating way of working. I've spent years working in traditional professional 3D software, bogged down in the interfaces, clicking around for hours making 3D shapes on a 2D screen. Tilt Brush removes all of that tedium and places the artist directly into a creative space where they can conjure up anything with a few gestures in thin air. It's magic.

3. What inspires you?

I come from a video game background, so I've kind of approached my VR art from that direction, creating places, vehicles and characters I'd like to see come to life in a game. All my spaceship stuff comes from a childhood of playing X-Wing, Wing Commander and the like. A cool thing—I'd never been interested in designing any kind of vehicle, even awesome spacecraft, before Tilt Brush. I've always much preferred drawing and sculpting characters over dealing with perspective in 2D or tedious (to me) hard surface modeling in 3D programs. Tilt Brush really opened the door for me in that regard and I'm getting to explore brand new, really fascinating subjects.

4. Were there any funny moments or cool things that happened while using Tilt Brush?

In the dark days before the ability to scale sketches was added, I had to work in some pretty silly positions to draw things like feet and the tops of heads. I nearly ended up standing on a chair to draw a tall tree but decided I didn't want to be the first VR casualty! I have the opposite problem now—I'll end up moving far, far above my environment to work on the sky and startle myself when I look down. I actually think it's really cool that my own art can spook me like that!

Asteroids

5. Do you have any neat trips or tricks?

A lot of people ask how I get my sketches so solid. Here's a secret: they're not solid at all. I fill the space in between my lines with the "Wire" brush. This brush is 3D and unlit (no shadows or highlights), so even if the geometry it makes is a messy bunch of tubes, you'll never see the mess—only the solid silhouette. As long as my silhouette looks good from most directions, the sketch looks solid and totally 3D. Same with the various "Marker" brushes— they're all unlit, so you can get away with being a bit messy!

6. What’s your favorite piece?

My favorite personal piece has to be this spaceship in asteroid field (displayed above). The 3D-comic style I'd been pushing for finally started coming together with that piece, and I started feeling confident about doing more vehicle and hard surface work. When I look at it, I get excited to make more things in that style and world.

The piece I'm most proud of, though, has to be Wonder Woman: Art of Wonder (displayed above). It was a huge honor to bring the amazing Wonder Woman to life in Tilt Brush, and so much fun!

Tilt Brush Artist in Residence: Meet Estella Tse

Editor’s note: Tilt Brush lets you paint in 3D space with virtual reality. Earlier this year, we launched the Artist in Residence (AiR) program to showcase what’s possible when creative artists experiment with this new medium. The resulting works of art have been amazing, and you can check some of them out on our website, or right in the Tilt Brush app itself.

In this series, we go deeper into these artists’ process, explore their creative influences, hear about their experience using Tilt Brush and share any tips they have for aspiring VR artists. Want more? Check out our previous posts on Steve Teeps and Isaac Cohen.

As an artist in residence, Estella Tse created Metamorphosis, which celebrates the beauty of our individual journeys of growth, transformation and self-discovery. We caught up with Estella to hear more. 

Walk us through your creative process in Tilt Brush. How do you use it?

I got comfortable with Tilt Brush immediately! I felt like I could summon light out of my fingertips. And it's so intuitive. Ideas flow out of me.

My VR painting technique isn’t very different from designing an illustration on paper. I start with fast, loose and long lines. Then I tighten up and work on details, going from big to small and general to specific.

I usually have an idea of the mood or aesthetic I want to create in VR. I like to design with intent. Everything from shape to scale to color, all elements serve the mood and feeling of my pieces. Every mark counts. I want my viewer to feel inspired when they step into my pieces. I want them to feel the magic.

How is Tilt Brush different from working in other mediums?

It's almost as if I'm working with a whole new dimension! The vastness of seemingly infinite space is exhilarating, and also too much at times. I've been making skyboxes to close off my space.

Tilt Brush is not like any other art form. It's kind of a hybrid between drawing and sculpting. I liken it to sculpting with line. It's so easy to wireframe and plan out a scene, making it a great tool for quick prototyping. For the first time, we can sketch in 3D without having to use a complex modeling software. Thinking and working in 3D has never been more intuitive and natural.

One of the most fascinating things about Tilt Brush is that this is the first time we as humans have ever been able to fully immerse ourselves in hand-drawn paintings—you can look around and through my paintings. From an art history point of view, this is incredible.
EstellaBodyImg

What inspires you?

On a high level, I'm really interested in exploring the potential of creating a new art form in VR, similar to how Walt Disney and his team iterated over and over to learn the balance of storytelling in animation. This is just the beginning for VR and AR. I'm excited to experiment with different techniques, and to explore the evolution of art with innovative technology.

In my residence program with Tilt Brush, I used the “playback” feature when loading a sketch as an animation tool. Instead of having my final piece be the piece, the process is the piece. I painted a caterpillar going through the phases of metamorphosis, then blossoming into a butterfly in front of your eyes. I believe growth, process, and the journey are really important aspects of creativity, as well as life.

Try everything. There’s no right or wrong way to do anything right now. There are no rules.

Do you have any advice for other Tilt Brush creators?

Try everything. There’s no right or wrong way to do anything right now. There are no rules. The best part about Tilt Brush is that anyone can draw. It's fun. It's not intimidating. It brings out the childlike sense of wonder that we had as kids. I've seen that childlike spirit of even veteran animation artists come out while using Tilt Brush.

Create things beyond reality. We've been given a very special opportunity to create things that are out of this world, defying the rules of physics. Forget trying to make something look "real." What's next? You've been given the power of magic. What will you do?

Tilt Brush AiR: Isaac Cohen

Editor’s Note: As part of his residency, Tilt Brush artist Isaac Cohen—aka Cabbibo—used the Tilt Brush Toolkit to create a VR picture book titled “Delila's Gift,”  which tells the story of a small sea creature named Delila and her struggles to comprehend the darkness around her and what it means to belong.

“Delila’s Gift” is free to play on Steam. We caught up with Isaac to hear more about what inspires him and what it’s like working with Tilt Brush.

1. Walk us through your creative process in Tilt Brush. How do you use it?

The Tilt Brush interface is really intuitive, so it’s easy to get started. For me, it’s the first step of the creative process. After painting in Tilt Brush, I take my paintings and use them as the basis for a simulation that is coded in Unity. I end up with these tiny little sprites that recreate the form of the painting.

Because I'm recreating the painting with a limited number of particles, the paintings need to be simple. This is hard for me because I really can't draw, so making simple paintings means repainting each page many times until it feels right.

ICDG_Pic

2. What inspires you?

My inspiration comes from my personal experiences, as well as from nature and reading about fantastic natural phenomena and creatures—things like nudibranchs, jellyfish, redwood trees, the reflection of light on the water, prisms, iridescent beetles, and the clouds rolling in over the edge of a mountain.

For “Delila’s Gift”, it was an experience I had one day when I was biking, and a car almost hit me. The driver started yelling at me and continued to follow me. I was angry, and I entered fight or flight mode, which wasn’t helpful. I believe that had I taken a deep breath, I could have had a meaningful interaction with that person and showed them love. Taking a deep breath in moments of fear and loneliness can help calm our minds and remember how miraculous it is to be alive. It's a gift; hence the name.

I think that there is a simplicity to the way that I can paint with Tilt Brush that makes it more humane, genuine, and approachable. It helps to have paintings that feel “handmade,” like they are made by a real person from the heart. I wanted to reflect that in “Delila’s Gift.”

ICDG_Pic2

3. Do you have any advice for other Tilt Brush creators?

Tilt Brush is the equivalent of my VR journal. I use it as a place to sketch and think, to imagine and inhabit the space that I am about to create.

I’d suggest that any time you create a new project in VR, whether it’s a game, a narrative, or some other weird experience, you should spend some time in Tilt Brush, mocking up what the scenes, characters and interfaces look like. It’s such a special way to get used to the space you are about to inhabit, and allows for dramatically quicker iteration in terms of understanding scale, size, physical aesthetic, and practicality.