Childish reflections

June Fri 25 2010

When I’m sick, I always catch myself thinking that the severity of my “symptom” is not as bad now that I’m older, but lately I’ve decided that my symptoms might be just as bad – I’ve just had plenty of years to get used to them when they pop up. Why do I mention this today? Because I’ve been sick!

And in the process of being sick and reflecting on my experiences as a child, I’ve been thinking about those cool things I used to do in infant (grades k-2) and primary (grades 3-6) school around arts and crafts. Things such a lino printing, screen printing, potato stamps… finger painting…

And then of course, the activity that inspired the 60 minute sketch… coloured paper, black oil pastels and a stick!

I decided venture down the path to find the colours in my life by reflecting on the things I used to find really enjoyable when I was younger and applying them in the digital space. So for the above image was created in Photoshop (and using my trusty webcam), with a mix of brushes, filters, and colour filters.

I feel like I’m a teenager just discovering Photoshop for the first time, but how excellent is that feeling?

All tapped out

June Tue 15 2010

Where should I go to find inspiration when my brain is too tired to be inspired?

Ugh. I feel so tired right now, and I have a proposal to write for tomorrow to sell something I do not understand, with a scope that I’m struggling to define. Where did the colours go in my life?

Delay you say?

June Mon 07 2010

I’ve been wondering what to blog about… Life has been so hectic lately, that there is almost too much to say! Instead let me summarise in a few (?) bullet points.

  • Penang laksa = awesome
  • Penang loh mee = double awesome
  • Last minute business trip = tiring
  • Last minute business trip combined with assignment due dates = no sleep
  • Shanghai subway @ peak hour = not as bad as KL monorail @ peak hour
  • Travel delays = inevitable, frustrating, and please can I shove the woman who just pushed in front of the queue out of the way?
  • More travel delays = tears
  • Langkawi = relief to get off the freaking plane. Now if only I had had time to go home and pack clothes for a holiday.
  • Langkawi seafood = I don’t eat it, but ohmigod, is that really a prawn? How huge is that??
  • Flight home = more delays? Thank God this time I’m with family
  • Home = hot shower. Clean clothes. Heaven.

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It’s all about compromise

May Thu 20 2010

It is coming up to the end of my first week back at work. I’m having a good time. It has been great to meet new people, and I think my team is really lovely. They have been incredibly welcoming and extremely helpful. I’m also enjoying having new challenges in my day. I don’t like it when I don’t know something, but the journey and that feeling when you finally work something out/learn something new is awesome.

Anyway, next week I’m hosting a “team meeting” using Adobe Connect and apparently I need to prepare a 5 minute piece to introduce myself. First things first, I love Connect. I really wanted my team in my previous company to start using it, but for some reason they weren’t so keen. But on the other hand… this task feels like homework! Lol. My manager said “do something quirky”. What on earth is quirky?

I think the problem is that because of my background (in creating interactive learning presentations) I may be overreaching. A 5 minute quirky, online presentation, all about me? Theoretically speaking, there is scope to do SOOO much. I can imagine it now – a bouncy, quirky, not-powerpoint-driven presentation. Practically speaking… unless I do it after hours, it’s going to be a little more bland :)

I realise I need to find a compromise. Any ideas?

Inspiration Wall

May Wed 12 2010

So yesterdays post got me to thinking what I would do with the blank walls in my apartment. Above the desk in our study is a very blank wall… so in what was meant to be a 60 minute sketch, and which turned into about 1.5 hours of “looking for the right photos” time in addition to the 60 minutes…

Those are my cats, Holly Berry (the majority black one on the left) and Karamello (the more white and ginger one). Then it’s a photo of Vincent and I being silly on our engagement shoot (before our wedding). The photographer told us our silhouettes would make a really good photo, so we decided to make shadow puppets. The little inset up the top right hand corner is of the part of the grounds of the Château de Versaille, above which Vincent proposed. The bird and the foliage vectors are what were used on our wedding invitations. The colours used are also the colours I used for my wedding!

There are three quotations. One from James Gleeson, one of my favourite Australian artists. One from the lyrics of the Lifehouse song, “Storm”. And the third is from Martin Luther King Jr.

I did an extremely bad job superimposing this picture onto the wall, but I imagine this is what it would look like.

I could waste hours and hours of my day doing this for each room in my apartment.