Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Yesterday I started an oil painting of a squirrel surrounded by roses. Now I want to go back to colored inks. I know I should pick a method and stick with it, I just don't know which to pick. I think the idea in my head of oil painting as something more serious and important is throwing off my judgement. I love how it looks but without a studio to deal with the mess and toxicness it just stresses me out.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Playing Card Illustration History
The other day I got stuck on a reading tangent online about playing card history. I had no idea they dated back to at least the 1300's, probably earlier, and how widespread they were around the world even by that time. The weird thing is how similar the oldest cards look to the common ones we use today.
I can only speculate since I'm not a historian and if I was a time travelor I'd go forward in time to see all the cool stuff that will be invented. But its interesting to think about the place in people's lives these little handheld illustrations played. They're loaded with symbolism which I imagine was even more significant to the spread of ideas in the times before printing was easy and cheap.
It also displays how connected the old world was even without phone or internet or radio. In the 1400's clearly playing cards were all over Europe, but they might have started out in Persia or Egypt or even China. Obviously you couldn't interact across the world in real time, but things still could spread long distances.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Art Walk - Gainesville FL
Hellen Jo
Went to /protocol/ gallery tonight. Very nice!!!
Saw these pictures by Hellen Jo and more.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Hats
I wanted to try out some good hats. Did a quick sketch and tested some out on plexi. I like the military style hats best on him.
Search like I want to
I use Google to search. I've tried other engines when it changes, but Google gets faster and better and I keep going back. But I'm not happy.
The problem is I don't want a single search box. That is not how I want to search. Here is an example to illustrate. (It is not the original reason, but hopefully will make the point without telling you what I'm up to.) Let's say I'm going on a vacation to Boston and I want to look up:
Maybe this exists already. I need to investigate.
The problem is I don't want a single search box. That is not how I want to search. Here is an example to illustrate. (It is not the original reason, but hopefully will make the point without telling you what I'm up to.) Let's say I'm going on a vacation to Boston and I want to look up:
- weather for the week
- museum of science, Harvard and MIT lectures calendar
- art museum hours, current shows and locations
- map
- MBTA price
Maybe this exists already. I need to investigate.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Spaced out
"Today, it costs $10,000 to put a pound of payload in Earth orbit.", says NASA undated. SpaceX says it can do it for $1948.88 low earth orbit and around $5284.32 GTO ($56,500,000÷$10692) if I am understanding the numbers.
Shopping for our next space trip? I'm thinking about a few of these cute wool lead blankets. Although considering Myung-Hee Y. Kim, "Materials with the most electrons per unit mass, the least mean excitation energy, and the least tight binding corrections make the best energy absorbers. Thus, liquid hydrogen is a favored material and lead is less efficient as an energy absorber." What is a girl to do.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Bad photos of art
If you've seen any post I've made you might have noticed how terrible my photos of my artwork are. There's a reason for this: I take them with my phone in bad lighting.
Presenting my work in a professional looking way that shows it well seems insurmountable. Obviously its not and I'm just being defeatist. I have a scanner that is smaller than any paper I ever use and it creates shadows (and sometimes creases) in a painting if I try to do multiple scans and piece them together. I was looking up larger scanners online but the prevailing advice seems to be to take good photos.
While its a relief that I don't need to buy an expensive scanner, its going to be quite a project to set up a space with perfect lighting. Lucky for me I have a friend with a dslr camera that I'm sure I can borrow.
Presenting my work in a professional looking way that shows it well seems insurmountable. Obviously its not and I'm just being defeatist. I have a scanner that is smaller than any paper I ever use and it creates shadows (and sometimes creases) in a painting if I try to do multiple scans and piece them together. I was looking up larger scanners online but the prevailing advice seems to be to take good photos.
While its a relief that I don't need to buy an expensive scanner, its going to be quite a project to set up a space with perfect lighting. Lucky for me I have a friend with a dslr camera that I'm sure I can borrow.
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