just can't stop!

Here is my latest endeavor. I will be exploring other color sets, but right now I am really enjoying the browns.

Sepia Fractal

This new fractal reminds of old sepia toned photos. I decided to try something new in colors. I think this one has about 12 layers. Enjoy.

some new fractals

Well, can't keep an old habit down. Some fractals have leaked out of the system over the last week. Here are some smaller res versions of them.

P.S. I love to hear from anyone who is reading this blog. Please feel free to post comments. It helps keep me posting.

Pinholes part trois

I took picts of the pinhole setup with my camera phone. Here is the cart with the cameras. Each one is a Quaker Oats container taped to an L shaped piece of wood.
Next, you see the developing area with safe lights and chemicals. I had already put away trays.




Here is the drying room with all the student's pictures hanging up. The last day of shooting produced quite a few pictures in the three hours the kids worked. To the right is the paper loading and enlarger station. If we had time, we would have used the enlarger to make positives from the negative prints.



This sideways picture shows a camera close up. The lid was created from a disk of cardboard with a rim taped to it with lightproof tape. A thick foil was punctured with a pin to create the aperture, and the inside of the can was painted black with tempera paint. The L shaped block made it easy to orient pictures vertically or horizontally.

House and more Pinholes

Well, we finally found a house we like. We put an offer in and received a counter. Tonight we put in a counter-counter offer. We'll see how that goes.

Yesterday, my students (and I) used their pinhole cameras with quarter sheets of paper to create bigger images. There was snow on the ground and a great deal of light in the air. Here are a couple of the positive images I created on the computer from the negatives from my own pinhole camera.

A Plane to L.A.

Reena and I were going to fly out to L.A. for a friend of Reena's wedding. We would arrive Friday night, do some wedding related things Saturday, and then I was going to hang with my cousin for the evening. Wedding on Sunday was to be followed by some hanging out and chill time in the balmy weather. Returning on Monday gave me a day off from school.

Mother Nature, however, had other plans. We checked flight info Friday before leaving the house. The snow had already started, but the flights looked to all be running on time. Heh heh. Never trust the internet flight info! When we arrived after driving down the street to be closer to the T and taking the subway to a bus, the flight was indeed canceled.

After finding out that we were rescheduled on a flight through Chicago on Saturday that would get us to LA in the evening, I decided to stay behind to continue resting and fighting off this cold. We got Reena to the airport this morning, and she gave me the thumbs up that the flight was on. I haven't heard from her since, and I assume she is in the air between here and Chicago.

Before getting Reena to the airport, I shoveled the walk because the 80 year-old woman on the first floor would have done so if I let her. As it was she shoveled the porch and stairs. The snow was heavy with water, and I managed to pull something on the right side of my ribcage. It is the kind of pain that is constant, but it is also the pain that reminds me that I can still move and live.

I stopped by school and installed a new 24 port hub. I should have gotten a switch, but what can you do. Ebay is limited. It can handle what is coming at it, I think, and we should have so many less network failures because it replaces a tangled web of mini hubs that had been taking the slack for quite a while. I also picked up the kids' pinhole camera test pictures to scan this weekend. I will add some to this post when I have scanned them.

Shifty Eyes

Jeff Goldblum was a favorite actor of an ex of mine and is one of the only positive things to come out of that relationship. His earlier and more entertaining stuff such as Buckaroo Banzai, Earth Girls Are Easy, The Tall Guy, and The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish make for entertaining viewing. The thing that grabbed me is that he shifts his eyes back and forth when perplexed, and as his roles are often that of a scientist or other smart guy trying to solve a problem, we get to see many signature Goldblum eye actions.

While at the concert last night in which Reena rocked the house in the opening number, I happened to see some graffiti in the men's room (not while Reena was singing.) I had to snap it with my phone-cam. Upon completing some internet research, it seems that this is a phenomenon that has been going on for some time and there are whole sites devoted to it. How strange, and how like Jeff Goldblum in a strange way.

Box of Memories

My mom uncovered some work of mine when she was cleaning out a closet. I thought I had taken all of my old material quite a while ago, so it came as a surprise that there was more to see. A box arrived a few days ago, and I finally got around to opening it. It was an amazing glimpse into my life from early (at least 1st grade) to the end of high school.

Here is a book titled, All About Me.
Some description and a self portrait
My family. It looks like Gwen is dripping water or crying and Dad is wearing swimming trunks?? The house is red brick with red clay tiles. Evidently there was a green vase or bottle that I cared about. We often went to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina for vacation.
This must be Danny Koranyi. I think he was the only close white friend at that time who had brown hair, brown eyes, and glasses. I am surprised that I didn't have a picture of Sarah in here, but I really can't be held accountable for what I drew in K or 1st at this point in time.

In another piece of work, I drew this image. Some things do not change!










To the left is a story I wrote in first grade that was typed probably by my mom who volunteered many hours at Delmar-Harvard. To the right is an example from the many binders of physics, calculus and other subjects that represented the high school years. The problem on the bottom must be one of those two cars are traveling...who gets there first types of problems.

Winter Marches to Spring

The weekend is here, and yesterday was close to 50. A nice reprieve from the cold weather we have been having. I saw people running around in shorts. Because I planned and worked so much during February break, I don't have too much work to do this weekend. I took yesterday to walk quite a bit. First I visited Million Year Picnic where I get my comics. I then visited Central Square where there are two artists shops: Pearl Paint and Artist & Craftsman Supply. I prefer the funky basement setting and relaxed atmosphere in ACS over Pearl, but sometimes Pearl has the materials needed. In this case, I bought a frame for my student's art project at ACS, took the T home and then went out by car to get the piece that I left at school and find appropriate mattes for it. I'll post a pic when I have finished matting and framing the piece.

Over the last several weeks, I have uploaded several new spirographs to my Cafepress store. Here are a few of the new designs that have come about from my new sets that have more complex tools. Look in the Sprograph section for others.