Archive for September, 2006

14 Reasons Why I had A Great Day Today


2006
09.27

Reason Number:

1) The Holgaroid got a flash, all it needed was batteries, and it was relatively easy to put on. It also worked.

The Holaroid got a flash

2) I was reminded that the most common reason for not getting the results that you want are often user error. Specifically for the Holga – Note to Self: REMOVE THE LENSE CAP AND DON’T FORGET TO TAKE OUT THE METAL SLIDE THING A MA BOB or you will get black or white polaroid’s.

User Error

3) I learned how to load the film (I know this sounds pretty straight forward but you would be amazed at what can go wrong when you don’t have a clue or a set of instructions)

4) Kevin found instructions on how to use the darn thing (if you need them click here)

5) I actually got two (count them two) images from the Holaroid and Jerry has been gracious enough to let me post them here. This is very kind of him because we were supposed to go to the benefits fair and I took advantage of his befuddled morning state to convince him that he should let me take these pictures instead.

Jerry Far Away

Jerry Close Up

6) Jerry got notified that one of his photos has
been short-listed for inclusion in the second edition of the Schmap Oxford Guide, to be published mid-October 2006 (take a peek).

7) I got my first comment on a post from the outside world (although I must admit that I couldn’t read it and the translation was quite strange at babel fish …so …hopefully it was positive.
8) I got the layout for the Boo 2006 Halloween comic sketched out and am ready to start working on it.

9) We all got a new whiteboard at work that is magnetic so I made Kevin, Jerry, and myself Pez magnets.

10) 3/4 of my new Mac has arrived.

11) The bathroom is really looking nice and Christopher is doing a wonderful job. I am quite impressed.

12) I went to the dollar store and found my pirate sword for my Halloween costume.

13) I figured out what I am going to do with it because Jerry sent me a great link for animator James Harvey who is illustrating 100 Pirates in 100 Days. Check back to see how the costume turns out.

14) Jerry has agreed to let me take Holaroids of him in my giant Hulk hands so that I can use them for lifts and creating his new Superhero character. This is pretty amazing because he is working on a deadline project right now and is a little tense. I haven’t been helping the situation because I keep dragging him out of the office to take Holaroids. He is very patient with me.

That’s pretty much it for the day. Here is a fun thing to do take from James Harvey’s LiveJournal page under “This is Fun”

Go to Google and type in “[your name] looks like”, with the double quote marks. Then, note down the relevant matches. I got:

Jolanda looks like she will do great in the Universe competition.

Jolanda looks like a hopeful candidate. She’s had it rough and is a real life survivor , so she might eat up the competition .

Jolanda looks like someone out of baywatch and is probably the sexiest woman in Slovenia

Jolanda looks like Fantasia’s mother..

Funny Ha Ha’s. Jerry’s were awesome too. I only got 4 but if you have a more common name then it works great.

Another note to add:
I have decided that my attraction to the Holga camera is similar to my obsession with my 1973 air cooled Volkswagen. Christopher and I fully restored the bug as a project to see if we were likely to be able to complete the project and still be willing to see or talk to each other. We were successful in our mission and decided to get married.

Anyone who owns an air-cooled VW knows that you either have a love or hate relationship with a VW bug. Meaning, either you divorce them, find them a good home, or keep them forever. For me, the bug is a permanent member of the family.

There seems to be a lot of similarities between the Holga and my bug. They are finicky, they don’t like strangers touching them, and they get angry (I will not work for you) when they are ignored or treated poorly. They have personalities. They need constant reassurance that they are loved most of all.

I must have a Holga of my own.

That’s it for the evening.

Na zdravje (to your health in Slovenian)

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#239: Questionable-Judgement Theodore Stomachbrace by Jerry Spiller


2006
09.27

This was supposed to be the last post of the evening last night but my battery went critically low and the computer shut down. I decided to wait until today to post.

Jerry finished another Hobo: #239: Questionable-Judgement Theodore Stomachbrace. I really like this one and I am putting it up there with Lonnie Choke. If you want to see it at E-Hoboes.com go to: http://www.e-hobo.com/hoboes/i/253213736/.

Here’s Jerry’s newest addition to the Hobo family.

Cheers!

Questionable-Judgement Theodore Stomachbrace - Original art work by Jerry Spiller

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Vintage Velvet


2006
09.27

I finally found the Velvet for Lady Madonna. I am going to use this vintage dress. I have been looking all over for it and was very very happy when I found the fabric. I believe that my friend Jill is going to wear the dress for Halloween before I take it apart and sew it into strips for the sides for Lady Madonna. If she does I will put a picture up of her in costume.

Here’s the Velvet!

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The Dark Room


2006
09.26

Last week wasn’t the best week for posting so I am going to back track a little bit this evening. For the past couple of weeks Blair has been coming over here and there and working with me in the darkroom. We haven’t really gotten into a great schedule for this but I am putting Tuesday’s on the books right now to mess around. I think this is going to have to be a bit flexible.

Why did I get interested in photography?
Kevin Bourque, a friend from work helped (gave) me all the equipment minus what I found in my attic. Another friend of mine gave me all my camera equipment when I helped him moved out of his house. I figured I better start taking some pictures and developing them since the gods had provided me with all the tools I needed to do so.

A little history about the Darkroom.
About a year ago we had squirrels in the attic. We tried to ignore them (this is really not a good idea) and finally had to convince them to leave when Little Dog started hunting the children and giving them to us as gifts. In one evening I was "given" 3 gifts in the span of a couple of hours and I was completely done. Poor Christopher had to deal with the squirrels in the attic.

When we were cleaning out the attic we found a bunch of stuff that had belonged to the previous owners of the house. Pictures, confederate money, love letters (we think…we did not read or open them), children’s drawings, keepsakes and stuff like that. Kevin had just come to work with me and I had found out that he had grown up down the street from our house. We knew from the addresses on the letters and the childhood drawings who they belonged to and I asked him if he knew the previous occupants of the house. He did and promptly called them on the phone and told them that we would like to return their stuff. They still lived in town.

To make a long story short in addition to the above mentioned items we also found all the components for a darkroom (enlarger, trays, etc.). I asked if I could keep them and was graciously given permission to do so. I brought the enlarger to Kevin to see if he could fix it and he wound up giving me a Besler 45 enlarger instead. He has also given me many other wonderful things to work with and gobs and gobs of information and advice. I have to take a moment to thank him for all his help.

Where Am I Now with this?
Over the past year I have put together the dark room and have finally started to really use it. This is very exciting and it has taken a lot of trial and error to get it all working. It is finally light tight, etc. etc. The next step is to install a sink. I think Christopher is going to put the one from the small bathroom in for me so that I have access to water and don’t have to tromp thru the house with developer, etc. I’ll keep you posted on that. Here’s a picture of the Darkroom working and making prints.

A Night of Printing:
Last week I spent my first night of printing in the darkroom by myself. Blair had come by the week before and helped me figure/work out some of the technical difficulties (the filters on the Besler were warped and didn’t fit, we have to push the filter carrier closed with a chopstick) but overall things are working well. Here is the result of my first night of printing alone.

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I got a test strip for the Medusa for the "Hair" project and messed around with some home made negatives made with transparency film using digital images and Photoshop. You can use Photoshop to create a reverse negative of an image, then you can size it and print it. If you use a copy machine you can transfer this image onto a piece of transparency film and print it. The results are interesting and worth looking into.

I am also playing around with photograms (see the parental advisory print). Here are some interesting resources:

Man Ray – Rayographs
http://www.geh.org/amico2000/htmlsrc/index.html
Many Links to Photogram Artists
http://www.photogram.org/frame.html

There are also a lot of Flickr groups on the topic. Take a few minutes to visit: PHOTOGRAM and Photograms.

Well, it’s kinda late and I am contemplating posting one more to catch up on current projects so am going to end this post here.

Cheers!

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Introducing The Holga


2006
09.26

Last week (Friday) I was very unsuccessful in trying to shoot some polaroid’s with a Holgaroid (modified Holga). If your curious and want to see some pictures on Flickr you can look for 1) holgagraphy, 2)the Holga group and 3) Holga People group. There are tons and tons of them. I am hoping to use my polaroid’s for polaroid lifts.

As I mentioned earlier, my first attempt with the Holgaroid was extremely unsuccessful and all I got were blue polaroid’s. Jerry tried to make me feel better about this by telling me that they were "pretty". I still plan on using them for the polaroid lifts. It will be a good experiment. This was also my first attempt at taking polaroid pictures too and apparently they require a great deal of light.

Jerry went with me to take the pictures and brought along a digital camera and he was able to get some nice pictures. He hasn’t posted them to Flickr yet but I am sure he will soon. He has lot of great pictures up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/peatbogyeri/. I am planning on using some of them for "The Adventures of the Little Black Dress" project.

Although you wouldn’t have a clue from the pictures below, we were trying to shoot the graffiti art that is all around Charleston. I haven’t given up on this and went to Blaire’s house this evening to pick up some more polaroid film and a flash for the Holgaroid. Hopefully I can convince Jerry to go out and try again tomorrow.

Here’s my first attempt…see all the "pretty" blue?

The Holaroid

Today my creative energy went to shooting a roll of film on the Holga. Kevin was nice enough to bring in his Holga after some discussion about them and he had a roll of film. Lucky me. Lucky day.

I went to the graveyard and took some shots (12). I played around with double exposures and am curious to see how they turned out. The plan is for Blair to come back on Friday night to develop film and work all day Saturday in the darkroom. This weekend will dedicated to learning how to do the polaroid lifts and printing.

Here’s my first official roll of Holga film. What an exciting new adventure!

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Pretty Tied Up


2006
09.26

Inspiration:

This piece was my first exposure to modeling in clay from life. The form was developed over 10 days. During this time I explored the engineering aspects of constructing small clay figures, experimented with tools to achieve various surfaces, built a 22-inch armature (derived from basic measurements taken from the model), and built a miniature sized figure in clay based on a female model working from a standing pose.

What did I learn? The process of learning to look and make decisions about a model and what they actually express in their pose. The experience helped me to develop confidence, technique, and skill in building and modeling a clay figure from life.

Building the Armature/Preparing to Model:

The armature is built out of pipe and aluminum wire which is mounted on a base. The base is attached to a modeling stand. It looks like a wire "stick figure" suspended in air by pipe. The model was asked to give me her measurements (height, inseam and arm span). These were used (scaled down to the size of the piece) to guide building the armature. I have a sketch of it below.

What did I Learn? Why and how to use armatures and the implications for casting etc. I also learned not to bend the copper wire too much because eventually it will break.

Observational Skills/Modeling:

During the model’s first session the class was instructed to adjust, by eye, the armature to the actual pose. Since the wire can be re-bent at any time it is not critical to get the armature perfect the first day. In addition at the first session I measured the position of the critical "bony" landmarks on the model. These are used to check that the sculpture is accurate to life.

During the bulk of the remaining sessions I slowly built the figure up on the wire with clay. I tried to pay close attention to the lines, planes and curves of the body as I built the figure up. In the last session I spent my time fine tuning the surfaces by using a water bottle, sponge, and small artist’s paint brushes.

What did I Learn? How to see properly, in order to make decisions about what and how to express myself in clay. After the fact I would recommend using a Plasticine modeling clay instead of regular clay. Regular clay is less expensive but you have to keep the piece wet at all times or it will dry out, crack, and break to smithereens. This has a tendency to make it more difficult to mold. Crud.

Making a Mold

Pretty Tied Up was cast in plaster using a mold from the completed clay piece.
The mold is actually two molds. The inner mold is flexible and made out of ordinary 100% silicone from the hardware store. The outer "mother" mold is rigid and is made from plaster and burlap to make it stronger. The purpose of the mother mold is to provide support for the flexible inner mold when it is used to make a cast. I have a picture of the mold below.

What I learned? When creating a mother mold from plaster it is very important to put vaseline on on the "shims". I forgot to do this and had to saw and pry the mother mold open. As you can see from the picture this is NOT a picture perfect mold. I also almost lost my piece. This was the first mother mold I had made. The second one went much better in a later project.

Pretty Tied Up Mold

The completed project. A mixed media sculpture of plaster, wood, steel, and bamboo.


"Pretty Tied Up"
Mixed Media Sculpture
20” H x 16” W x 16” D
2005

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5 New Hoboes Added to the 700 Hoboes Project


2006
09.24

This weekend was very productive. I finished 5 new hoboes for the 700 Hoboes Project. It took most of the weekend minus dinner with friends (Mathew, Jill, Jerry, Chris and Me).

Dinner was enjoyable and we all got to play "golf" using pine cones in the back yard with Mathew’s new golf clubs. It was very nice of him to share his new toys. Jerry brought a Bigfoot movie that was delightful and I spent most of the evening working on the first 2 hobo drawings for the weekend. Sunday Christopher continued to work on replacing the bathroom floor and I spent from 10am in the morning to now (around 11pm) finishing and posting the other three drawings (minus a quick trip for pizza for dinner).

I also spent the weekend trying to figure out the story board for the Boo: Halloween Comic. Drawing the Hoboes has helped me to work on this and I think I have a better plan now. Jerry left me his book on drawing graphic novels and I plan to spend next week working out the storyline and drawing the illustrations. I’ll keep you posted on that.

It is very late so I will post more about other things tomorrow. Until then, here are the new 5.

Cheers.

#586: Self-Taught-Guitarist Edmund - Artwork by Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem
#586: Self-Taught-Guitarist Edmund

#252: The Young Churchill - Artwork by Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem
#252: The Young Churchill

#253: The Young Churchill's Hated Bride - Art by Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem
#253: The Young Churchill’s Hated Bride

#530: Trixie of the East- Art by Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem
#530: Trixie of the East

#531: Trixie of the West - Art by Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem
#531: Trixie of the West

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Party for Mojo


2006
09.20

So today is WordPress Wednesday and HEaMUSEs me was very tired and decided to go home. I think he is very much in need of rest. Even though I did not work on the Process Blog it did do some drawing. Jerry has sent me another link for something cool to do. Manning Krull and Calamity Jon Morris are hosting the next collaborative comic event on Ape-Law.com – BOO!:HALLOWEEN STORIES 2006!

I have been stewing on what to do since Jerry sent it to me and have finally come up with something. I wanted to do something for Mojo since this will be the one year anniversary since we lost him. He died on October 27th of last year and needless to say I was not really able to enjoy Halloween. Since this is my favorite holiday of the year I refuse to let this become a sad event and am working on making it a celebration instead.

Saying that I have started "Party for Mojo" the comic I am going to submit to the Boo!:Halloween Stories 2006. It is going to be a collection of my favorite Halloween memories put together to depict a fantastic party for Mojo. Here is the first panel that I finished this evening.

Cheers.

http://www.jpvanarnhem.com/uploaded_images/Mojo/Party for Mojo Line Drawing
Line Drawing Finished around 9pm this evening

Party for Mojo

"Party For Mojo" First Panel for Boo! Halloween Stories 2006 finished around 10:30 this evening.

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Spell Check Complete


2006
09.15

Unable to Compute. Internal Memory Error.

Control-Alt-Delete.

Shutting Down.

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Ketchup


2006
09.14

In case anyone is actually reading this you can probably tell that right now I am playing ketchup with the blog posts trying to get all the completed works into the process blog so I can move forward with the new ones. In addition to playing ketchup on the blog posts I have been spell checking (please note that this does NOT mean grammar checking) all the posts from before July 9, 2006.

I have also been driving The Professor crazy because I have gone rogue, become completely illogical, and taken on a devil may care attitude about completing this project by Friday when Vermont starts reading applications. Somehow I have miraculously completed the portfolio and managed to get the sidebar to show up on the right side of the Process page in alphabetical order. A little knowledge is very dangerous in WordPress land. I must take a moment to thank Jerry though because he continues to come and help me on Wednesdays even though I show my appreciation by completely disregarding his advice and messing with things. And much to his credit, when I get completely frustrated by this he is still nice to me and tries to make me feel better by saying things like, “I’ll fix it” instead of “Stop messing with things you don’t understand” like he should.

So here is a recap of what I have learned over the past couple of days:

*If you are using SimpleViewer and don’t know what the hell your doing use Picassa to generate the slide show. After this ONLY edit the caption fields in the xml file. DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT under any circumstances move the folder you save the SimpleViewer stuff to. You will have to regenerate it because it will break. I don’t know why, and at this point I don’t care. The Professor is very troubled by this.

*Turn of the WSYWIG editor in WordPress. DO NOT USE IT! It screws everything up. I had to go through the code of 80 posts last night to find div and ul and li tags. The Professor told me to do this and I ignored his advice. Silly Me. By the way, if you choose to ignore this part you will also have the joy of fixing your posts and dreaming html code all night. So, if you are willing to believe here’s how you do it:

1) In WordPress Admin Panel deactivate “Use the visual rich editor when writing” in “User” – “your profile”.

2) P. S. It is at the very bottom of the page will you will never see it, so scroll DOWN. Here’s the post where I found the info: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/65239.

*How to fix your WordPress blog categories so that they display in alphabetical order with Hierarchy:

1) Go to WordPress Admin – Themes – Modify Themes – Click Sidebar

2) Find <?php wp_list_cats(); ?>

3) Replace the code with <?php wp_list_cats(’sort_column=name’); ?> to alphabetize with Hierarchy

4) OR replace the code with <?php list_cats(FALSE, ‘ ‘, ‘name’); ?> to alphabetize without Hierarchy

5) Click Update

6) For more information read the WordPress Category Support Post at:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/11766#post-392307.

*NEVER NEVER NEVER cut and past from Word. You will regret it.

*Research IE Hacks. It appears that if you want stuff to work correctly in IE you have to find the right hacks for the job. Here’s a quick link for a list of them to get you started: http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html.

So that’s about it for ketchup. I will mention that Plan B is misery and I will catch you up on that sometime this weekend. I am now off to post a few more back entries before bed and try to finish spell checking the remainder of the posts.

Cheers.

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