umwsum12 — Camp Magic MacGuffin

Archive for the ‘umwsum12’ Category

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Aloha fellow campers,

I’ve sent my family a postcard from Camp Magic MacGuffin this evening as part of the Postcards from Magical Places assignment as designated by our esteemed directors.

I had a rough time with this using GIMP. I can’t seem to get my bearings straight while using it. I’ve looked up tutorials and such, but I’m getting very disoriented and frustrated. I think I”ll have to steal my dad’s computer so I can keep using his Photoshop…

I thought this was a classic postcard-esque photo, showing the beautiful sunset and the height allowed me to get a greater panoramic shot. I think this postcard appropriately illustrates all of my past camping experiences. With years of camping experience with 4-H under my belt, I rarely wrote postcards home, but when I did, they were half-hearted and I typically showed more concern for the pets than I did for my own blood relatives. I chose a tie-dye stamp because I knew my hippie family would love it.

You can find the assignment I chose here.

Up next I think I’ll be combining my Creative Commons research with the design assignment poster. After that, only three stars left and it’s only Tuesday. #winning

Aloha,

Posted in bunk4, DesignAssignments, DesignAssignments363, ds106, magicmacguffin, umwsum12 | Comments Off on Aloha, Aloha

Changing

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

I chose a blurry, badly accidentally taken photo of the ground and added the antique effect in iPhoto. Adding enough of the effect to make the photo look old, but not so much as to make it look like a sepia effect. I added text in photoshop as the finishing step.

I chose a quote from Leo Tolstoy about change. Currently, change is the overall theme of my life at this point. My family is moving, changing addresses, states, and sides of the Mason-Dixon line. I am personally changing myself and how I live my life and interact with others. The world is changing, politically, economically, and socially. This quote spoke to me in way other quotes about change didn’t. Many people want to change external things but not many people stop and actually change themselves. They might think about it, but thinking and wishing for change is not the same as doing and changing.

Posted in bunk4, magicmacguffin, umwsum12, VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments65 | Comments Off on Changing

Sister Mary Dora Bridget

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

To create this photo, I used the picture of our foster dog as the background. Using the lasso tool, I selected my mom’s face and used the free transform function to make the selected space smaller. I then pasted the image of Mom’s face into the dog’s eye.

I decided to use Bridget, our foster dog, as the subject of this assignment. She is one of many dogs that has been rescued through The Pixel Fund. The Pixel Fund is a non-profit animal rescue that my mother created. Bridget has had many names. She has been called Mary, Dora, and currently Bridget. As it is hard to keep track, she is often referred to as Sister Mary Dora Bridget. Yet, she responds to each name individually.

The fact of the matter is, Bridget completely adores my mother, which is why I chose my mother as the image that means the most to Bridget. Anywhere Mom goes, Bridget follows, clinging like velcro. If Mom leaves and Bridget has to stay behind, she stays by the door and waits, watching intently for mom to come back.

Posted in bunk4, magicmacguffin, umwsum12, VisualAssignments495, VisualAsssignments | Comments Off on Sister Mary Dora Bridget

Life is like a box of chocolates

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

I searched for a movie scene that everyone would know and was from a movie that I enjoy. I used Photoshop to insert myself in this famous movie. I used the scene as the background and used the lasso tool to copy myself out of another photo. I then pasted my image and moved my picture around to the right spot. Yet, it still was not quite right. I used the same technique that I used to cut myself out on the suitcase in the background and pasted that onto of my image. So it looked like I was actually in the scene rather than pasted on top.

I love Forrest Gump. It makes me laugh and it always moves me to tears. You watch as Forrest goes through his life, making friends, overcoming obstacles, and wandering through history without a clue. So just for a moment, I will be someone that sits and listens to the story that Forrest has to tell. As Forrest would say, “And that’s all I have to say about that.”

Posted in bunk4, magicmacguffin, umwsum12, VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments559 | Comments Off on Life is like a box of chocolates

Andy Warhol

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

I took this photo with Photobooth on my computer and added the pop art effect. Quick, easy, and simple! Finding the subject worthy of being Warhol-ed though was a different matter. There were so many things I could choose from, including myself.

This is my mother’s grandfather clock that has been in my life forever. I grew up with the sound of it chiming. Too the point, where I know the the rhythm of the chime anywhere. It seemed worthy of becoming pop art. It stands at an angle in a corner and with every step or shift of weight on the floor it will let you know it happens to be there.

This photo combines classic and funky. And any photo of a clock makes the viewer think about time. We think about the amount of time we have, in a day or in a lifetime. I normally think about the speed of time and how fickle it can be. Why must it crawl in a boring situation? Why does it speed through when I am having fun? And why, oh why, must it stop when I have to give a presentation in front of people?

Posted in bunk4, magicmacguffin, umwsum12, VisualAssignments, visualassignments560 | Comments Off on Andy Warhol

My Week in Review (Week 3)

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Wow, was it a busy week! I may have bitten off more than I can chew this Summer but I’m trying hard to stay on top of everything. In addition to ds106, I am also taking a course at Germanna Community College to fill in some outstanding general elective requirements. That course is fairly easy for me and not too time consuming…at least not yet. I intended to take a third online course this summer as well, but I am seriously rethinking that idea! As desperately as I want to finish my coursework and graduate next May from UMW, I don’t want to set myself up to fail or lower my GPA. Yeah, I know I am hard on myself about my academics, but it’s too important to me not to be. Anything worth doing is worth doing right!

And when it rains it pours! Work has been a little hectic as I am now the only Proposal Manager still standing in our organization. One quit and walked out, the other just went out on medical leave for an undetermined amount of time. I am frantically trying to carry my workload and get up to speed and assume their former projects as well. I hope my upper management hires the replacement as soon as possible—I’m not sure how long I can keep all the balls in the air without dropping something.

The good news is that as busy and work-intensive as I am finding ds106 to be, I am thoroughly enjoying it! It is providing me the opportunity (ok, really the requirement) to be creative and contemplate things around me differently. I am still a little behind the curve, I think, due to my learning curve on some of the technologies and tools involved here, but I am having a blast learning this way.

So what have I accomplished this week, you ask? Well, here’s a rundown:

I managed the complete 5 of the 7 Daily Creates (tdc). My original goal was to complete them all but I intentional skipped the sound recording one, and the other, I just didn’t get to on Sunday. If my schedule ever opens up and I get a grip on this camp, I might go back and do some of the ones I missed. I especially enjoy the photography challenges. The photography tips tricks and hints were very helpful in getting better photo compilations. If you haven’t been following along daily, you can see a review of my tdc submissions from Week 3 in my last post: A Daily Dose of Creative Photography
For Visual Assignments, the requirement was do complete and blog 10 “stars” worth of project (or I like to think of them as challenges) from the ds106 Assignment Repository. Again, I wanted to do more, but time is my biggest hurdle these days. And since I haven’t done a lot of photo editing before, learning the ins and outs of some of the programs has been challenging and time consuming. I think my favorite to do was If you’ve got them… followed by Seasonally Friendly?. The Average of Lily and The First to Admit It (Checking Out) were fun and fairly easy to do, but it didn’t include any “original” work on my part…just following instruction and seeing want happens! I’ve had a little blogging trouble that apparently left Art that Pops sitting in a draft vortex way too long, but I realized it was missing and was able to publish it this morning.
I got Google Reader up and running and subscribed to all the ds106 blogs, but I am ashamed to admit I have not been as active commenting on my bunkmates’ and fellow campers’ blogs and assignments as I should be and/or WANT to be. I need to step it up a notch there!
I have also spent a significant amount of time this week investigating many photo editing tools, including web-based tools (Fotoflexer, Pixlr), free download software (Picasa, GIMP), and iPhone/iPad apps (Snapseed, Photoshop Express). It’s been a lot of fun playing with them. My strategy is to write a tutorial or two, showcasing a tool that hasn’t already been described in past tutorials. Especially for those of us who can’t afford to invest in PhotoShop or want to have a mobile option through apps.

I’m proud of this week’s accomplishments, but I’ve run into trouble along the way and getting lost in the forest once or twice. I will give Jim Groom props for twittering me a few links to help me with my blogging issues on Saturday. I’ve been having some issues with sizing photos in my posts. I *think* I may have figured it out, but we’ll see…

I usually avoid any and all virtual worlds, simply because my real world keeps me busy enough that I don’t have time to run a fake one! I briefly dabbled in Farmville, but gave it up when I couldn’t keep up and my crops kept withering! So Minecraft is foreign territory to me!!! I got it installed, but I am completely lost at how to move around, do anything, or find anything, or anybody for that matter. I need to do some further research on how to work that world! Maybe I can get in there with someone else, who knows what they’re doing, to help me figure out the basics. Since our next Campfire is being held in there…and finally at a time I can join…I guess I better get it figured out fast!

That’s all for now…marching forward with week 4….

Posted in bunk2, ds106, magicmacguffin, umwsum12, weeklyletter | Comments Off on My Week in Review (Week 3)

A Daily Dose of Creative Photography

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

I tried a different approach this week for blogging my Daily Creates. Instead of blogging them one at a time, as I completed them, I am showcasing the whole collection here this week. I have been twittering the Flickr links each day but I will probably return to blogging each one separately in the future (in addition to twittering, of course!).

After camp announcements were posted on Monday, I did a little research and just kept clicking links, following a crazy curve path through the Web, absorbing as many tricks, tips, and hints as I could. The photography resources the Directors provided were great! I’m really learning to work my new digital camera as well as my iPhone camera! I learned some pretty cool ways to add interest and intrigue through photography. For instance, some of my favorite, most helpful lessons were:

Take photos of anything, ugly things, everyday things (anyone looking at my memory card might think a two-year-old was playing with it! LoL)
Change positions with your body to change perspective (I have stopped trying to center subject from straight on)
Keep all photos, even bad ones (I keep thinking these might be useful later)
Shoot like you don’t have Photoshop (I don’t so that’s easy, but my goal when photographing is to not think about editing the shots. I’m trying to get the shot I want with JUST the camera)
Always carry a camera with you and use multiple cameras (I’m now carrying two with my everywhere—my iPhone and my Canon PowerShot 260SX. I find myself stopping to take pics that I wouldn’t have bothered with before)
Last but not least…use the “grid” and “rule of thirds”. (this is helping me get more interesting and creative shots J)

And now for the instant replay:

tdc148—Create a photograph today where some/all of your subject isn’t in focus.

Cloudy Canine

You’ve met Duke in previous photo assignments. Here’s Gracie, my other Golden. Cloudy and out of focus. Had to play with the camera a bit, using the fish-eye lens, I had to be quick to beat the auto focus feature. Took me a while to get it but I had fun trying!

tdc149—ds106 day in your life – Take a photo at 6 minutes past the hour for an entire day.

Pix @ Six

I had a few ideas about how to do this one, so all day I took a few shots at 6 minutes past every hour. This way good or bad photos, I would be able to figure out what to do with them at the end of the day. Ultimately, I had to nix my original idea, which was to replay the numbers on a clock face with an image that I took at the corresponding hour. It was getting late and I was having trouble getting GIMP to cooperate with me to create the final image I wanted, so I changed in up a bit. In this collage, I show an image of a timekeeping device near me, displaying the time at xx:06 every hour for 12 hours.

tdc150—Make a monochrome photo (monochrome doesn’t have to mean black and white)

Mayan Calendar

In making a monochrome photo, I decided to attempt to actually take a monochrome photo, instead of using filters, B&W, sepia, or photo editing software. After wandering around my house and yard, taking a dozen or so options, I think this is it. A zoomed in pic of the Mayan calendar wall sculpture I bought in Mexico a few years ago. This is where some of the photography tips kicked in! Instead of showing the whole sculpture, I zoomed in on an interesting portion of it and used the Rule of Thirds to make it interesting and unusual.

tdc151—Take a photo of something that you are envious of (physical or metaphorical).

Beautiful Drive

The topic for this one gave me a lot of trouble. I was at a loss for ideas; so much so that I almost skipped it. But on my way home for work that day, I passed the entrance to Curtis Park in Stafford, Va. I have always loved the look and feel of a long, mature, tree-lined drive. Inspiration struck! I pulled over and started shooting (photos!). I played with angles and lighting, taking many pics so I would have at least a few good ones to work with. I chose this one because it captures the calm, serene feeling that I so envy and desire in the grand entrance to my home, my haven.

tdc153—Take a photo of the oldest building near you; use add filters to make your photo look even older.

The Lewis Store (est 1749)

This was Saturday’s Daily Create. I was just getting ready to leave for my historic downtown Fredericksburg Photoshop, when I saw it pop up on Twitter. I stop to do a little internet investigation. Knowing there are so many old, historic buildings there, I was curious to know…exacting which one IS the oldest. The answer is The Lewis Store, built in 1749. It is not only the oldest building in Fredericksburg, Virginia, but one of the oldest retail buildings in the United States. It sits at the corner of Caroline Street and Lewis Street. Again, I follow some of the photography guidelines I learned this week and took many photos, at different angles and depths, with different lighting. I was tempted to edit out the street signs, to give it a “less modern-day” look, but decided to keep the integrity of the image intact, just playing with the sepia filter to give it an antique feel.

Posted in bunk2, ds106, magicmacguffin, tdc148, tdc149, tdc150, tdc151, tdc153, umwsum12 | Comments Off on A Daily Dose of Creative Photography

Art that Pops

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

I am sooo frustrated right now! This blog post has been sitting as a draft in my blog queue! Ugh! It was supposed to post yesterday!

Visual Assignment 340–Splash the Color (2 stars). I took this photo while on my historic downtown Fredericksburg photo shoot last Saturday. There is a empty lot on Caroline Street that is “sealed off” by a wooden fence/barrier. To add interest to this wall, local artist showcase 6 different paintings on this wall. I’ve always liked the little surprise that it brings while walking (or driving) down the street. On my trip through town, I decided the photograph the collection at an angel, adding depth perception to my image. Here is the orginial photograph:

After I got the photo image uploaded into FotoFlexer, it was pretty easy to turn the image to B&W and then make just one painted mural “pop”. All I did was turn the photo to black and white using the greyscale effect. Then I played with the greyscale advanced options. I selected “painted region” in the “apply to menu, selected “original” and marked the box to “invert”. I adjusted the brush size and was quickly able to recolor the one block on the image, the first mural, back to it’s vibrate colors. It really makes it stand out against the rest on the now greyscale image. This was a fun and fairly easy project to do.

Now I can’t stop thinking about all the ways I can do this to other images and create my own art to display!

Posted in bunk2, ds106, magicmacguffin, umwsum12, VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments340 | Comments Off on Art that Pops

Branded Forever

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Today I decided to make leather pouches at the crafts table. Yet, I came across this piece of leather with a huge brand in the center. I was very deeply affected. This scar is still left years after everything else is gone. I understand back in the Wild West when cattle was free range and cowboys still existed, branding was used as a way to catalog and keep track of livestock. Back when people thought that animals don’t feel pain. But this is the 21st century, we have the technology. We microchip cats and dogs. We have the internet, satellites, radar, and instant information. Surely, we could find a better and more humane way to keep track of our livestock. Frankly, most cattle isn’t even free range anymore so there really isn’t a need to permanently mark an animal just so you don’t lose it. People worry about growth hormones and what goes into an animal before we decide to eat it. The whole point behind the organic movement. Yet, only certain groups of people worry about the emotional well being and life of the animal, instead of making tasty and healthy to eat. And there are still people in this world that think that animal don’t feel pain. That animals are some how inferior to humans. I just can’t see it. I have a dog and a cat that mean the world to me. Lucas, the dog, wants to make sure that I am safe at all times and Max, the cat, makes sure that I am happy. Always ready to comfort me when I have had a bad day. Animals give unconditional love and forgive easily. Appearances and disabilities mean nothing to them. How can something so compassionate be inferior?

Posted in bunk4, magicmacguffin, umwsum12 | Comments Off on Branded Forever

Ain’t it though?

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Day one of week four and I’m getting my grips on the Design Assignments.

I tried the Lyric Typography Poster assignment, which can be found here.

Waddya think? I chose the lyrics “Ain’t it just like the present to be showing up like this” from Bon Iver’s Blood Bank. A beautiful song by Grammy award winning artist Justin Vernon, if you haven’t heard it yet, listen to it!

Watch this video on YouTube.

If you haven’t heard of Bon Iver, clearly you were living in a hole in February when it angered many pop culture fanatics when the band won Best New Artist. While I love Bon Iver, it angered me too because as I like to remind people just because it is new to you does not make it new.

Anyway, I used Photoshop on my father’s design computer for this project. I started with a blank canvas, typed the lyrics separately into Text Boxes, then moved them, resized them, etc., until I came up with a design that I liked. The clocks I got from openclipart.org… Check it out!

Posted in bunk4, DesignAssignments, designassignments529, ds106, magicmacguffin, umwsum12 | Comments Off on Ain’t it though?

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »