Amalgamation (NSFW)

A while back I was up late and I just started writing a story.  It was a really free form, first thing in my head type of story.  I ended up writing for about forty-five minutes before my mind started to wander to other activities.  Primarily those activities included drawing/doodling and Photoshop.  So I saved my Google document and picked up a piece of junk mail and started to do some preliminary sketches of what was in my head.  This lasted for quite a while before I moved on to Photoshop to create those sketches in a more suitable draft form.  I ended up playing in Photoshop for too long and I then started to think about turning those images into moving video.  So I busted out Final Cut and started to play around with video editing for a bit.  All and all I ended up spending about 8 hours doing non stop creative work.  Just me and the computer and a pair of headphones.

At the end of those 8 hours I didn't end up with a lot of finished work.  In fact I didn't end up with any finished work but the mere act of spending so much time just creating was invigorating.  The one thing I did end up with when I finally walked away from the computer was a lot of good ideas for stuff I'll probably never follow up on or finish.  There was one piece I was playing with right before I went to bed that is about as close to finished as it is ever going to get.

Toward the end of the night I gave up on trying to work with my random ideas and just started to work with what was in front of me.  I decided on doing something different so I hit popular websites like Tumblr and digg and just started to save pictures and .gifs by the hundreds.  I then threw them all into a timeline to see what would come out.  Really it was just a creative experiment to see what I could make in an hour.  At the end of an hour I would stop what I was doing and go to bed.  I wouldn't even look at what I created for a few days.  I woke up the next day and promptly forgot about my final hour of creativity.  Last night I pulled up those work files again and this is what was left after an hour of random searches.



This Animation is NSFW! You've been warned.


This amalgamation of images and animations were all found in about 15 minutes just by clicking on random things and seeing what I could see.  The last 45 minutes were spend placing them in this particular order and getting rid of images I didn't want to use.

I'm not sure I would call this art.  In fact now that I'm looking at it again I'm not sure I would necessarily call it creative.  I'm simply calling it Amalgamation and I do find it interesting so I'm sharing it with everyone both of you who read this blog.  Hopefully in the future I can find more half finished projects to share with you because over the last three months I've been pretty lazy about posting to this blog.

First Post of 2012

In an effort to post something this year...

Just a little astronaut doodle I did during a meeting a few weeks back.  Hopefully I'll have something interesting to say at some point in the future.

Post Holiday Hangover

I just found the above picture while going through my RSS feeds. I was going to save it to post next Christmas but I don't think I would remember to do that so here it is now.

Anyway I've been laying low for awhile now while trying to get through the Holidays. With Christmas over and done with I can now move on to other things.

On Monday I hit up the hardware store and got to work in the kitchen. For those of you who have been to my house you might remember our kitchen looking like this.

Only with a bit less Kyle.

A few months back our microwave stopped working so we bought a cheap one and put it on a table next to the stove. Now that I had some free time I decided to take down the old microwave and the cabinet above it. This is how our kitchen looks now that I've done a bit of remodeling.

Not bad for a few hours of work.  It's amazing how long I've been talking about doing that and it only took about four hours to finish.  Most of that time was waiting for paint to dry.  For my next project I think I'm going to get around to building that kitchen table I've been thinking about for a few years now.

Happy Holidays

This Holiday season has been an exceptionally busy one for me.  Lots of last minute running around and spending lots of time with friends and family.  I'm looking forward to some serious downtime over the next few days and I hope you get to enjoy some time off too.

To help celebrate the holiday I found this video Christmas card by Terry Gilliam for you to enjoy.

New Futons

I don't have much to say about this other than we have the new futons in the Bradttic.  Now that they have arrived I'm not too sure about the rug or the coffee table but for now it's all good.  I'll worry about interior design after the whole thing is finished.

End in Sight

This past weekend I ended up getting the trim around the windows in the attic.   All and all I think they turned out pretty good.  Shortly after taking these pictures we ended up getting our new Futons delivered for the attic. I'll have to take a picture of those tomorrow so I can show you how they look.  Very exciting to see this project come to an end.

Window Trim

It's been a busy week around here. School is wrapping up for the semester and the holidays are right around the corner. I'm trying to get as much done as I can in between those two major things. Tuesday night I had a bit of time to myself so I took the wood I'm using for window trim in the attic over to a buddies house to have it ripped down. Tonight I made the last of the cuts and put a first coat of paint on the trim.

Hopefully tomorrow night at this time I'll have a second coat of paint on those boards. I'd like to have both the windows trimmed out and finished by Saturday morning but that all depends on how much painting I can get in before then.  With any luck I'll get two more coats on between now and then.

The Octopus That Walked On Land

If you have been following my blog for a bit of time you are well aware that I am frightened of both aliens and octopuses to an almost unreasonable degree. I first brought this up back in 2008 and again last January when I found out that octopuses can use tools. I've also made mention of my Alien fears here and here.

Now for the longest time I would say my fear of aliens far outweighed my fear of octopuses.  After all as long as I wasn't in the ocean I would be safe.  Or so I thought....  Lately there have been a lot of discoveries concerning the cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda.  You see the discovery of an octopus using tools in early 2010 was pretty creepy but not nearly creepy enough for me to be afraid of an ocean dwelling creature more than a flying alien who comes in the night and could abduct you at any time from anywhere.

Then I found this video.






That's right the octopus just walked on land.  Did you see that video?  It fucking walked on land!

Not only is it walking on land but it is doing it in the most creepy way imaginable.  Go back and watch that video again.  At the 2:10 mark it even drops off the dead body of it's latest victim.  I am so creeped out right now I barely have the words.

Octopus is now the new #1 fear.  Aliens are a very close second.  The only thing I have going for me right now is that I live in the Midwest. UPDATE: 7:39 AM Apparently octopus walking around outside the ocean happens all the time. Extra super creepy now.

Finished Artwork?

You would think with my long absence from blogging I would be back with a giant beard, a finished novel and a pile of new stake deck designs.   Sadly I didn't accomplish any of those things while I was away from this blog.  So the question I must now answer is "what have I been up to?"

It's a valid question and to be honest it's an interesting answer.

I spent some time in Vegas for a wedding.

I painted the attic and am currently working on the trim.

I spent a lot of time hanging out with friends and family.

I also spent a ton of time listening to some great new music.

I've enjoyed cooking and eating a lot of new foods.

So to be honest I've just been spending as much free time enjoying everyone and everything around me as I can.  I haven't accomplished much that I can show you but the memories I've made over the last few weeks have been incredible.  Sure I've started a few new projects but I don't have much to post about right now.  I spent so much time this past summer just running around to various wedding and parties that I feel like I have a lot to catch up on.  I sort of feel like I've missed out on a lot this summer and I'm now really enjoying playing catchup on a lot of things.  Hopefully I'll be back with some new stuff soon.  Until then I'm just out and about doing as much as I can.

New Projects And Other Stuff

The attic is nearing completion (only trim left to finish) and our Halloween/Wedding Reception is done.  With that out of the way my mind is wandering to other possible projects to start on.  One thing that has been on my mind is that it's National Novel Writing Month.  In June of this year my buddy Mike told me about it.  The idea is pretty simple you just write everyday and at the end of the month you have a rough first draft of a novel.  Not a bad idea.  I may be a few days behind on this but with the stack of story ideas I have I should be able to knock that out pretty quick.  Now if I do this or not is another subject entirely.

Also on my mind lately, No Shave November.  As most of you know I once had a huge beard.

Do I really want to spend a month not shaving and have to put up with a week of scratch face to look like a hipster? I'm still debating about this one.

One thing I'm not debating about is designing some new skateboards.  I've had a few ideas for a couple months now I just need to sit down and get to work on fleshing those out.  The only thing holding me back from starting those has been the warm fall we've been having.  It's too damn nice to sit inside on the computer all day.  In all likely hood this will be my next project but you never know.

I've also been revisiting a few older projects that never took off for one reason or the other.  Hopefully I can set my mind to one of these things and get to work.  Well except for the No Shave November.  I already have a few days jump on that one.