Aku Aku

43 of 52: Yaginuma 2009 New Year Card

For this year's card we felt we had to dedicate it to our renewed hope for America. At first we were considering something more directly associated with Obama, but I believe that would be the wrong message. Obama is the personification of the renewed hope, but the promise he represents is up to all of us to fulfill or not. If America is to succeed then we must be prepared to work towards that success. So I went with a more pure representation of America. Started with a CC licensed flag photo from wmc1111card and added an image of Tesla and another one of Mie and I, along with some photoshop artistic filters and the removal of an distractingly dissonant image on my shirt :)

42 of 52: The Big Question is Whether You Are Going to Be Able to Say a Hearty Yes to Your Adventure.

This weekend I finally got time to work on our annual new years card, and while I was playing in Photoshop I got the urge to do another one as part of my languishing 52 things project. Here is is:

I used two Creative Commons licensed photos from Flickr and one of my own photos of Mie. The background is from Aele and the wings are from ARTchemist*. And of course also the original of Mie. The title is a quote from Joseph Campbell.

41of 52: The Long Salient Moment

Jed drew his breath in with astonishment, his face and torso awash in warm rush of the sunset. He unclasped his hands from the wheel of the aging tractor drawing them back and out at an even pace, as if flinging them in slow motion towards a position of exultation. He didn't exhale as an epiphany rolled through his inner mindscape like a suddenly fallen apple rolling down a sloping blanket of grass, dimpled with roots, seeds and the rest of Nature's miscellaneous detritus.

"None of this is real," he thought, and the moment seemed to last an eternity.

40 of 52: House

We got a whole bunch of new office chairs at work and they came in these strong sturdy boxes, so I got the idea to take a few of them and (using McGroovy's Box Rivets) construct a play house for Tesla. It's not really done yet but she's still pleased with it. Over time I'll add some more interior decoration, a doorbell and a light she can turn on and off. I'm also thinking of inserting her OLPC laptop in a way that it functions as a TV. I could maybe write some code that based on motion sensing (it has a built in camera) it could start playing her favorite youtube videos. I bought some knobs (for doors and windows) at the hardware store but they don't quite work because the screws that come with them are made for attaching to thicker material so I still have that to work out as well. I painted the exteriors white with spray paint, but I should have just used a brush. Still, it works more or less and looks ok. I added some touches with glue and construction paper and I'll add more over time.

39 of 52: A Reminder a Day

We are leaving Tesla in the care of Mie's mother while we go to Burning Man this year. That will be Friday until Sunday after the Burn ...ten days. We've never been both away from her for even 24 hours before.

I made a little box with a photo of Mie or I on it for each day and we will put a treat in each one. Hopefully she won't think we've abandoned her completely this way? Parental guilt starting to to get thick...

38 of 52: A Goose Dreaming of Moose Juice

Mie's nephew Tyler brought out some Dr. Seuss books this weekend while we were having a paint the RV day in Alameda. He pointed out a particular passage in Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book that he liked:

A moose is asleep. He is dreaming of moose drinks.
A goose is asleep. He is dreaming of goose drinks.
That's well and good when a moose dreams of moose juice.
And nothing goes wrong when a goose dreams of goose juice.
But it isn't too good when a moose and a goose
Start dreaming they're drinking the other one's juice.
Moose juice, not goose juice, is juice for a moose.
And goose juice, not moose juice, is juice for a goose.
So, when goose gets a mouthful of juices of mooses
And moose gets a mouthful of juices of gooses
They always fall out of their beds screaming screams
So, I'm warning you, now! Never drink in your dreams.

I thought it odd that the otherwise adventurous Seuss was so conservative in dream juice segregation. I mean, come on, fall out of your bed screaming screams just because you drank the wrong juice? Doubtful. I decided to draw a goose dreaming of moose juice on the RV.

37 of 52: The Creation of Eve

My thing for this week: a snapshot of post-dinner relaxation tonight.

I really enjoyed the first of these sorts of photos. It made me want to do a whole series of Last Supper photos, whenever I had a feast and 13 people I could arrange another shot. To facilitate this I want to design and print 13 placards. On one side of each placard will be the original painting, on the other side will be a close-up of one particular apostle (or savior) along with some meta data (name of the apostle, significance in the scene, etc). I could just pass these out in the proper order and very quickly get everyone to self organize for the photo. The whole process would probably take less than 5 minutes.

Then it occurred to me that I should do a whole series of these placards, so that I have one painting requiring N models where N is between 2 and 13. Then I can take a shot at almost any occasion with any group of people. So I'm working on this list of paintings now. The Creation of Adam is a nice one because it is instantly recognizable merely with model positioning (no props necessary to reliably evoke the original) but also you can pull it off reasonably with any number between 3 and 8 or so.

I flipped through a large art history tome and had problems coming up with others for the list though. So many paintings that the average person would consider famous aren't appropriate either because they are landscapes, or too abstract or too simple and/or require a difficult specific background/props to be instantly recognizable (like the Mona Lisa). They need to be realistic portraits of a small set of people with unique positioning. I'm thinking if I try really hard I can come up with maybe a couple dozen of these. Jeremy thinks he can find 100. So far the only other one I've found is Botticelli's The Birth of Venus (N=4). I'm looking forward to seeing Jeremy's list, I could really use some help! Feel free to make suggestions in the comments.

36 of 52: Fire storm

I'm on vacation in the Outer Banks, a strip of barrier islands off the North Carolina coast where I spent most every summer for 7 years during my college days. I love the smell of the air here.

This project is long exposure photographs of a beach grill, capturing the twisting trails of individual embers flung from the grill as a single mass of fire flower. I just thought it would look neat, and it did.

35 of 52: Rhino

Tesla likes this video The Rhino Song so I made her a Rhino out of sculpey.

34 of 52: Figure Drawing

When I flew into Portland for RailsConf I walked down to Dante's to get some pizza and beer right after checking into my hotel. When I walked into the mostly empty early evening bar I noticed a spotlight on a mannequin holding a hula hoop. While waiting for my pizza slice I realized it wasn't a mannequin, it was a semi nude model surround by a handful of artists with sketch pads. Turned out that they were selling pads and pencils at the door for $5. Since I had a few hours to kill and had never tried figure drawing before I decided to give it a shot.

The first one is really crappy, but after 90 minutes (and a few beers) I think I showed a lot of improvement. Yes, still not good, but come on, look at that first one! I think that's they key with people who are good sketchers: it's not that there is necessarily some natural talent that one either has or doesn't have, it's that they do it all the time and just get better and better at it.

By the way, those are feathers on her pasties, not tassels (some folks I showed these to were confused by that).