Below is couple of my favorite shots from Kyoto, the Pagoda of Daigo-ji, built in 951 AD, the oldest building in Kyoto and a national treasure.

I’ve been interested in mind maps for a while now, looking into various iPad apps that plot an artist’s thinking and inspiration but so far I haven’t found one intuitive enough.  I suppose when that happens you just go back to the drawing board and make one yourself!

The template for this was made by `fox-orian on Deviantart, and you may visit the original to download the template yourself.

These are a few of the things that influence me right now.

1. Fink [link]
2. Cherry Blossoms and other flowers
3. James Harren
4. Mac products
5. Small birds, Chickadees and Sparrows in particular
6. My cat Ame
7. Ink, splattering it everywhere, and the act of making art
8. My education
9. Japan – especially Kyoto and Koyasan
10. Typography
11. Beautiful women
12. Claire Wendling
13. Bonsai!

Big Antidote

Big Antidote is a project put together by Cure Studio where various artists take turns telling a story where the last artist left off.  This was actually quite a fun project, as I was very happy with the couple artists that came before me introducing this frog character I could work with.  I will say that I wasn’t overly enthused with what came after my addition, but I suppose that’s the nature of these things, right?

The piece before me showed the frog in his house, going through the cupboard before the girl of the story arrives and the bell chimes.  I decided to just have fun with this one, knowing I had a small amount of panels to work with I went with the power of suggestion instead.

This is done on bristol board in ink and dry brush and then colored in Photoshop.  For the colors, each artist had to stick to only a couple that were being used for the project.  I actually had to work at double the size I normally do because these were printed in large format and posted on a 30 meter long hoarding on Old Street in London, UK!  Check it out:

I believe the project is still going, despite this show already happening.  If you’re interested you should go check it out and sign up!

While I am currently unsure what the ultimate end site will look like, due to various reasons, below you can see the intended design of the site, or click here for a full view.

Both of these apps do a great job at reviving a bit of the spontaneity and unpredictability of the old polaroid cameras I used to play with as a kid. Suddenly its not all about taking a perfectly framed shot with everyone smiling in the middle anymore. Its allowed to be something different, or something more. Your shots can suddenly be spiced up, or saved, by highlighting or adjusting the quirky lighting, framing or cropping the shot better, shifting the color, and so on. Of course you have to be careful not to make the same error that a lot of first-time Photoshop users do, filtering and effecting the hell out of things, or adding them to shots that don’t even need it. Just look at these apps as one more tool you can use, not a replacement for any others.

Hipstamatic

The cool thing about Hipstamatic, in my opinion, is its unpredictability.  Where with Camera+ you can take a shot and edit it later, you’re more leaving things up to chance with Hipstamatic.  There are a few effects that leave a strange grainy texture, or that weird visual digital aftermath where you can tell when something’s been processed, but for the most part things turn out pretty decently.

You start off by selecting your lens, flash and film types that you’d like to use.  You can mix and match if you like, but each gives its own effect to your shot.  I’ve been experimenting by leaving 2 of the settings to the blank default and switching around the remaining one just so that I can familiarize myself with what it might do.  You’ll still get a lot of randomness though, despite the planning.

You then switch to taking your shot, of course.  The odd thing about taking a photo with this app is that it simulates the viewfinder of a regular camera.  This is probably a feature I could do without, since I’d like to see more clearly what’s going to be in the frame.

Once y ou’ve taken your shot, it will take a short moment to process and you can view it in your library.  If you get bored of the various camera attachments there’s also an in-app store to buy more.  They also host contests that you can submit your photos to straight from the app which is a nice addition.

Overall, Hipstamatic is a really sweet camera app with a variety of interesting features to keep you experimenting for a while.  If you’re into old school photography but often forget to carry around your camera, I’d recommend this app.

Camera+

Camera+ has been my best friend iPhone app when I’ve forgotten my actual camera but still want to get a shot of something.  Its ability to correct lighting has been invaluable to me.  It offers some really nice effects as well, but the lighting clean up has just blown me away.  As long as you aren’t going crazy, it doesn’t make things super grainy or blow the photo out either.  I really enjoy playing around with the lightbox, and I’d definitely recommend you download this app just for that feature.  I’m surprised they haven’t released a version for iPad that just utilizes the lightbox, to be honest.

The app also comes with gridlines to help you compose properly, a stabilizer, the ability to share your photos, touch exposure and focus, as well as a few others.  You can even make a copy of your photo before you do anything to it, in case you’re afraid of making things worse instead of better.

The app opens to a selection screen where you can choose to either take a photo, use the lightbox to edit photos and save them to your photo reel, or alter the settings of the app.  When I first got this app the camera portion wasn’t much more than just a copy of the iPhone’s native camera with some gridlines added to help you line your shot up properly.  Now, however, they’ve updated things so you can tap multiple spots to focus, or even alter the exposure.  There’s a digital zoom, photo stabilizer, and you can even use the iPhone 4′s screen as a sort of flashlight.

After you take your shot, pull it into the lightbox to begin editing.

The lightbox lays things out in this sort of film like fashion.  You can add photos from your existing library on your iPhone if you would like, paste from your clipboard, or just double tap an image to get started.

Once you’re editing an image, there’s a lot of different things you can do, one of the most helpful being to correct your lighting.  Where some users might like this app better than Hipstamatic is the ability to preview effects before applying them, as well as the ability to make a copy of your photo before editing it.  Where this portion of the app is concerned, if I do go further than just correcting the lighting, I mostly just play around to see if anything looks good!

All in all, Camera+ is a pretty powerful camera app.  I’m not sure what improvements have been made to the Photoshop iPhone app, but compared to the last version I saw I would put Camera+’s lightbox capabilities at a lot higher of a point than Photoshop Mobile’s.

Some people were interested in the apps I’d been using in my mobile shots.  Otherwise I just use my Canon Rebel XTi and do everything else in Photoshop.  When I don’t have that handy though, both of these apps have definitely come in handy.  Enjoy!

Other Photo/Video Apps I’ve Been Toying With:

• PictureShow
• HourFace – This one’s just for laughs
• Vintage Video Maker

Between the weather and the strange, rushed attitude so many people have here, you can find things of beauty.  I suppose you just have to know where to look.

I’m trying to slow down.

I’ve been trying out some new photography methods, some using my Canon, and some also utilizing my iPhone. I love the quality my Canon gets, of course, but there’s something to be said about the immediacy given by an iPhone or other mobile camera. I think its less intrusive, and allows for a little bit more intimacy in certain situations where a larger more professional caliber camera might get in the way. I love a couple of the apps I’ve been using so much that I hope to profile them soon.  I’m not always a fan of the miniaturize effect in photography, or too blurred a depth of field, but I think for the most part the following shots turned out okay for what they are.

Here you can see where I picked some of my stubby carrots out of my patio garden and sauteed them up! Just playing around, mostly. Enjoy! -I did.

We made a wrong turn on our way back from the Market- or, rather, a semi-wrong turn, as we do enjoy exploring- and we found ourselves at a flower festival in an old church.  The church, the flowers, the surrounding gardens, the whole scene was beautiful.

The church was an early 1900′s log cabin that had since been blessed with air conditioning.  The pews were all old, dark wood, everything creaking as you moved along.  The carpet was a rich red, and it seemed to feel thicker under the feet the closer you got to the head of the church where the minister would stand.  All along the edges of the pews were flowers for the festival, getting more extravagant as you followed the red carpet to the front where a larger display of exotic flowers was.  Although there was air conditioning and fans running, the air seemed very still, and the whole room was filled with the beautiful smell of all of the different blooms.

Despite the festival, there were also people there simply to visit graves, which the church was surrounded by.  All of these gravestones were also adorned with the most beautiful flowers, big and small, all sorts of colors and varieties.  Near the entrance was a sea of red, matching the carpet from inside the church.  Some of the largest blossoms on a flower I had ever seen were coming together to form a huge undulating mass of red.  It was mesmerizing to stare at as the wind swept through, each gust was like a wave in water.  I couldn’t help but think about how peaceful it felt there and how much I loved being out of the city.

Just off one of the most busy highways in Calgary, there is a cemetery. At the top of the cemetery is the beautiful Reader Rock Garden, and in the center of that is a cafe. There’s a lot of interesting history behind the cafe and the garden, but now it serves as one of the most interesting places to visit in all of Calgary.

Naturally, it fuelled my interest in floral photography. Here’s a couple of my favorite shots from the trip.

If you’d like to check out the Reader Rock Garden, you can find more information here.

Otherwise, I’m being eaten alive by freelance, as well as life! Help! The new site design is almost done though… it makes me happy!

While working at Shaw, us designers have a weekly meeting where we present various things, often just for fun, to practice public speaking, or to keep each other updated. My own turn has come up and I decided to put together a presentation on Tangents in Art and Design to help refresh everyone on some compositional basics. I also was taking the opportunity to explore some different HTML slideshow options.

While this slideshow works optimally in Chrome and Firefox in a maximized viewing window, please don’t even bother attempting a view in IE, as it won’t work in the least! Damn you, IE! Damn you!

Main points covered:

• Closed Corners
• Halved Shapes
• Tension Points
• Hidden Edges
• Split Apex/Image Alignment
• Stolen Edges
• Antlers and Growths
• Skimmed Edges
• Notes, possible fixes or uses, etc

You may even get a bit of a style preview into the redesign of the ML site!

I took a few photos around their house and out at the lake before driving off on the 6 hour drive back home.  While I’ve been experimenting with the new photography I’ve been interested in the weathered look a lot probably because I’ve been thinking about memories and feeling nostalgic quite a bit lately.

I used to make my own polaroid borders and whatnot, when experimenting and when at work, but I found a nice generator by rawimage on deviantart that cuts some time off, and when my time feels very precious lately that’s a good thing!

My grandmother had these plants with gigantic ribbed leaves, and I just loved the way they undulated in and out. Some inspiration for an illustration down the road, no doubt.

I liked the strange vertical bar running along the right side of this shot.  So random, and it added to the weathered, old polaroid feel I was looking for.

This is the coast of the lake.  I really liked how this one came out.  For some reason the light pink hue on the clouds reminded me of cherry blossoms, and then this shot instantly became one of my favorites from the trip.  Salmon Arm is one of the most beautiful places on Earth, in my opinion.  If you ever have a chance, I’d recommend a visit for a day or two.

Whenever Spring finally rears its head you can expect that I’m taking photos of the blossoming trees. Cherry blossoms are by far one of my favorite sights ever. I hope one day to do a bicycle tour through some of Japan while the blossoms are out, stopping at some of the various temples and attractions that didn’t make my first trip, or that I’ve seen on the internet since, or read about via Will Ferguson.

The fonts used were Cooper Std Black, and Museo Slab Italic 1000.  Museo is designed by Jos Buivenga, and if you like fonts you should check him and his site out.  He offers a lot of great fonts for free or for cheap.

So, what are your thoughts?  Cooper Black?  Museo?  Banana right, left?  The Museo font faced ones are my favorite so far, in both color schemes.  Let me know, your comments are very much appreciated!

Like I said previously, the site is getting a redesign once again, and things have already started from the backend. This is also a bit of practice, as I’m rebranding for a non-profit as well and am using ML to experiment a bit- as is the usual sandbox type concept for this site.

I was a guest at a recent 3rd year portfolio workshop for ACAD VC students, and one of the things I kept trying to stress to some of them was that experimentation and constant drawing is a must.  Also, focusing on just one thing can often be detrimental.  What I mean is that having a chaotic painting style might be well complimented by a more refined style that you use in your personal work.  This sort of balance will keep you from going too overboard in either practice.  I’ve found through my own work and some of the people around me that sometimes when you focus on the same things for a long time you might be able to boil them down and refine them nicely, but you might also end up refining too much, cutting out key techniques or philosophies to your work.  Its important to do as much as you can to keep it fresh.  Keep it lively, and stay passionate about it.

My own tastes have been meandering all over the place lately.  Mostly, I’m just remembering to keep things fun.  When you forget why you got into this sort of business in the first place is when the work suffers as well.  I think the artists and designers that really excel, when talking about technical polish, are ones that are passionate about what they’re doing.  I don’t want to be good at just one things in life, ever.  Instead, I want to work to always be able to express what I am trying to get out by whatever means possible.  Of course, I do have my tastes and also have to market my skills in a cohesive manner so as not to confuse potential clients, but things are allowed to evolve, and I think you should always be experimenting behind the scenes.

I decided to post this next image for similar reasons.  I didn’t think the quality on this image was good enough to show, but not only do I not post enough lately, I also think that an artist shouldn’t be afraid to experiment and make mistakes.

The text reads “Poor color choices?  Maybe, but that is ok!” – it is a sketchbook, after all.

These are 6.5 x 4.5 on linen sketchbook paper.  Watercolor + water brush, and brushpen + the occasional toothbrush splatter.  I wouldn’t normally use a water brush for a finished work, but for a sketchbook with watercolors on the go I definitely recommend them.