Essentially, I bought this beautiful birdcage at target (I couldn’t resist) when I had come up with the idea to fill it with candles (including a bird one :p) and decorate it with fake flowers to give it a sort of beautiful natural wilderness look. I still am not sure if I’m done with it, I might add another flower at the top, etc… But we’ll see. I like it for now.

Thanks for a great month, everyone!

Phew!

All I was able to do today was to get the yellow cross weave in.

well, a work day in the life.

actual life got in the way and I couldn’t finish the full day.

http://sh1ft.org/adayinthelife/

this project, chronicling leap day, seemed like the perfect way to end thing-a-day

thanks for the fun!

It is a speaker. It acts as a microphone. It goes to an amplifier. It plays through another speaker. It hangs from the ceiling. Sometimes it makes wicked feedback.

Julius Caesar figures out that those extra hours have added up, and he reforms the Roman calendar by adding an extra day every four years.

Enter the leap year.

Fini TAD.

i like russian poster style, and lately i’ve been wanting to draw a giant squid, because someone at work had a cool sweatshirt with some on it. but i opted for an octopus, and decided to mash it up with the russian poster thing. i’m not sure if the green takes away from the russian feeling, but i like the result anyway. long live the sharpie! i also like that octopusses have so many legs, and the russian text on the drawing translates into “Our strengths are uncountable.”

and so they are…

One of both the flowers and the pods together.

I am not sure where or how I will display these. I love sets of three so I am tempted to make another series of sunprints and matte them into a window. I also may bring one in to my office because a) we just moved in and the walls are bare and b) it would be good to have something in my sight that reminds me of who I am.

Thing-a-Day has been so good for me - not only have I been very prolific for the last 26 days (I am astounded at how much I have produced looking back on the month) but I have very much enjoyed the community, having met some new friends. I proved to myself I can find the time during my busy days to do something creative, no matter how small. It has been amazing to make things again - to physically create something from nothing. To be thoughtful and inquisitive. To experiment and fail. To endeavor and to succeed at times, too.

This church was recently unraveled from under walls and bricks. It now sit right oustide (one of) my (temporary) windows.

After my discouraging day yesterday, I thought I would take a break from good old Magritte. But instead, I woke up and attacked a black ink on white paper version as originally intended. Having learned a lot of lessons yesterday, the white book went much smoother.

It turned out really well but without the black, I am not perfectly satisfied (when did I turn into such a perfectionist? I am not sure; I have not always been this way…).

I have the foil on order and need to wrestle up some more black paper to make more black books. But I am afraid that will not happen by the end of Thing-a-Day.

That said, thoughts for next time: I will try a different printer although with substantially less ink, it may not be a problem. I will attempt some test foil applications. I will remember to go slow, always slow. If nothing else, the black paper with silver foil will make a cleaner looking book without all those white edges.

My brother wants a copy so I will also look into a small run from an actual print house. I wonder how much that will cost due such a small quantity and specific size / length.

Of course, being so submersed in the book this weekend, and pleased with the results today, I can not wait to try it again in black…

The white on black was tough, tough, tough. Not only did the ink smear despite hours drying and require multiple print outs and reapplications, the edges of the white paper are visible (I anticipated this but figured I’d go over the edges with a Sharpie) and I am generally dissatisfied with it.

From a distance, in this photo, it looks kind of cool and very much like the Magritte catalogue I saw last year. But in your hand, it is not the lush, beautiful object I was hoping to create.

So, as I said, to satisfy my need to create a beautiful object - not just a photograph, I will create a white on black version as well.

I will return to the white on black after researching the tin foil application suggested by someone on this blog as well as seeing if the print house I use for work would perhaps print  a small run for me with white ink on black paper.

It’s been a disappointing day - I worked long and hard and I am just not that thrilled with what I produced. <Sigh> What would design be without redesign?

My new computer is a mac, and I just discovered Photobooth:)

Thought I’d do something different. I did make more boxes, though…

I finished converting the images to white on black

and laid out 12 of the images in InDesign:

Tomorrow will be spent finishing up the lay outs, printing and beginning to assemble the book.

The image reverses when stamped, something I forgot. Luckily, I chose something that didn’t matter. Carving into the cork was easier than I anticipated, but it did make a mess and I had to be careful around the more narrow areas.  The cork surface isn’t the best for stamp.  It’s uneven, and the holes need to be filled in.  I’d have to get a matching ink pen to fill in the gaps, and as you can see I used a ballpoint pen on the one on the right and it shows.  This was definitely fun and inexpensive, using materials I already have so I think I’ll be playing around with these little guys. 

To Whom it May Concern:

It was recently asked of me, and, for that matter, everyone else on this list, “who the hell uses aol?” I have given this much thought. Aside from myself, I couldn’t immediately think of anyone. Then I remembered, back when Paris Hilton’s address book was leaked all over the internet, I recall taking notice that Conrad Hilton was, in fact, an AOL subscriber. Not only was he on AOL, but his username was, of all things, C-Rad. At the time I considered adding him to my buddy list, but then I realized that I had very little to talk about with Mr. C-Rad Hilton. And for that matter, I really did not know much about him other than he has a badass screen name, more money than anyone I will ever know and is somehow related to Paris Hilton. Come to think of it, I don’t even know how he is related to Paris Hilton. Is he Paris’ father? Grandfather? Second cousin? I clearly don’t know the man. Therefore, there really isn’t even much of a reason for me to contact him. What hope is there for us engaging in mutually pertinent conversation geared towards the reciprocal enrichment of our respective characters? So, instead I tried to call Eminem or someone with a similar enough haircut (Fred Durst, maybe?). It’s hard to tell boring haircuts apart. Any which way, his number was turned off. I guess too many other people already had too little to say to him. Or maybe, he had too little to say to them. Speaking from experience, it’s hard to tell with celebrities. None I have ever contacted have thus written me back. I have no shortage of things to say. It must, therefore, be that they don’t have anything worthwhile to respond with. Anyway, I digress. I’m supposed to be answering a simple question… or something. Alright, so the question is, “who the hell uses aol?” To reiterate, I was curious myself. Thus far I have only established that I use it, Conrad Hilton uses it and there is very little common ground between Conrad Hilton and myself. In fact, I usually go through my existence giving little thought to the fact Conrad Hilton even exists. And I can say with a fair amount of certainty that Conrad Hilton probably doesn’t even know I exist at all; but there I go getting sidetrack again. Answering questions… Answering questions… Let me answer the stupid question. And make no mistake about it, the question that I am answering is a stupid question. Who still really cares who uses what email provider anymore? Does it really matter? Maybe it does. I don’t know. I mean, I wouldn’t know. I have better things to do than think about the social significance of my email service. Truthfully, the problem of selecting an email service consistent with my lifestyle choices doesn’t keep me up at night. No, much like how my thoughts never turn to Conrad Hilton, I don’t give the matter of my email address much thought. However, when it was suddenly brought to my attention today, I started to give it some consideration. Who in the hell does use AOL? I investigated the matter. Apparently, Dr. John Russ uses AOL. He provides “image analysis consulting & training.” Some bed and breakfast in the UK has an AOL email address. I don’t even understand that. What is America doing online in the UK? Or rather what is the UK doing on America Online? And does Conrad Hilton know about this? I mean, does anyone know of this? I know the person who posited this quandary clearly is unaware or they wouldn’t be asking. I also know I didn’t subsequently know because I wouldn’t be investigating this if I had. I am willing to wager that Fernando Cerejo doesn’t know about this either. He’s on AOL too, but he’s too busy posting to message boards about how much he loves Liv Tyler. And for that matter, does Liv Tyler have an AOL account? She is, after all, an American and I bet she has been online at one point or another. So, I wonder, has she been American Online? Thinking about this makes my head hurt. So far I have established that only myself, Conrad Hilton, John Russ, and Fernando Cerejo are American Online. The UK bed and breakfast doesn’t count; not being American and all. I only found four people. I guess this doesn’t really answer the question. There must be more than four people using AOL. Anyway, this is where I give up and if you were wise, you would too. I suppose you can continue to sit around wondering who the hell else uses AOL, but why would you want to? Why would you even dwell upon such thoughts to begin with? Why would you even posit such thoughts to other living human beings that have better think about than AOL users such as Conrad Hilton, some medical imaging technician named John, Fernando and myself? Oh yeah, come to think of it, why would you even ask who the hell uses AOL when I clearly do? The answer was in front of you all this time. I use AOL. And, do you know what? I could care less. Come to think of it, I’m tired. I don’t want to think about this anymore. Thanks for wasting my time pondering over your aimless question. Please, should you have any more uncertainty in your life or as I suspect, simply need to vent pent up aggression, let me know. I am just as happy to reciprocate pseudo-anonymously through the electronic interweb.

Sincerely,
Randy

I give you a screen shot of my progress.

More concerted efforts re recommence on Saturday when I am home…