Maria Ellis's Blog, page 3

The Old and the New

[Design 101 Course with iVersity]

Homework #13

“Observe your room.

Look at the objects you have around…

Old things, new things. Very old things, very new things.

Set up some relations between them and share a story with us!”

The old and the new chair

“I Love My Home” T-shirt

[Design 101 Course with iVersity]

Homework #12

“Make a shirt (or tee-shirt) for yourself.

Draw, embroider, play with scissors, fabrics, glue or fire.

Dowhateveryouwant but plan it carefully!

Share some images with us… ”

“I Love My Home” T-shirt

It didn’t come out exactly as I wanted… the house seems puzzled and I’d meant for it to be happy. But oh well…

(Method: regular, colored thread sown on an old, blue T-shirt)

[image error]

I love my home T shirt

It is only a paper moon…

[Design 101 Course with iVersity]

Homework #10

“How would you represent yourself (and your personal universe) in two dimensions? Create your own miniature world and share a picture of it will all of us.”

Reaching for the moon

One of my favorite movies of all times is called “Paper Moon”. There’s also a song that I love called “Paper Moon”. The solution to this assignment was obvious for me. It only got confirmed by my husband who said “This reminds me of “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery”. And I thought “Oh yes, this world is definitely me!”.

[image error]

Reaching for the moon

Lazy Apple Pie

[Design 101 Course with iVersity]

Homework #11

“Cook something. Present the recipe in an attractive way.”

Et voila!

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Lazy Apple Pie Recipe

Self-portrait in Bamboo

[Design 101 Course with iVersity]

Homework #9

“Have a friend make a sketch that represents you. Then, do the same – a self-portrait.”

As before, I have a dilemma: 8-months-pregnant, not very mobile, friends are far, husband only connection to the world and he’s working. A lot. So… For this assignment I took one of the pictures that he made of me (a photo portrait) and drew myself with a Bamboo tablet in Photoshop.

Self portrait in Bamboo

 

“These are a few of my favorite things…”

[Design 101 Course with iVersity]

Homework #6

“Share an object or “thing” you like.”

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things…

… goes the song that Julie Andrews sang in “The Sound of Music”. It is one of my favorite songs ever! But I digress… (or… can a song be a “thing”???)

The object that I chose for this homework was the toy with the purple pants in the center of this picture. As I was taking this picture, I realized that this particular corner of my desk has a very high concentration of objects I love. So:

A few of my favorite things

1. Doudou – in French, it’s a generic name for a very soft toy that very small children love to play with. The one on my desk is a gift from my 5 y.o. niece for my soon-to-be-born son. It belonged to her. The story is that one morning she came down the stairs from her bedroom with this doudou in her hand. “It is for the baby!” she announced.

2. Ultrasound pictures – behind Doudou. What an amazing piece of technology! And the pictures that come out of it are quite literally out of this world.

3. My watch – a gift from my mother for one of my birthdays.

4. Brushes and color pencils – some of my drawing and painting tools. Whimsy and magic ooze out of them even when they are not used. I love seeing them bunched up together.

5. The wooden manikin – it is very, very useful for capturing the movement of creatures on paper.

6. Yellow girl with acorn cap – she is sitting right behind Doudou and the ultrasound pics, bunched up with the crayons and the brushes. She was a gift from one of my students who was 6 at the time. She just showed up at school with it one day and gave it to me. She said it looks like me and she made it for me. Her dress is made of a painted egg carton.

Designing a mask

[Design 101 Course with iVersity]

Homework #5

“Make a mask of yourself. Take a picture. Post it.”

Idea: I will call my masks “Filters”. It seems to me that that is what they really are: filters of perception… in both directions.

Click to view slideshow.

Alien mold soup, a Petri dish and our fridge

[Design 101 Course with iVersity]

Homework #4

“Cook your favorite food. Take a picture. Post it.”

I have many, many favorite foods. One of them is sushi – which I cannot make. So for this homework I took a picture of our fridge. Also, I’m not a big cook. I make simple things: mashed potatoes and fried chicken, steamed veggies, the occasional tart… and soup. I made this particular one two days ago, with chicken whatever veggies I had in the kitchen.

Because I am catching up with my homework, I am pressed for time but I also want to try something interesting, it seems that my brain latched on to Photoshop filters. I tried a few. The picture of the fridge came out as an industrial warehouse and the soup as either alien food or a strange Petri dish of fluorescent, swimming organic matter.

Click to view slideshow.

Origami bird in flight

[Design 101 Course with iVersity]

Homework #3

“Let’s say you are a bird. Take a piece of paper and fold yourself into a three-dimensional object. Take a picture.”

I took a piece of scrap paper and tried to follow the instructions on an origami page I found online. Perhaps I didn’t have enough patience… perhaps I feel very short on time today – and I’m already two days behind with the homework… but my brain refused to function halfway through the process. So I stuck two paint brushes in the half-folded paper to see if it would look like a crane. Not quite… but I decided to take a picture of it anyway. I turned on my desk lamp and projected the “bird” on the wall. Then I took a picture of its shadow. I like it. I made two versions of it with two different filters in Photoshop. They both fit my early-autumn mood.

Click to view slideshow.

 

 

Indie pub success story: How an author sold 910 copies in 1 week

I have recently found Ellis Shuman’s article on how he sold 910 copies of his novel, “Valley of Thracians“, in one week, with the help of BookBub – a website that has only very recently come on my radar… (I know… I have been living in a cave).

Indie author sells 910 copies in 1 week