BLOGAHOMA

Taken with the Pentax Optio W90 made into panoramic on the fly. Previous photo from Canon Powershot 640 assembled in Photoshop.

Much what I have picked up about Photoshop has been from my husband. Not everything he shows me is of interest to me but I really like Zoomify. I used it to show the expanse of our front yard.

It is hard, if not impossible, to figure what starts and stops creative urges. It was during my husband’s chemo session I decided that watching TV or playing endless games of Sudoku was not a valuable use of this time. On chemo session number two I brought along a sketch book and drew anything with no particular end in sight. Some drawings were ho-hum others actually hummed. From there I scanned them in added color and began working them out in 3D followed by animation. I was experiencing the joy again that comes from creating. Once the creativity clicked in I woke up in the morning with half baked ideas and proceeded to finish cooking them up. I went back to Cheetah 3D software with ideas and began constructing things with more precision, improving where I had left off months before. Saying to myself “not good enough” when it wasn’t. Setting goals and story lines for animations I head dreamed up. Most of what I am doing is for the pure entertainment value, set to music and sound effects and shared across the social network.

And so “Bumper Dome” happened, a zany scenario in which 5 cloned Bump Staplers become the cars for the Dodgem Ride. Going at each other with zeal. I planned out the moves from and overhead view point sending one stapler careening into another until the chain reaction would be what expect from a Dodgem ride including one poor stapler trapped between two bullies. Aw! I thought to myself what if I mounted the camera on the stapler so we could see what the stapler saw. So funny, I loved the joke. A handful of people got it, loved it and it made them smile, which multiplied my joy in having made the animation in the first place. On equal footing to being creative for me is learning something new in the process. Frankly I don’t see the sense of even doing something if I haven’t dialed it up a notched. Novelty is my energy drink.

Right now my creative energy has been set loose. Will it be stomped on? I hope not. I have so much more to learn.

Maybe in April, when it’s all over, the chemo drip, the following days of Michael feeling yuchy maybe then normal will return. We’ll eat spicy food again and go to the doctor once every three months instead of camping out in the Cancer Center. We’ll unplug the alarm clock and wake up when the sun slips in the window and won’t take a nap in the middle of the day, unless we want to. Maybe in April I can replace all my bookmarks on cancer to ones on joy and thriving. We’ll unleash ourselves from the 100 mile map and be able to feel free to move about the country, if just to plan a weekend getaway. And come April we might again be able to open our mail box without dreading the medical bills spilling out. Maybe in April we will be able to accept a hug without fear of catching something. Maybe in April I can follow capricious whims and dance with serendipitous glee.

I am safety pinning my hopes to April. April don’t let me down. I promise, I will keep trying to live in the moment.

April’s Charms by William Henry Davies

When April scatters charms of primrose gold
Among the copper leaves in thickets old,
And singing skylarks from the meadows rise,
To twinkle like black stars in sunny skies;

When I can hear the small woodpecker ring
Time on a tree for all the birds that sing;
And hear the pleasant cuckoo, loud and long –
The simple bird that thinks two notes a song;

When I can hear the woodland brook, that could
Not drown a babe, with all his threatening mood;
Upon these banks the violets make their home,
And let a few small strawberry vlossoms come:

When I go forth on such a pleasant day,
One breath outdoors takes all my cares away;
It goes like heavy smoke, when flames take hold
Of wood that’s green and fill a grate with gold.

Star Sprite all began during Michael’s chemo session. They can run anywhere from less than 2 hours to more then 7. It took me several sittings to come to the realization that although it was good to be there with him I could use the time to draw. And so I began. Since it is the Christmas season and I am an illustrator from a toy and greeting card background what I drew were holiday themed. Sometimes I struggle with a drawing but while drawing Star Sprite my pencil seemed to have been guided by its own GPS. Once on paper and then scanned and color rendered the simple shapes lead me to the inevitable question, “Would this work as an Animation?”. The simple shape of the sprite reminiscent of Scandinavian candle powered carousels lent it self to animation. I loaded up Cheetah 3D, found a tree out of my previously created objects and so it began. My daughter said I needed music that sounded like twinkling stars. I found just the right music on Cylinder.de, “Winter Fairy” a piano piece by Caela Harrison. After deciding that the winter shot from our yard was a bit scrubby looking I downloaded the perfect piny image from Creative Commons. I did my final editing in iMovie including adding titles, transitions, music and timing. What you see here is the 3rd go around fussing with the details as artists will do.

The drawing took 45 minutes, color 45 minutes the animation 3 days off and on. It is hard for artists to estimate time. Time has so little to do with creative flow. The storyline (all one minute of it) is strictly mine. I am pretty happy with the results. Would I change it again? Yes. And that’s why I have to walk away from it now.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good sprite…..