Blast from the past: 3-15-1998

Posted by on August 31st, 2011  •  0 Comments  •  Full Article

Life of a press operator

Today I got fired. (3-15-1998)

I was just starting to enjoy my new day shift job. I had been cutting paper for about 2 weeks. A paper cutter in a print shop is the person who takes the paper from the paper truck, un-boxes it and trims it down to the size that is needed by the press operator. He also trims the paper down to the finished size (ie: a business card) after the paper has been printed by the press operator. Read More

Sunday, 8-28-2011

Posted by on August 31st, 2011  •  0 Comments  •  Full Article

Sue, Lisa and I hiked up to Comet Falls at Mt. Rainier yesterday. I’d never painted a waterfall before, and I knew it would be ugly. I set up my easel while they hiked on up the trail to Van Trump park.

Surprisingly, I was able to create something sort of pretty, though I’m very unsure about it. It’s almost abstract. I kept trying to make it tight and accurate, but the shadows in the deep canyon kept changing under the rotating sun, and don’t even get me started on the waterfall. Those veils of water were dropping at 40 miles an hour. I could freeze them in my mind, but trying to extract the subtle shading of color from the gossamer veils of falling water was a trial.

And the rock surrounding the waterfall was horrible. It was all fractured and curving with pine tree poking out in random locations. I was ready to tear up the painting, but decided to get super loose and start throwing color at it. I mean, what did I have to lose?

I felt good about getting anything recognizable. It was a fun day out with the family, and great practice for me.

Comet Falls at Mt. Rainier

Comet Falls at Mt. Rainier

And here is the previous Saturdays painting when Sue and I hiked up into the snow on Skyline Ridge at Mt. Rainier

Painted from the Skyline trail at Mt. Rainier

Painted from the Skyline trail at Mt. Rainier

8-26-2011

Posted by on August 31st, 2011  •  0 Comments  •  Full Article

I’ve watched about 15 instructional videos from www.lynda.com on wordpress now and I’m starting to get a fuzzy grasp of wordpress.

It appears to be an online web page builder, that brings in, by default, the ability for my visitors to make comments. This has been one of my main complaints about my old school online journal, which I’ve kept since 1997.

My journal was not interactive, so my readers…all 3 of them :-), could not make comments, and it could not be seen on the internet, because it was locked down with password only access.

I’m coming up on some cool videos that will tell me how to host this wordpress blog on my own domain. I see this as a useful tool for our students. I’ve had several students figure wordpress out on their own, so any knowledge I can gather about it’s functionality will be all to the good.

Me painting the mountain

Me painting the mountain

8-25-2011

Posted by on August 31st, 2011  •  1 Comment  •  Full Article

This is my first web page on word press. I’ve had my own website since 1997, but have never had an interactive one. I’m still learning which buttons to press. My plan is to make this a publicly accessible blog, since my current blog/journal is password protected. The reasons behind that are long and convoluted, but this new blog will be public, interactive, and searchable.

I created this self portrait by taking a photo of myself (thanks John!) and manipulating it in Photoshop for 10 hours using this book: http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Photoshop-CS4-Illustration-Techniques/dp/024052134X Derek Lea is the first person I’ve found who explains high end photoshop artwork. Truly an amazingly talented digital artist.

Self_Portrait_Photoshop

Self Portrait in Photoshop

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