Tag: art

Altoids Tins Art Ideas

Apparently you can do almost anything with an Altoids tin. If you look on YouTube you can find EDC, Survival kits, 3D printed watercolor palette inserts (I need to try that!), “wallets”, pocket stoves (!), digital cameras, flashlights. Obviously some of those ideas take more work and parts than others. But the creativity is endless!

I found a workshop by Peg & Awl (I mention them a lot lately!) where they were making tiny pieces of art the size of vintage tins. I haven’t gone out to find any vintage tins, but I have a few tins around (once I eat all the mints!) so I am working on making small art in tins, that I can give as gifts. It fits nicely into my Steampunk and Maker kind of vibe.

Tiny Tins

I used to despair that all I like to draw is “little art”, but I guess there are lots of ways to use art that small for things anyway.

Some little mushrooms I painted, to go into the art tin.

A big (and much closer) art inspiration is Natto Soup (Becca Hillburn). You should check out her books, art, Discord, YouTube, Insta… she is prolific, cheerful, helpful, and always striving to make better and more accessible art. I am going out of my way to put some links in here because I don’t know why anyone would read a blog if it didn’t point them to interesting content.

So here are Five Specific Hopefully Interesting Links

2025 – New blogging?

I don’t know if I will post more blog entries in 2025, but I know these things:

  1. I am not a fan of this WordPress blog any longer
  2. I am glad I own this domain, and the others, but I’m sure not doing much with ’em.
  3. Do I need new hosting?
  4. Would it matter?

Anyway, I have been doing a lot of creative stuff lately! In 2024 I :

  • Grew some herbs
  • Learned to make ink/pigment/watercolor from natural berries and things
  • Learned to alter the ink/pigment/watercolor by changing the pH
  • Documented all my ink samples in a ring-bound card catalog
  • Learned to make paper
  • Bound a little book filled with homemade paper
  • Learned to carve erasers into rubber stamps.
A porcelain watercolor palette filled with red juice from a red cabbage
The same juice after altering the pH with soap, lemon juice, etc!
Sample cards showing all the inks I made from various plants!

I have been very inspired by a website called Peg & Awl. I wonder what other websites are there to inspire that I haven’t found yet? The internet is a big place, but sometimes it feels like all I do is check social media! And here is this blog post, not on social media, but in my little cul-de-sac of the web. Let’s enjoy the freedom we have to create the internet we want – while we still can.

Game Development, JavaScript, and Persistence

Well, this week I have been taking a break from my Udacity project (in a sense) by strengthening my JavaScript and HTML5 Canvas understanding before going back to tackle FEND “Project 3: Frogger Clone”.  Here is some information that has been helping me:

Zenva has a class on making an HTML5 game from scratch. The instructor is fantastic and goes over every line of code. I highly recommend this.

After that course, I went back to my Project 3, and felt I understood a bit more of the direction I should take it. But my core knowledge of JavaScript is still lacking, and I didn’t know how to actually get from point a to point b. Currently I am working my way through Eloquent JavaScript by Marijn Haverbeke, seriously this time, taking notes, working through the exercises in the provided code sandbox.

As I am working through Eloquent Javascript, sometimes I have been hunting up further resources to explain the things in it. For this I am greatly indebted to JavaScript Is Sexy.com  even if the name makes me die a little bit inside.  Get a load of this explanation of Variable Scope!

This week I have discovered a really great podcast, too! It’s called Lostcast by Lost Decade Games and is all about game development. It’s from a very realistic perspective, unlike some of the other podcasts I’ve found.  You can join their forum too, they are great guys. They have encouraged me greatly with art tips.

Lately I’ve felt like I’ve had to concentrate on studying coding, and leave my art and craft skills to rot on the back burner (…that’s a kind of mixed metaphor). But it sounds like there are plenty of reasons to keep honing both art and coding hobbies together. Thank you Matt Hackett! I also look at Rob Stenzinger, another “coding artist”. Also add The John Su to the list of “coding artists I admire who are far more talented in their sleep than I am while concentrating very hard on something, like coding and art.” It’s a surprisingly long list.

Finally, here is a very informative blog post explaining what an entry-level front end (mostly JavaScript) developer really should understand in order to get a job.

I feel bad that all I do is link you to other people, but all these resources are  really great and I want to pass them along!

 

 

 

Online Learning Tools (Part 4)

I’ve showed you some of my favorite tutorial sites. Now I’m going to briefly describe some of my favorite tutorial podcasts. I love podcasts. I listen to them on my long commute, and sometimes while I’m at work. I sometimes embarrass myself by starting half my conversations with “I was listening to a podcast and someone said…”  Here are some of the ones I have found truly inspirational:

When looking for podcasts iTunes, I always find a lot that have “podfaded” and aren’t ‘making new episodes. They might be worth looking up, but I didn’t list any. I also avoided podcasts marked “E” for “explicit language”.

Web Development:

Start Here
This is a really wonderful podcast, designed to step you through the process of becoming a web developer. They have homework assignments, too! These guys are sincere about what they teach, and invite feedback.

Build & Launch
A new podcast for 2015, you can easily listen to this from its beginning to its current episode, and I suggest you do! Justin Jackson will make you want to make things! He gets me fired up. For season 1 he had a goal to launch a new project every week. I can’t wait to see what happens in season 2.

Coding 101
I don’t catch this one very often since I can’t watch a video podcast while driving to work, but I do recommend this for anyone who wants actual code examples. Father Robert Ballecer is a good teacher. I’ve watched this on my Roku.

Art:

Chris Oatley’s Artcast/Paper Wings
I have never seen anyone as intense about art as Chris Oatley, except perhaps Jerzy Drozd. These fellows take visual storytelling more seriously than a lot of Christians I know take Christianity, and it blows my mind.  Be prepared to analyze everything and come away realizing you don’t work hard enough! (Chris Oatley’s Artcast and Paper Wings are basically one show with two feeds, but that link will get you all of them.)

Lean Into Art
Jerzy Drozd is a master visual story teller who isn’t afraid to let you see the inner workings of his art, life, studio, and mind. He shows you what it takes to be a full time artist, and what you have to give up for your art. He is sober and personal and sweet and friendly and makes me want to attend his classes. These podcasts sometimes come with art challenges you can post via twitter to get comments and critiques.

Pencil Kings
Mitch Bowler finds a new rising star to interview in each episode, and they are always proof that if you are in the right place at the right time doing the right thing you can create your dream job. Or at least, someone somewhere did. But they never make it look easy!

Additional Resources:

These two I found while researching iTunes to see if there were any other good resources. I haven’t actually listened to them much yet.

<Web>Agency </Podcast>
A Responsive Web Design Podcast

 

Portfolio

I have an online portfolio that shows all the best of my best in sculpture, jewelry, photography and art. I wanted to make sure it was linked here for you to find. It is this: Glimmerville Portfolio, (UPDATE 2024: They removed this free portfolio site option at deviantART)  and I would be tickled if you would check it out. I also placed it in the permanent side-bar links on this page.

I do think of myself as an artist. Though I don’t currently create art for a day job, I can’t ever expect to do more art if I don’t show others my work, can I? So please, check it out, and feel free to ask about commissions and sales!

Portfolio

30 Characters Challenge

Hello world!
Today is the beginning of the 2012 30 Characters Challenge. (Update in 2024: breaking all the links because I am afraid they are going to send you to spam or something worse.)
I participated last year, and came up with 30 “mediocre” characters.
This year my only goal is to come up with 30 “less mediocre” characters.
You can follow my progress over here.
But I will post the art right in this here blog, as well.
Hey if you want to shout out (in comments) things you think I should draw, let me know!

For the rest of you, this is NaNoWriMo – get writing!