Back in Balance?

It's been a little while, hasn't it. Well that's how it goes, I suppose. I would apologize but no one is reading this.

This image is not strictly a study of contrast. I have always like the yin yang. It's a symbol that looks like what it represents: balance of white and black. It's not a fight or a conflict, it's a balance. There is need of both black and white. And within the black is a little white, and within the white there is a little black. So there is both good and evil in all things. The idea, to me, represents both hope and fear. Hope because there is good in everything. Fear because there is bad in everything. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" sayeth the Bible. Amen. See? Even God can't get around that one! So check it out.



I like Opart, too. I like the moire effect a lot and it's super easy to get that when you jam a lot of high contrast lines real close together. There is something about this image that really appeals to me on that balance level. I guess because it's easy to get lost in the lines and not notice you're looking a fairly popular and well known symbol. If Everything in The Universe was (were?) perfectly balanced, you would not notice the difference between Good and Evil because they would each contain as much of the other as of itself. So this image takes on that form. If you notice the last complete circle around both "centers" is the same color as its center. So to me the one with the white dot is actually white with black stripes, whereas the one with the black dot is black with white stripes. But a regular yin yang couldn't have the same color dot and blob, or you lose the point of there being black in white and white in black.

I made this image into my desktop.

I know, two posts in one day! Well, okay, it's after midnight so it's calendrically TWO days, but I haven't slept yet so it's one.

Anyway, ever since I started making those cursors I've been making tiny stuff. Add to the fact that I've been checking out the eboy blog. They have some really cool stuff over there. Way better than anything I could ever do, let alone what I'm doing now.

BEHOLD!!

The Tiniest Bot! This thing could get its ass kicked by a Roomba! I think that I learned some good tricks on this one that will save time on future ones. I need to keep tinkering with the dpi until I get it just right. Also, I think his legs are too short.

Contrast Study #3: OpArt

I like playing with "stroking" an image in Photoshop. (For those that don't know, that's when you make a selection and then create a solid border to that selection, either inside, outside, or centered, at the width in pixels that you decide.) I recently made an action that would select a layer, stroke it at 2 pixels in black, then select the layer with that stroke and re-stroke in white. Then you repeat and you get this:

I think this is real neat. I wish it was real obvious that this was one of my bots to the untrained eye, but I doubt that people who recognize my bots would even see it. Except for the "Robots Are Friendly" around it. I added the text to help point out the robot-ness of the image and to give it a bit of grounding. It was real hard to focus on without that. I might turn this into a sticker one day, but who knows. . . I am lazy after all. I think that if it does become a sticker it would be successful even though it's not obvious what it is simply because it would give people a bit of an optic shock. And with the text there I think some people would think that maybe it means something. It doesn't, but if someone sees it and thinks "This must mean something!" then I'd be extremely pleased.

Contrast Study #2: Outlines

This is the second image I did with the blocky-bot. It looks pretty straightforward to me. It's an outline version of the previous image. Duh.



Nothing really new to say about this one that wasn't included in Study #1. I like to work with outlines. I suppose it's another way of making you look at something in a slightly different way. Sort of asking a different part of your brain to define the shape it's looking at? I dunno. This image was the foundation for the one that comes next. Stay tuned.

Contrast Study #1: Simple Lines

I like to work in black and white and gray. It has to do with the fact that I would like it if things were more black and white, but there is just so much gray that it's hard to understand what the hell is going on sometimes. This is a real simple design, based on the contrast of black of white.



I like the simplicity and I like the contrast. I have done a few things with this same concept. I suppose it's my way of trying to see both sides at the same time. What would this look like white-on-black and what would this look like black-on-white? And which one is "right"? Some will like white-on-black, some will like black-on-white. I need both, it's just easier that way. I don't have to decide anything.

Next installment will be a variation on this same theme.

Arm The Squirrels.

The university where I work has a squirrel problem. Of sorts. There are quite a lot of squirrels on that campus, but I have not heard of anyone actually being attacked. The squirrels just seem to intimidate people. And since there are so many of them, and they can climb trees, and they cause acorns to fall on passersby's heads, I can't say as blame the people. Animals are crazy and should never be trusted. Especially not house cats. I say this because my cat is pure evil. Which can be fun when people come over, but it can also result in a situation where I'm having to dial 9-1-1 while mopping up blood, and that's just inconvenient.

But enough about the cat. We're here to talk about squirrels.

I like to come up with ideas for stickers. Hopefully one day I will actually get off of my butt and get some made, but until that day I just make the digital image for fun. And here is my latest:



That's the size the sticker would be. Now imagine if you started to see these in a high traffic area like a campus or downtown or something like that. You're walking along, minding your own, and you notice a sticker that states "ARM THE SQUIRRELS." It's not a demand or rallying cry ("Hey everyone! We've got to band together and ARM THE SQUIRRELS!") It's as if arming the squirrels was the solution. Solution to what, I don't know.

I don't think this sticker would go over too well. I think that people wouldn't see it the way that I do (I know! It's hard to believe!) and so they would just be confused or annoyed by the sticker. The best I could hope for is that people would just think of it as some sort of absurdity and snicker and move on. I'm okay with that. But I would like to think that there are people who would see it and think, "Yeah. Arming the squirrels seems like the next logical step. We should get on that." But that won't happen. I base this on the fact that I made a bunch of labels on a Brady label maker that said "Poop." and stuck them all over the place. The few responses that I happened to over hear from people who saw the stickers were things like, "Hey, someone put a sticker that says 'poop' on it on that stop sign!" and I really wanted them to say, "There's poop on that stop sign" or "Careful! There's poop on that door knob!" I guess it was just too abstract. So I have to make stickers that are simple or really cool. I don't think this one makes it.

But I still think it's funny.

Untitled Image From the Summer

One of the things that I like about working digitally is that I can make images I just could not with pen or pencil or charcoal or anything like that. Just couldn't do it. Like the following image. I'm sure someone out there could make a collage and draw on it or hell, even draw the whole thing, but not me. I have to "cheat" with hi-tek digital tools. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Well, here is the image.
I got the elements (the old lady and the astronaut) a while back because I thought that they looked neat and maybe I could use them or something. Turns out I was right. I've actually used the astronaut a few times before, but I think this may be the first with "Grandma" there.

I made this image in the summer, when I got my computer up and running again. I had help getting it going from my neighbor who does his own digital work, so I decided to show him some of the things that I had done and that I was proud of. That got me wanting to work in Photoshop again. But the problem was that I was not very inspired. This image is incredibly derivative of stuff I did about 6 or 7 years ago. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, I mean it had been a couple of years since I really created in PS so I needed to start with things that were familiar, but it didn't really make me feel more creative. Compound that feeling with the fact that I've been in the throes of depression for nearly 3 years and I was on too high a dosage of a medication I probably shouldn't have been on in the first place and you start to get this image.

I like to start throwing stuff together and see where the elements take me (another reason I like digital so much: layers! undo! save/save as!) and then see what it all "means" after the fact. It's a way to let The Brain tell me what it's thinking, if that makes sense. So here you have an old lady who, in this case, looks confused. And you have an astronaut, who builds a career around having his head up in space. These things seem to illustrate a sort of separate-confusion-thing pretty well (for my purposes here, anyway) and they contrast with the check pattern and the simple grid pattern, both of which align with one another, incidentally. Grids and checks are simple and predictable and you never ask "what the fuck?" about a grid or checkerboard. So the image as a whole maybe says "this should be simple and easy and predictable, but I'm completely lost." Pretty accurate description of how I was feeling at the time. And still am, really.

Of course, I may be reading all of that into the image and it's really just an old lady, an astronaut, some simple patterns, and a chance to use the word "fuck" in a piece. Twice. Or maybe that's where The Brain comes in. I dunno and I guess it don't really matter. The image is there and it says what it says to me and I can live with it. I hope it says something to you that you can live with as well.

A Change of Plans

Originally this was going to be my sketch-blog. It was going to be dedicated to sharing stuff that I've been drawing in my sketchbook and other miscellaneous pieces of paper. But I don't have a scanner yet so it was going to be a while before it got going.

I've started to do more digital work these days. And I'm starting to mess around with my robots in Photoshop and I even made my own robot cursors. So I'm now rededicating this here blog to my digital work. My goal is to post at least one new thing per week, more if the mood strikes.

For those of you who were all excited to see my sketch-blog, just be patient. I'm still going to do that, I'll just be putting it off until I get a scanner. When I have it up and/or running I'll post the address on this blog and link to it.

In the meantime, here's an image.

I found a program recently for making my own cursors (see the "Links" section, it's called RealWorld) so I made up a batch of robot based icons and they make me happy. Then I thought that I'd like to make that same lo-bit image, but much larger. I think growing up with Atari and NES nurtured my love of blocky shapes. I'll probably ending up making stickers out of this image. I think it has a real nice feel to it. I just hope that it reads as a robot to someone who hasn't seen my 'bots before. I can never tell what my stuff looks like to people who don't have the benefit of knowing what it's supposed to be first. It's pretty obvious to me that it's one of my bots, but that's because I made it. I think others who have seen my bots would realize that's what it is, but what about those who haven't seen them yet? Oh well, art for Art's sake, I suppose. Of course if Arthur has never seen my bots, he may not know what it is and then he'll say something like "You call that art?"

Welcome!

So this is my new blog. I won't put anything on it until I get a scanner so you can leave now.

But thanks for stopping by.