Rest Quest

I used a photo I'd taken of Nina to incorporate into Painter, turn on tracing paper, pick up the underlying colors, move them around some, and then turn off tracing paper to look at the photo I had beside the one I was working on. Then I started painting on top of what I had, putting in different colors than the underlying ones, trying to bring out highlights with colors, and using different kinds of brushstrokes. Basically, just experimenting again. And then I went back and used tracing paper to pick out parts of the zipper to give that a bit of photographic realness along with the painting. I like to see how to combine those to ways, to see how I can creatively use those techniques together, hopefully sometime then using them to do a collage painting.

Posted by Cindi on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 5:11pm. | Permalink | Add new comment

Okay, here's a sketch I did (yes, I was finally able to change the tool). I was watching live video streaming on the internet, of Jeff & his co-workers filming their instructional dvds about Drupal. So they were moving, and the window of the video was pretty small already. But I thought it'd be nice practice with drawing from life, not photos, etc. And I wanted to watch them all anyway so this took care of two things at one time. : )  This is one I did a quick sketch when James Walker was being filmed. It was quick, & even though he was sitting, he still moved enough to make it a real challenge. AND he was pretty small in the already small window I was watching it in. Soooo, a challenge. I got a few lines in, which I THINK kind of represented him. At least I can see it is him when I look at it. Ah well, practice.

Posted by Cindi on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 5:06pm. | Permalink | Add new comment

Well, this is the one where I was using the tool I couldn't change. I don't know what tool it was or the "color". So I practiced sketching Doug, live, while he stood beside me lol. He had hard time holding still, would smile or move his mouth, his eyes, etc. & expression. That wasn't helpful but I suppose it was good for me to try to draw him having to deal with that lol. So this is from a few minutes of doing that.

Posted by Cindi on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 4:58pm. | Permalink | Add new comment

This picture shows up odd because there's white space on this blog that goes past the "paper" that the drawing is on, thus making the hair & head look flattened off. Ah well, not sure how to deal with that. This was basically an experiment using some drawing tools, tracing paper, etc. So I used a photo I'd taken of Jeff, and turned on tracing paper. Did some outlining & such, and then turned off tracing paper to look at a copy of the photo I had showing up beside it (since you can't see the photo that well under the tracing paper).  I kind of "winged it" with the beard or stubble. 

Posted by Cindi on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 4:52pm. | Permalink | Add new comment

Lately I've been trying to learn how to use the tools in Corel Painter, a painting software program that I use with a wacom tablet & pen/brush. At first glance it was overwhelming! So many tools, so many things you could do but where to start, where did you find them, how to use them, etc. It seemed nothing was really intuitive starting out and the books I have on it didn't help that much. I hope the books will be more helpful to me now that I've gotten a little understanding of it through trial & error. Sometimes hands on, experimenting helps me. So I started out doing some sketching with whatever brush I could grab. At one point, for some reason, I couldn't figure out how to change a particular brush & color!  Nothing would change it. I thought, okay, that's what I'll use then. So I sketched with this weird brush that had like several colors in it, but it looked brown, and had a weird look to it. I'll try putting one of those up. And some others, too.  Don't know if anyone is even reading this anymore. I'd like to have something that notifies my friends when I've posted something new. Jeff had said he was going to do a new website for me & I wonder if that's possible to include that feature. Hmm.

Posted by Cindi on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 4:38pm. | Permalink | Add new comment

Some months ago Doug's computer, an old emac, was getting hard to see. I, on the other hand, had a newer model iMac with 20" screen. Doug wanted me to be able to use Painter, the painting/drawing software program he'd gotten me which needs as much speed as possible, so it was decided that getting a new computer would mean I would take the newer one and he'd take mine. Mine was maybe 2 and a half years old, but with 3 year extended warrantee on it. I like their extended warrantees because besides fixing things that go bad, they also give you tech support and walk you through things you don't know how to do (over the phone). Or they point you to where you can get the information or help you need.  Anyway, back to the story. I found a refurbished iMac, bigger monitor, faster, more ram and all that stuff, on Apple's website. I got the same 3 yr extended warrrantee that's available for the brand new ones just out of the box. Doug then took my older one and was very happy with it. It had recently had it's hard drive replaced by Apple, along with something equivalent to the motherboard, along with something else, as it had started acting flakey. We'd never really had problems with Apple computers in all the years/decades we've used them. But we felt the 3 year warrantee really paid for itself in getting the hard drive, etc.  So Doug had it for awhile and it started acting flakey again. So two days before the 3 year extended warrantee ended (just before Christmas) he called them again. They scheduled an appointment with the store near us & said they'd also keep the case number open. He took it in and they ended up replacing the hard drive again. Fine, he took it home and it was working until a certain point again. Soooooo, he called tech support again, in January, past the warrantee period (but the case #was still open). They made another appointment with the Apple store near us. He took it in again, they looked at it & they saw the history on it, and said just a minute while they went into another room. Then they came out and said apologetically that he didn't need to come in that many times and so they handed him a box with a brand new aluminum Intel duo core Mac with 20" screen, the snazzy new keyboard and stuff FREE!!!!!!!  He was kind of shocked I think. Then they asked if he wanted the 3 year extended warrantee with it. Of course, after all this, he said sure he'd get the extended warrantee. So now he has a new computer. I feel much better now as I felt a bit guilty having my nice new refurbished computer. And he's been trying to learn Drupal (going through "Using Drupal", the new O'Reilly book written by Jeff and 5 other Lullabot co-workers). And this new computer will also help him with things he is doing for work.  So it was a real blessing!  

Posted by Cindi on Mon, 01/26/2009 - 4:59pm. | Permalink | Add new comment

The initially posted article is from 2007 along with many of the comments, but there are fairly new comments from December 2008 on it by Brad Jersak. If you're interested, here's the url below.    http://clarionjournal.typepad.com/clarion_journal_of_spirit/2007/09/methinks-he-bud.html 

Posted by Cindi on Sat, 12/20/2008 - 8:13pm. | Permalink | Add new comment

Wanted to see what the camera would do in this low of light. The Christmas tree lights were on, and the LED candle sitting on the little bookshelves there were all the lights that were on in the room. Now there might have been some light coming in a bit from the kitchen doorway. I don't remember off hand if the kitchen light was on or not, or other room.  Anyway, I liked this. No flash of course, and using my 85mm lens from quite a distance away. Camera set at ISO1600.  I like the soft glow : )  At least it looks good on my monitor. It's kind of a yellow orangish glow. 

Posted by Cindi on Tue, 12/16/2008 - 8:28pm. | Permalink | Add new comment

Okay, here's another picture of Ashley & Kellen at the shower. Someone asked him to kiss her so they could take the picture, I think. This was when he was "moving in for the...ummm, well...moving in on the target" : )

Posted by Cindi on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 9:54pm. | Permalink | Add new comment

Well, by "various things" I mean I'm actually trying to work on something but I find I only want to work on it so long before I take a break!  So for one thing, I thought I'd post a photo from a wedding shower I went to on Sunday afternoon. Kellen and Ashley will be getting married in around 6 weeks. I met Kellen first when he was around 10 or 11 I think. Our families are friends. So it was good to be able to be there. We're happy for him, and of course for Ashley as well. : )  While I was at the shower, Doug was outside with one of our other friends, Brian, and his son Andrew, flying Doug's big 13 and a half foot delta conyne kite. Sounds like they all had fun. A delta conyne, for those of you who don't know, is a really cool kite that's easy to fly. It combines the structure of a conyne (or box kite) with the wings of a delta kite. This isn't your old childhood diamond shaped kite you couldn't get to fly.  It really has some pull to it. It almost launches by itself. Once you have the kite it's rather cheap entertainment : )  Sometimes it's possible to lean back and have the pull of the kite (from the wind) keep you from falling backward.   After flying it for awhile, and the work of pulling it down...it came right up to Andrew and he was able to reach out and get it with his hand. After they left, Doug put his kite away, came in and joined the rest of us at the shower, along with the future groom & groom's dad, for the food portion and opening gifts.    Oh...my dryer is buzzing so I should get the shirts out before they wrinkle. Thanks for listening to my ramblings : )  Oh, after previewing this post, I realize that the photo is cropped to fit into the space provided, but it crops it differently than I would....so it's off kilter with Ashley and Kellen almost cut off at the side. But I don't feel like scaling it or whatever right now, or trying to make it fit in.  Sweet dreams everyone : )

Posted by Cindi on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 8:47pm. | Permalink | Add new comment