Fish

This is my first project in my ceramics class. It's a clown fish. It's not fired yet and it's only covered in colored slip. The stripes that look gray will be white when it's fired and the body will be orange. I still have to add some anemone arms.

I have no idea where my mind goes while I'm working on this. I'm sure I'm thinking about something, but I have no idea what. I got home from class about an hour ago and I'm really tired. Focusing your attention on something for 3.5 hours straight can be draining when you finally lift your head up from your project and stop working.

Unfortunately, it might not survive. Because the fins are so thin they will dry out before the rest of the piece and that may cause them to crack. To prevent this I should have applied wax to the fins, but I forgot. I have to turn it in on Saturday for a grade. If it cracks I'll get an F, but I have the whole semester to remake it and get a better grade. If I can make it once, I can make it again.

No Particular Reason

Sometimes there is no particular reason for the images I choose to shoot other than at the time it seemed like a good idea. That's the beauty of shooting digital - it's very "green". I can take any shot I want and if I don't like it I can just delete it. I'm not spending money on film or prints (or polluting the environment with the chemicals it takes to process film and prints.

BTW - the photo is not double exposed (although it looks like it). There is a window between me and that other table and the "ghost images" are the reflections in the glass.

Anticipation

I think this photo could be used for a Rorschach test. Is this just a collection of empty chairs or is it a scene of anticipation? Is this a room emptied of life or will these chairs soon be full of people eger to be inspired, enlightened, entertained, educated?

How we interpret visual cues makes all the difference in how we live our lives. There were many artists sitting/standing in this room, standing in the balconies above it, walking through it at various times throughout the day. How many of them noticed the play of light on the chairs and floor? How many of them saw an artistic beauty in this arrangement? Surely I couldn't have been the only one. I think I'll post this photo on DeviantArt (deviantart.com) and see how many of the people who attended the party took a photo similar to this one or thought of chairs as art.

When we are children we play the game of finding "things" in the clouds. I saw a dragon just the other day on my way into the office. I had to bring a co-worker outside to see it (he's Chinese and born in the year of the Dragon). I though it might be auspicious (lucky) for him. He wasn't as impressed with the cloud dragon as I was. Maybe it was auspicious for me since I'm the one who saw it first.

How many things do you see every day and don't even think about them? How much more would you see if you looked for something artistic or interesting in your everyday surroundings? Wouldn't it make your life a little more interesting?

DeviantArt 10th Birthday Bash

Ana (my niece) and I went to the DeviantArt 10th Birthday Bash at the house of Blues last Saturday. Ana has well over 100 images (mostly drawings) on DeviantArt. I only have about 10 photos up. For anyone who doesn't know, DA is a social network for artists of just about every medium. Saturday they said they had about 15 million (that's MILLION) artists all over the world. When we got there we signed in with our screen names. Two of Ana's pictures showed up on the monitors on the 3rd floor while we were up there. That was cool!

They had monitors all over the place and showed random artwork of members on the screens all during the party. It was amazing to see all those people in one place who had this social networking place in common. It was very inspiring and humbling. I got some great ideas about pictures I want to do as a result of being at the party. I even wrote them down so I wouldn't forget.

They also had the new Bamboo drawing tablets available for people to try. These new tablets are also touch pads. They even gave a few of them away. It was a really fun day. I'm glad we had the experience.
www.deviantart.com

A Spider In My Garden

I discovered a spider web in my tomato cage yesterday morning on my way out to work. It was so delicate and so perfectly woven. I had to spray it with a mist in order to shoot it. I think I confused the spider who made it. It wasn't in the web when I sprayed, but it ran into the center of the web - probably looking for food - when the weight of the water drops moved the web. I could imagine it muttering to itself about 'the one that got away" when it didn't find any food.

The web is still there today, although not as tidy and new looking so I hope it has been successful in it's hunting. I just hope whatever is flying around pollinates the flowers on my tomato plants first before it gets caught in the web. 

I need to get a macro lens!

Pre Salsa

 

Can't wait for my tomatoes to grow up so I can make salsa. I stopped buying tomatoes in the store years ago. I just wasn't worth spending money on something so tasteless. I haven't grown them for a couple of years now, but I bought a couple of heirloom tomatoes over at Green Arrow a few weeks ago - one is Amish Paste, a plum tomato, and the other is Brandywine Red Potato Leaf, a rounder tomato. The Amish Paste has smaller leaves and has grown about 2 1/2 times larger than the Brandywine. Right now it's full of flowers that will soon turn to tomatoes. The Brandywine has much larger leaves (like a potato plant - hence the name I guess) and currently has only one flower on it.  

I haven't grown either of these varieties before. I usually grow the Early Girl. Thought I'd try something different this year. If I like them I'll save the seeds and grow them next year. Someone taught me about saving tomato seeds (or anything with very small seeds) - you just spread the seeds from the whole tomato out on a paper towel and let them dry really well. Later, when you want to plant, just tear off a piece of the paper towel, lay it in a small pot with soil and cover lightly with more soil. All (or most) of the seeds will sprout and when they get big enough you can thin them out and transplant them into another pot or into the garden.

New Game In Town

I was having trouble with coming up ideas for photos and artwork in general. My niece told me that she had a teacher who had a box of craft sticks on her desk that had sentences written on them The teacher would  have the kids draw a stick each then use the sentence on the stick as the beginning of a story.

From that idea I came up with another idea of my own to push creative ideas. I bought some small wooden disks at the craft store. I wrote nouns on 10 of them, places on 10, and titles of books, movies, songs on 10 more (both sides for a total of 20 for each category). When I get stuck for an idea I pull one disk from each pile and create something out of the words I pull. This one was I Robot, red & box.