Novemberfive

The Salisbury Sketcher

Jez — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:47:57 -0600

I think I’m finally getting the hang of sketching on the fly, its all about confidence in a public place. Bad weather this afternoon forced me indoors but I managed to find a quiet spot to enjoy drawing my surroundings. Its the same spot I wrote about here.

Photofriday Challenge: Black

Jez — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:09:28 -0600

This week’s Photo Friday challenge is titled Black. This photograph of the humble black cherry was taken in my old flat when I bodged together a bit of a light box. I’m still amazed at what effects can be achieved with an old cardboard box, a few A4 sheets of paper and tape. I didn’t even own a flash camera back then, proving that anyone can take a nice, clean, close up shot.

Click the image to enlarge.

Previous light box antics can be found in previous posts here and here.

A Quick Lunchtime Sketch

Jez — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:57:22 -0600

I was recently introduced to the Urban Sketchers and decided to venture out of my comfort zone and sketch for myself outdoors. I must say one feels very self conscious when out in the open like that and I found myself either shielding my pad from passers by or rushing to finish the job. I was on a time limit anyway as it was during the lunch break and sketching on the fly is incredibly difficult to get right first time. If anyone has any tips I would be love to hear from you, just leave a comment.

Click image to enlarge

This is the first sketch of my Windsor & Newton pocket sketch book bought for me a few years ago by my good friend Pete. Its taken me this long to work through the many other sketch books I’ve accumulated.

Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag

Jez — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:38:06 -0600

I was very kindly given a rather nice satchel recently with specific instructions to go forth and customise. This is a great idea and something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I’ve been customising t-shirts for a while now but have always wanted to add a bit of functionality to my designs and the bag is the perfect way to experiment.

Its the features that I need to work out first before I get all artistic on it. I was recently shown how to extract the chip out of the Oyster card allowing you to insert it into practically anything (I’ve seen it built impressively into a watch) and would love to add this as one of the features to my bag.

A Guide To Circuit Bending

Jez — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:00:46 -0600

Not so long ago I tried my hand at circuit bending for the first time, stripping down a furby. You can read the old post here. Well, over at a rather interesting blog titled hahafresh theres a really nice sketch of a guide to circuit bending to download and keep. Click here to get yours.

Air Ripples

Jez — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:39:01 -0600

Once again I’ve been messing around with video manipulation in Flash. This time is making musical ripples in the air.

Artemis Fowl

Jez — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:39:24 -0600

This summer I was introduced to the Artemis Fowl books and found the first one to be really enjoyable despite it being a children’s book and all. So imagine my delight when watching a documentary on children’s books last week, that who should feature but Eoin Colfer speaking about his books. It was also mentioned that the first book in the series was made into a graphic novel which I managed to find on the New and Used over on Amazon.

This book contains some really impressive artwork and I love the little extras that are thrown in to help the story along. I wouldn’t go as far as saying its the best one in my collection but its definitely ranks highly.

If you’re on the look out for a quick decent read one weekend whilst the weathers miserable outside, I would recommend picking this one. Kids’ graphic novels are changing for the better.

Check out the very cool Artemis Fowl website here.

Seeing Things

Jez — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 02:49:04 -0600

Just me experimenting with video editing. Apologies for the quality.

Playing The God Father

Jez — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:46:07 -0600

Tomorrow sees myself and Fi become God parents to a special little boy. For me, being asked is a huge honor and initial thoughts quickly turned to teaching him about robots and mechanics only to be politely reminded that his father is in fact a robotics engineer. So I’ll have to dig deep to find some more wise words of wisdom to pass on to him whilst hes growing up.

Maxigumee

Jez — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 02:49:08 -0600

I have been reading this guy’s blog for a number of years now and am always impressed by the standard of his photographs. Go pay Max a visit by clicking here. I’m not really sure how I find interesting blogs like this one, although I suspect Maxigumee was through the Illustration Friday community a while back now. I find his site to be quite inspirational at times especially when it comes to designing blog layouts (check out his archive) and you can probably find similar elements in old Novemberfive layouts.