The process of filling a 120 page sketchbook by year's end continues:
Two years ago on TTaT: Just like the title says
06 March 2010
Sketchbook, page 8
(Previous pages)
The process of filling a 120 page sketchbook by year's end continues:
"p.33 of How to Draw Animals by Jack Hamm"
Two years ago on TTaT: Just like the title says
The process of filling a 120 page sketchbook by year's end continues:
Two years ago on TTaT: Just like the title says
05 March 2010
Life of Art SitRep #4
A series to mark what I did to further my pursuit of a life sustained by my art each week. Committing to these posts is a commitment to action, because to have content for them, I have to do something. Every week.
If you have any sort of goal you're pursuing, feel free to share your efforts of the past week in the comments.
What did you do to pursue the life you want this week?
A year ago on TTaT: Is it hubris if I want to show off my Greek goddess?
If you have any sort of goal you're pursuing, feel free to share your efforts of the past week in the comments.
*******
This week, I- Reorganized the shop by photographs instead of product types.
- Made a variety of minor text revisions to the store site.
- Got 2 Pro-Keds low top sneaker designs approved for the shop:
- Made "Fountain Spray" card and postcard.
- Made "Bokeh in Spring" binder.
- Got my 1st store fan.
- Shot 23 digital photos.
- Shot a roll of 24 exposures with a twin reflex film camera.
- Got film processed & printed: just awful, misaligned, I won't use that store again.
- Scanned in 8 drawings from sketchbook.
- Drew 4 sketches.
- Wrote my first Behind the photo post to share some of my photographic process.
*******
Whether or not these actions were the right ones to take or were enough of an effort is not the point of this series. They are simply a list of what I accomplished related to my goal this week. Any amount of progress is better than none. Having clocked ages of none, I'm certain of that.What did you do to pursue the life you want this week?
A year ago on TTaT: Is it hubris if I want to show off my Greek goddess?
04 March 2010
Snow Tracks
I find it rather odd how aligned the tracks are considering a person did not make them. Consulted xkcd, but no luck.
Any theories?
A year ago on TTaT: Splitting headache bear
03 March 2010
Behind the photo: Mind the Background
When I shoot digital, it's with a borrowed point & shoot. Since I can't stand the off-kilter framing that results from parallax, I frame my shots using the display screen. The catch is that it's often harder to see what's going on in the background, the area that often determines where on the scale of bad to great a photo falls.
One way of training yourself to notice the background is to stay still right after you've taken a shot to look at the frame you just took again. With digital, you could actually look at the image, but for me that breaks the flow of shooting, so I just pause, visually scan the frame again for things I might not have noticed the first time, and adjust if necessary.
In this photo there's a lot of sticks, a tree trunk, an xmas tree decoration, and a rock in the background detracting from the snow on the railing.
Some of this can be mitigated with cropping, but not much:
A better approach is to find another angle. Below I'm shooting the same corner of the railing from a second story window. I lose the nice line running into the lower right corner shooting from the high angle, but the background is free of dark objects:
A slight crop draws focus to the snow on the rail and away from the competing animal tracks on the ground. It's not perfect, but it's much improved.
You could use Photoshop or other image editing software to address these issues, but I aim to get the shot I want at the scene as much as possible. That's my forte rather than digital image manipulation.
All that aside, snapshots (which I consider the shots above) are fine. Sometimes you just want to capture how the snow looked accumulated on the posts.
Three years ago on TTaT: Present, meet past
One way of training yourself to notice the background is to stay still right after you've taken a shot to look at the frame you just took again. With digital, you could actually look at the image, but for me that breaks the flow of shooting, so I just pause, visually scan the frame again for things I might not have noticed the first time, and adjust if necessary.
In this photo there's a lot of sticks, a tree trunk, an xmas tree decoration, and a rock in the background detracting from the snow on the railing.
Some of this can be mitigated with cropping, but not much:
A better approach is to find another angle. Below I'm shooting the same corner of the railing from a second story window. I lose the nice line running into the lower right corner shooting from the high angle, but the background is free of dark objects:
A slight crop draws focus to the snow on the rail and away from the competing animal tracks on the ground. It's not perfect, but it's much improved.
You could use Photoshop or other image editing software to address these issues, but I aim to get the shot I want at the scene as much as possible. That's my forte rather than digital image manipulation.
All that aside, snapshots (which I consider the shots above) are fine. Sometimes you just want to capture how the snow looked accumulated on the posts.
Three years ago on TTaT: Present, meet past
02 March 2010
Sketchbook, page 7
(Previous pages)
The process of filling a 120 page sketchbook by year's end continues:
"p.28 of How to Draw Animals by Jack Hamm"
This was the sketch that made me think about picking up a few heavy drawing pencils as the basic #2 wasn't giving me the depth of black I wanted. Eventually picked up a set of B through 6B for a couple bucks and now, many sketches down the line, I find myself wanting the corresponding Hs for lighter precise line work. Guess I'll see if there was a Michael's flyer this week. (They regularly put out coupons for 40% or 50% off 1 item, so it'd be silly to pay full price.)
A year ago on TTaT: Not Spring Yet, a story told by bear
The process of filling a 120 page sketchbook by year's end continues:
This was the sketch that made me think about picking up a few heavy drawing pencils as the basic #2 wasn't giving me the depth of black I wanted. Eventually picked up a set of B through 6B for a couple bucks and now, many sketches down the line, I find myself wanting the corresponding Hs for lighter precise line work. Guess I'll see if there was a Michael's flyer this week. (They regularly put out coupons for 40% or 50% off 1 item, so it'd be silly to pay full price.)
A year ago on TTaT: Not Spring Yet, a story told by bear
01 March 2010
Rocco and the Robot Unicorn
Remember Rocco?
Well, it looks like she's been sneaking off to her top secret Rainbow Lab while I sleep because she built a robot unicorn. Rocco's minions at [Adult Swim] have cleverly set up test protocols disguised as a game that anyone may play.
You can help bytaking a test run playing with Rocco's creation Robot Unicorn Attack:
The robot unicorn is deceptively simple to control with 1 key for jumping and 1 key for rainbow dashing. The terrain is ever changing though so it remains a challenge of response time. You should at least play until your score is high enough to see the flying dolphins.
Gayest game ever? Yup. Lurve it!
Since Rocco's not officially talking about her design involvement, I'll thank [Adult Swim] for their silly, highly entertaining game.
Well, it looks like she's been sneaking off to her top secret Rainbow Lab while I sleep because she built a robot unicorn. Rocco's minions at [Adult Swim] have cleverly set up test protocols disguised as a game that anyone may play.
You can help by
The robot unicorn is deceptively simple to control with 1 key for jumping and 1 key for rainbow dashing. The terrain is ever changing though so it remains a challenge of response time. You should at least play until your score is high enough to see the flying dolphins.
Gayest game ever? Yup. Lurve it!
Since Rocco's not officially talking about her design involvement, I'll thank [Adult Swim] for their silly, highly entertaining game.
Snow Geometry
Note the oak leaf at the bottom of the top shot. Still many hanging onto the tree after so many windy winter days. I know the partial leaf retention until spring hastens new growth replacements is part of the oak's nature, but it still seems strange.
Two years ago on TTaT: Neuroplasticity
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