Tag Archives: ds106

Day 43: First attempt at Gif Making!

Posted on by

Day 43’s assignment was: “Learn something new. Ask a friend to help you do something using a technique or skill they’re good at.”

Time to make my first gif! I turned to the #DS106 tutorial and downloaded a few programs (like Gimp) to make it work. I also asked Megan Mc to help since she is “The Emeril of Gif-making.”

She had a few suggestions for me about making this and while I am happy it wasn’t as hard as I thought ( definitely time consuming tho) I don’t understand why the quality is so terrible. All the images were fine pre-giffing and now it’s so blurry… >.<

Megan and I messed with the gif and tried to see if we could solve the problem, but no dice. Anyone out there have a suggestion on how to fix the quality?

Valentine’s Day Caption Challenge for #ds106

Posted on by

I was in Urban Outfitters the other day and stumbled across a postcard pack labeled “Unbridled Passion” by Franco Accornero.

It’s a collection of 30 different postcards from an artist who has painted more than 5,000 romance novel covers (as well as westerns, thrillers and sci-fi books). The postcards are really ridiculous on their own, but I thought for this Valentine’s day I would make them even funnier but adding my own captions.

That’s where the 2012 Valentine’s Day Caption Challenge for #ds106 comes into play: I challenge you to  make your own captions for these postcards! Not only will you help make V-Day funny, but you will also be completing DesignAssignment61.

All of these postcards can be found un-altered on my flickr account (download them and get to work!)

 

Captioned by Megan Mc

captioned by Megan MC

captioned by Megan MC

Day 34: Paper Clip Man

Posted on by

Day 34’s assignment: “Work with wire. Thin-gauge wire can easily be bent by hand, so no special tools are required. You don’t even have to buy wire if you have some paper clips handy.” 

What I learned today was that bending paperclips is a little bit harder than I remembered/expected it to be. I had no idea what I was making today and so turned to google to solve my problems. Saw this really cute paperclip dragonfly on flickr and wondered if I could make it.

 

from Flickr by Annadriel

Definitely not. I think I would need a bigger paperclip for this, although the paper clip I was using was a lot bigger than average.

I ended up shaping the paperclip into a form of a man; totally random luck this worked out the way it did.

Shadows!

 

All because of the Dragonfly! Took this photo with my paperclip lying across my laptop screen.

Part 2 of project: 

The next day I decided since Valentine’s day was fast approaching and I still needed to mail off cards to friends, that  I should make a Paper Clip Girl and have her kiss my Paper clip man….Subsequent attempts to repeat my earlier stroke of genius did not pan out. :/

Instead, I mailed off my Valentine’s postcards all by themselves. I will attempt to make part two of this project work at a later date if I have time!

Day 33: Pens as Inspiration

Posted on by

Day 33’s assignment: “Use pen your materials/inspiration today. Draw with them, use them as construction material… or? ”

I was at a friend’s apartment recently and saw this amazing tapestry they had hanging on their wall:

Colors are much more vivid in real life.

I found out you can get it at Amazon which means I am totally going to buy it  one day.

I decided that I wanted to use this as my inspiration for today’s challenge.  I started drawing with a black pen on a white sheet of paper and ended up with this.

I like the extreme contrast between the black and the white, but I am also tempted to color the skull in with crazy colors. If I did that I would probably also fill in the white space outside of the skull with crazy lines and colors too. We shall see…

 

Day 31: Scavenger Hunt

Posted on by

Day 31’s assignment was “Make a path for people to follow and invite people to try it out”.

This to me translated into make a scavenger hunt! I decided to make it for my dad to cheer him up since he was sick with a cold.

I left the first clue on the kitchen table and let him go from there.

Clue #1: The most famous escape artist of his time. Can you find him in the collection Wikipedia has replaced?

The answer is Houdini and my dad needed to look for him in one of the books in our  encyclopedia collection

Clue # 2: Laast uns trinken! Prost!

When translated from German: “Let’s us drink!  Cheers!” This references an antique German beer stein we have on display in the living room.

Clue #3 Mama Sophia is everywhere in the house but there is only one photo of her in a short/hippie dress.

My Dad had to go downstairs to his office and look behind the photo of my mom during her hippie years.

Clue #4– Not quite a rubber ducky, but close enough.

Reference to an Orca Whale  toy I have decorating my bathroom. (It was part of a Barbie set  I got as a kid where Barbie was a Trainer at Sea World)

Clue #5: Lost Dog- 3 legged, blind in one eye, missing left ear, broken tail. Answers to Lucky. Find the swag you have for this!

In New Hampshire there is a bar/restaurant called the Lucky Dog Grill which my Dad has a hat from. He had to find the hat which had the clue was tucked inside.

Clue #6: The house is on fire and we are trapped inside! Or are we?

Reference to the second floor where we have an emergency escape ladder in the hallway just in case.

Clue #7: This fairy gives 25 cents for each one you lose. Where would Mama Sophia put hers?

Dad had to look under a pillow my Mom uses, which in this case would be under the pillows on the daybed in my mom’s office.

Clue #8: Not the same one I broke juggling it home from the store but very similar! Oink, Oink!

Reference to a piggy bank in my room. The clue was taped to the bottom of it.   (The first piggy bank I ever had my Dad bought it for me. I broke its ears off carrying it home because I swinging the bag around. We had to go back to the store and have it replaced the same day.)

Clue #9: What mom likes to play at a deafening volume. “Lou, Lou ____ to my Lou”

My mom likes to play her player piano in the living room at extremely loud volumes. My dad had to look in the piano bench and find the music book that had the song “Skip to my Lou.”

Clue #10: “Bless her beautiful hide, wherever she may be!”

Reference to an old family favorite movie, “7 Brides for 7 brothers.” He had to find the movie located among many movies in a giant bookshelf.

 

Clue #11: It’s the youngest but the oldest out of 6. Look up high.

Reference to my mom’s “new” used car which makes car #6 for our family of five. He had to look in the visor for the next clue.

ghetto fabulous

Clue #12: The end of the game! Leading you to the most important treasure of all. What I was going to throw out in NH before you rescued it.

Reference to a little chalkboard I was going to throw out while cleaning the kid’s game room at my grandma’s house. My Dad decided he could use it and saved it. It was currently sitting in the living room, leading him back to the same room where the hunt began.

I love you padre! ps. I owe you a reeses.

Day 40: Ojo de Dios

Posted on by

Day 40: “What can you do with yarn? You don’t have to know how to knit or crochet; you can try yarn painting or just experiment.”

What can I do with yarn? Nothing! Ahh!!  

These were my thought yesterday as I lay in a creative slump. I was behind on a few of my Creativity Journal projects which was not good. Luckily Megan Mc is a totally awesome person! She suggested I make a “God’s eye” or “Ojo de Dios” out of yarn. I had no idea what that was so I googled it.

Turns out “Ojo de Dios” is made out of  brightly colored yarn on a frame of crossed sticks. They are made by the Huichol Indians of Mexico and the Aymara Indians of Bolivia. These are placed on an altar so that the gods can watch over their people and protect them.

It seemed like it would be easy and fun to make, so using the directions from the website above I got to work.

Luckily my family is a craft family so I had all the necessary materials at hand.

The result:

I definitely want to make more of these when I have the time. Also, the instructions suggest adding little bells on to each end, so that it something I will add to this one next time I make it to a craft store.

Day 27: The Inferno

Posted on by

Day 27’s assignment was: “Dreamland. Use a recent dream as inspiration for what you do today.”

The night before, I went to bed wondering what crazy dreams I was going to have this night. The past few weeks I’d been having ridiculously vivid dreams and thus assumed that this night would be no different.

I was wrong. I woke up in the morning and couldn’t remember having a single dream. :/

So for today I decided that I would paint a recurring nightmare I’ve been having lately where I am trapped forever in the hell that is retail work. To me, there is nothing worse that dreaming about work because generally when I dream about work I sleep very fitfully and wake up more tired than I was before I went to bed.

In this recurring nightmare I am trapped at working at Macy’s for the rest of my life in endless servitude to all the ungrateful customers. I never able to leave the store and the pile of clothes that the customers try on and throw on the floor always grows larger and larger and larger.

For this I used acrylic paint on a canvas and also an image of Macy’s that I got from online.

I was tempted to throw it in the fire and let it burn, but decided it probably wouldn't be that good for the enviroment

Actually since I made this painting I haven’t had a nightmare about Macy’s…

 

365 Days Worth of Photos

Posted on by

Last Monday I finished my yearlong Dailyshoot challenge! For my final dailyshoot I took Sibling1 along and headed out west. I took photos in two different locations (abandoned house & empty field) before deciding how I want my final shoot to end. The result:

Victory!

Let me tell you, it was really hard taking a (good) photo everyday! Some days, especially when I was traveling, I would take so many good photos it was hard to decide which photo to choose as my dailyshoot. Other days, I had to scramble around just to find something to photograph.

It also was a lot easier to take photos when Dailyshoot.com was running. Once it became defunct in the beginning of October 2011, it took a lot more motivation to go out there and photograph something each day. It also was a lot harder to keep track of which dailyshoot assignment number I was on since I generally didn’t post the photos the day I took them. This lead to double posting assignments for one day and also not having my dailyshoot assignment #’s in the correct sequence.

Still, I had an absolute blast with the project!

Out of all the photos I posted for my dailyshoots, about 2/3 of them are pictures of inanimate objects, landscapes, & plants. The remaining 1/3 is mostly pictures of friends/family, animals and random strangers.

My thanks go out to all my lovely amigos who helped me with my project including: Megan Mc, Elena, Laura, Gina, Karen, Colleen, Marieke, KKY, Rose,  Kayla, Army, Aitak, James, Dan G, Quacclynn, Raven, Sabine, Mario Lopez, Tito, Steph, Ashley, Natalie, Aliyah, Jess C, Z. Efron, Clare, Isaac, Charlotte, Meghan, Jackson & Nikki, George, & last but not least, Jim Groom. (If I forgot anyone, let me know!)

Also, I am extremely indebted to DS106 as whole because it inspired me to start this project and to continue on with it for an entire year.

I used over 10 cameras to take these photos. During the course of the year I managed to kill two cameras  (my 1st camera died of old age (4 years old) :/ and its replacement later fell victim to accidental drowning >.< )

My favorite photos from the year are as follows:

Favorite Photo Shoot: The final Rainbow Brite Shoot  where I managed to get 7 friends plus Jim Groom to dress up in  crazy outfits and take silly pictures.

Favorite Model(s): All my models were truly fabulous! But definitely big kudos to Megan Mc, Elena, & Karen because they were the ones who volunteered to model in a lot of my photos.

Megan, Elena, Karen

 Favorite Photo of a person: I like how this photo is really focused on the dandelion and yet, it’s also all about the person in the background (Elena).

 

Favorite inanimate object photo: Love the image of the flame leaping into the balloon.

 

Favorite altered photo:  I like the extreme color contrast here.

Favorite Animal Photo: Bentley jumping into the lake. Great frozen motion shot.

 

Favorite photo of me: I ended up using a few photos of me for my dailyshoots and this by far is my favorite because it captured such a unique experience.

I was going to start year 2 of 365 photo a day project, but decided that with all the effort I am putting into “366 Creativity Journal project” I don’t really have time to do both properly. So year 2 of photos is going to have to wait a little while, but I definitely plan on coming back to it one day.

Meme Version of the Hacking Incident

Posted on by

My reactions after finding out my websites were hacked last week:

 

Is this a joke?

Not a #ds106 joke? Why me? Why my blog?

I will hunt this person down and destroy him!

After getting everything up and running again:

I missed my blog so much! I promise I will blog 3 times a day!

Two Weeks from now (reality)

I should start blogging again... But first, one more page of 9gag....

 

Day 21: I might be going to hell for this

Posted on by

Day 21’s assignment:  “Write a ten-word love story. Bonus: illustrate it!”

After consultation with various people, I realized that I couldn’t do a sincere love story in 10 words. So instead I wrote this:

“On the big screen: Will you marry me?

HELL NO!”

By this I mean that if someone asked me to marry them while watching some kind of sports game among a crowd of hundreds of thousands, my response would be an emphatic NO!  I would hate that kind of attention.

Thinking that my drawing skills are lacking and that there must be other girls who have rejected these kinds of proposals, I headed to youtube. The following are comics illustrating my story. Made it in Paint which took entirely too long. I miss you photoshop.

From the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtPkxzHKLpk

Taken from this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH9K74IFX80

I kinda feel bad making a comic out of other people’s rejections, especially the last one. That being said though, it is a terrible proposal  idea. I also almost changed the words “Hell No” to “As If!” to make it funnier, but was limited to changing the words since I used paint.