Travel Day III

Two snippets from/about my wife today:

1) We went to a grocery store. Stood in the parking lot and looked at the mountains all around us. Paige said: "This is so much better than North Dakota; even the grocery stores have a great view!"

2) Paige was driving as I was shooting stock photo's. She is horrible; gets distracted with talking and drives right past the stuff we scouted at high speed. When she did stop, she got so close to the old barn that even wide open, I could only get part of it in the frame with my 70-200. She did admit that it was much harder than she thought and promised not to be "short" with me next time. . .

More to come; we are off to SC for a few hours.

Van Gogh

I am sitting here watching the sun come up over the mountain. For many, this may be no big deal; for a boy from North Dakota where it is FLAT, it is a wonderful change.

It has put me in a mode to ponder my thoughts. . .

I recently watched the A&E Biography of Vincent Van Gogh.

o Vincent was the second baby born in the family with that name. His older brother was born a year earlier, named Vincent, and died. Vincent spend much of his childhood going by the cemetery where his brother was buried and seeing his own name on a tombstone. His brother was in heaven and was the "perfect Vincent"; the younger Vincent knew he did not measure up.

o His mother did not express love for him. She still mourned the first Vincent, and this had to contribute to his feelings of inadequacy.

o Vincent started painting at 27 and killed himself at 37. He traveled to Paris for the first time at 33. By that time, he only had one major painting (Potato Eaters). In Paris, he was first exposed to the color use of the impressionists. Which means that he did hundreds, if not thousands, of paintings that I love in less than four years. Amazing!

o Vincent's distinct brushstrokes (which I can spend hours studying), really owe their roots to eastern philosophy and Japanese painting. I knew there was some connection, but the video did a great job of showing certain Japanese pieces and Vincent's work in succession and emphasizing how key it was.

Thanks to my mom for a great birthday gift. I really enjoyed it and I am sure that I will ponder much of this alot more over the next days, weeks, and months.

Mapping plus weather plus road reports

I really need this right now! Anyone got any ideas.

I would love an AJAX interface that lets me type a start point, end point, and get directions, road conditions, and weather reports for the trip.

It would make life a lot easier than having to check the state Dept of Transportation road reports, google maps, and weather.com. . .

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Google Maps
Weather
Travel
Road Conditions

Trumpeter Swans

When I was in early elementary school, our teacher read to our class EB White's book The Trumpet of the Swan. It was a story that always stuck with me, even though I had never seen a trumpeter swan. On Saturday, that changed. Operating on a hot tip from a good source, Cooper and I set off to find the swans. They had been seen on a river between two lakes in west-central Minnesota. The book (and elementary school) was about 30-32 years ago. At that time, Trumpeter Swans were on the verge of extinction and very rare. Today, they have made a comeback; there are about 800 birds in Minnesota. We succeeded in finding the birds. We found one flock exactly where my tip said they would be and then we stumbled on another flock also. In total, we saw about 50-60 birds. Most importantly, those numbers included about 10-14 young birds; the Minnesota flocks are considered at a sustainable level. I took pictures and have posted on the photoblog, but the highlight of the day was when I put the camera away and carried my 3 year-old son Cooper through the snow so he could see and hear them. The smile on his face made all the slush and ice we drove through to get there worth it. The sound of their “trumpeting” call amazed both of us. They were huge but beautiful in flight and their landing and takeoffs were well worth seeing.

I found out that they made an animated special of the book in 2000. I plan on picking up both the DVD and the book for Cooper so I can share the story with him as we shared the day with the wild swans together.

Saturn Vue

Cooper and I were on a photo-adventure again Saturday. The weather did not cooperate much; temps were around freezing, it was raining, sleeting, snowing, etc., and the roads were slushy or icy. There were cars in the ditch in a few places. We drove Paige's Saturn Vue with AWD and anti-loc breaks. I also drove the Vue last month when we had rain and blizzards in Fargo and most of the town, schools, mall, etc. were shut down and I still had to get to work. I am very happy with how the car handled. I took it slow; not in any hurry. The vehicle plowed through drifts, was stable on ice, and had good visibility. I would strongly recommend the vehicle for Northern winters when you need to get the kids to/from school, etc.

Renaissance Art Sketchbook

Renaissance Art Sketchbook

I recently came across a reference to this website (forgot where, but I am deeply indebted to someone). I went to the site and was just blown away by the large leather sketchbook. Here is the site's description:

Whether writing long verse or capturing snow-capped mountain peaks in watercolor, the acid-free artist quality paper in our refills will textually add to your creative experience. Poets and Artists need large pages to make their inspiration and concepts tangible, and the long 9 x 12 pages of our Artists and Poets Refillable Journal fit the bill. As your creativity expands, each volume may be retired but the supple leather cover will grow to be like an old friend. The hand-torn, hand-stitched refills slide easily into pockets inside the cover, and we stitch an extra pocket for loose papers, pens, or brushes.

Got one for myself and one for Paige. Had them customized with our names and added the carry bags. I used mine for the first time to do an oil pastel picture of a Chianti winery from Tuscany. I love the way the paper takes the pigment, and I love showing the book and its contents. I have now done a half-dozen works.

Paper is thick enough for travel watercolor but will also work great for charcoal, color pencils, graphite, as well as oil pastels.

I also would like this beauty! Link

Renaissance Art Website

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Art
Journal
Sketchbook

Moleskine

I was going through my drawer in the office at home the other day and I realized that I have filled 4 moleskine pocket journals in the last two years. Number five was started two months ago (9/11/05) and it is already over half-full. A few more moleskine hacks:

o Pen – I have started using the Sakura Pigma Micron 005 pens. It is extremely thin lines (0.20mm), archival ink, waterproof, with no bleedthrough. It has become the ONLY pen I will use in my Moleskine (around $2 at an art supply store).

o Post-it notes. I stick an assortment of blank post-it notes (3 to 10 of each type) on the inside of the front cover and the back of the first page (behind the “In case of loss. . .” page). This includes varied sizes and colors. I include some tape flags to mark pages and also include some of the new 3”x5” post-it index cards. Refill as I use them.

o Draw in the moleskine. I have started carrying a leadholder pencil and a small assortment of colored pencils with me and I sketch pictures into my moleskine while waiting for lunch to be served or during other wait times. This serves two purposes: the pictures add nicely to the words around them and the “stolen” chance to get in a bit of drawing keeps me sane when work is at its busiest.

Links:

Moleskine US Store
Moleskinerie
Moleskine Hacks from 43Folders

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Moleskine
Journal

Art Influences this month

I am going in two-and-a-half or three directions at once right now. I have a Van Gogh book in the car that has 120 pictures with short descriptions. I love his use of color and brush strokes; the way that he juxtaposes different colors side by side rather than mixing to make a blended effect. I am also reading an book on impressionism. Finally, I am reading a book on Cubism.

I find myself personally drawn to Van Gogh and impressionism. That is the type of art that captures my eye, my attention, and my imagination. My own palate, subject matter, and style is similar. My view of a Tuscan winery shows the influences of Van Gogh's “Corn Field.”

I also see Van Gogh's influence in my father's paintings, especially his scene of a small harbor. The color palate is similar to the later paintings, but the brush strokes and subject matter remind me of Van Gogh's Amsterdam period (1885). Currently, the piece is in storage waiting for a new frame. I think I am going to pull it out, hang it on a wall and stare at it for a couple of hours. Growing up, I was lost in it and leaned to love every stroke and feature. In fact, I hope to spend a weekend going back though more of dad's and Paige's paintings and look at them again for the first time to marvel at their beauty and let them inspire me.

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Art

RSS Calendar

I use RSS in both of my jobs and in my personal life to track information on the internet; I could not live without it. Recently, I found RSS Calendar. It allows me to enter my calendar on-line and share it with family and friends as well is on my blogs and website.

After signing up for a free account, I was presented with a calendar and I started to add events. Each event has special settings including privacy, category, URL, Location with full address, etc. Privacy allows you to set if it is public or private; public will appear on web pages and RSS feeds, private will only show to those persons you have “invited” to view your RSSCalendar feeds and specified in the invite that they can see private items. Categories are great. They allow you to organize your items and then customize your feeds by category.

Feeds can be read by any standard RSS reader. The website also allows you to generate Java code that you can embed on your website to show one or more views. This website shows a 30 day rolling calendar; my photoblog has two applets: one that shows only Fine Art category events and the other that shows WindMedia category events.

These applets allow the viewer to click on a specific item for more details, including the ability to add it to their RSS Calendar, and export it to Outlook or iCal.

I am looking into lots of ways to use this great utility.

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RSS
calendar

Cooper

I was getting my son (age 3.5) a glass of water the other night. He wanted a “white glass;” one of the kids cups he got at Famous Dave's Resturant. The cup has their pig mascot Wilbur on it. I grabbed the cup, put water in it, and gave it to Cooper. He looked at the side of the cup, then up at me and said: “Wiiillllllbuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrr!” Glad he had hold of the cup, because I was laughing so hard, I would have spilled water all over the place.

Art Stix

I picked up two samples of PrismaColor Art Stix last week; today I picked up a 12 color set. Basically, they are colored pencils without the wood. They are rectangular pieces of pure color pencil. They are clean to the touch, but you can use the sides or ends to apply the color. You can use it on its side to quickly apply color to large areas. They can be used for base coats, to cover large areas, etc. They can also be used with the ends to add broad strokes. The prismacolor line includes Verithin pencils which are great for outlining and adding very thin lines (whiskers, veins in leaves, etc.), regular color pencils that spread color smoothly and come in a wide range of colors, and the Art Stix for broad areas. I am slowly building my selection. Colored pencil is a medium I enjoy, and PrismaColor is quickly becoming my preferred tools.

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Color_Pencil
PrismaColor

Watercolor Moleskine

Moleskinerie has pictures and descriptions of the new Moleskine for Watercolor. Hmm. my wife's birthday is coming up. . . I think a perfect gift would be to buy two, one for her use, and one for us to fill between now and May and give to our son on his 4th birthday.

Very exciting; I am such an notebook pr0n-aholic :)