Author Archives: HURKLE-DURKLING Thoughts for DS106

Photo Blitz

I was given 20 minutes to do this list in photos. You can decide if I was successful or not.

  • Take a photo of (or something that represents) the moon.
  • Make a silhouette by aiming the camera into bright light.
  • Ssqueaks, honks, laughter, etc. Make a photo of a noise maker you hear.
  • Something commonly considered ugly and make it heart-breakingly beautiful.
  • Take a photo of an object that represents how old you feel.
  • An instrument that measures something
  • Forced perspective – make something small look big, or big look small.

click for another list.

Enjoy the stylized haze from a dirty camera lens.

My dog Grace makes lots of noises. Here she can be seen laughing at me while I attempt to do my work. Or maybe she was just yawning….

Are those a giant’s fingers?! Are they just tiny tissues? Is that a piece of glitter? What is going on there?

(fingers belong to a 9-year-old girl)

Moon doodle! (also, by the 9-year-old)

As I loaded this, I realized that now you all get to see my dusty ceiling light. This is the same room from the ceiling selfie in week one. This is for the silhouette in front of the light photo.

Tape measure showing 6 inches. You may have noticed the couch is blue.

I feel old, banged up, dusty, and yet useful like these books. I used them in a painting last year about this time.

I think my little dried flowers are pretty. My family not so much. Enjoy the little turtle hiding underneath it all.

Finished. I think it helps that my house is a mess right now. we are still trying to move back in since the water damage was fixed. It has items in odd places.

Four Seasons – Wyoming

I used Adobe firefly to create imagines of what Wyoming would look like in 4 seasons. Lady Alice is from a ranch in Wyoming, so I used that as the prompt.

I am assuming the AI used the northern bits of Wyoming near Jackson Hole or Yellowstone as reference. I have only been to the southern parts of Wyoming near I-80, Laramie, Rocksprings etc. I remember that area being browns most of the year and not so much green as the pictures. I have only been passing through and never stayed long. My internet search for actual pictures of Wyoming around Jackson Hole are more like these created ones in color.

Koala in a Knitted Hat – Part 2

To read Koala in knitted hat part one follow the link. Koala wearing a knitted hat – HURKLE-DURKLING Thoughts for DS106 (hurkledurkling.com)

After leaving Bing imagine creator running for hours (overnight) I came back to find more Koalas in knitted hats! It gave me four koalas and I chose one to enhance with their program.

Look it’s the same couch! and half of the Koala is gone…

This baby koala has different claws then the others. My 7 year old tells me these are all baby Koalas because their ears are spiky.

I decided to play with Koala 3 with what Bing had to offer.

I played with the lighting and gave it a boarder. Bing was really slow and there wasn’t much I could do without paying for more. It did have a lot of templates to turn the imagine into a card or announcement. My suggestion is to give it 12+ hours to generate the imagine.

Koala wearing a knitted hat

I really enjoyed this assignment. I tried a few different prompts. Spider-man from the Marvel comics did not work. Trust me or don’t and see what an Adobe Firefly gives you. I settled on something less startling Koala on a blue couch wearing a knitted green and purple hat. I tried to use a few other AI image generators but I either had to pay or I am sill currently waiting on them to finish generating. At the time of typing this it has been at least an hour. So, I will show you a selection from Adobe Firefly.

I really like this one because it is like the koala is posing for a portrait. The couch is fancy and is outside with eucalyptus trees in the background. The recuring problem is shown here. Half of the koala is missing. With the scale of the couch and a koala half of him is gone or inside the couch.

This one I do not like. I asked for the style of cut paper and knitted. I forgot to remove the knitted style from the prompt. It gave me a weird blend of flat paper and stuffed animal. The koala is clearly being eaten by the couch. I don’t understand the need to cut paper in its ears. the couch ends and begins on the right side of the imagine. Look at just the lines of the couch and you can see it doesn’t make sense.

I love the style of this imagine. The style I asked for a painting, acrylic, watercolor, geometric pen, and photo. I was trying to get something that did not work at all. It gave me a fun blend and the koala some pens. But sadly, once again half of the little guy has been cut off. The couch also has the weird begins and ends thing happening on the right of the imagine.

I was surprised that by adding more style prompts I got a more pleasing imagine than with less style prompts. I thought it would have been the other way around.

Outsider Art – The Daily Create

I am doing more than the required number of daily creates. I am not trying to be an over achiever I just enjoy doing them. Life is stressful do what makes you happy.

The assignment

#tdc4400 #ds106 An artist is outside of the world

This Daily Create published  has 0 responses and 250 views is organized under All Daily Creates, Drawing, Photography, Visual

Outsider art is a thing and is defined as: ‘created outside the boundaries of official culture’ Artist Anselm Kiefer suggests that all artists are ‘outside of the world’. In what ways are you ‘outside the world’ when you create?

After looking at what other people had posted for The Daily Create, I became inspired. I remembered a large rock in Utah near the highway that was covered in graffiti. It is called suicide rock. I found a video on YouTube that give you a good idea of it. People have to climb this rock and then paint it. It is constantly changing. It is outside and anyone can contribute to the art on it.

#tdc4400

Design Thoughts

I find layout and design easy. I just intuitively know when a page is balanced, what colors go together, what colors are painful to the eyes etc. I did not have to study color theory to understand color theory. When I took design at college when I was 18 it was an easy A. I saw a lot of my classmates struggle with somethings that I just knew. I grew up an Army brat. When the duty station was in Europe my parents took us to art museums. I started looking at fine art in kindergarten. I loved it. I think this early exposer to art is why somethings are just second nature to me.

We were assigned this week some videos on design. I enjoyed them very much. I got a look at what goes into making book jackets, movie posters, and a good title sequence. While I find it easy to lay out a drawing or painting picking the right type face is a different matter. Fonts are lovely little pieces of art that can convey meaning. In the title sequence for “Stranger Things” you just know it is the 80’s horror genre. They picked that font because it was on so many books in the 80’s. It conveyed a time period with the font style. Fonts can give you information just as well as the words written with it can.

The video for the curious

Have you ever noticed movie posters look similar to each other? I know I have noticed a few here and there that remind me of each other. But there is a code or theme to the colors used. White background red letters comedy. Yellow is usually an independent film. Blue with man running action thriller. These common threads lead back to highly successful movies that used those design elements in their poster advertisements. Movie poster art has its own history that it builds on. If it worked before then why change? I will include the video so you can fully curb your curiosity.

I also had the pleasure of watching an interview with Chip Kidd. He spoke about his work on making book jackets. He explained how the title of the book and the art of the book jacket need to come together to give the viewer a better understanding of what the book is about. The art on the jacket is more than just trying to catch the viewer’s eye. The cover needs to convey the type of story or theme of the story inside. It sets the tone of the words on the page. It gives the reader an idea of how they should interpret the words. A good book cover does more than just help sell the book.

Between the Lines: Chip Kidd – Alexander Street, a ProQuest Company

Between the Lines: Chip Kidd. . (2017).[Video/DVD] CreativeLive. Retrieved from https://video.alexanderstreet.com/watch/between-the-lines-chip-kidd.

Good design work makes use of negative space, color, font, and layout. When you look at something a common as an advertisement you are looking at graphic design. Art is everywhere.

Goals

I believe I was avoiding this post. So, I decided to make myself do it. On 2/17/23 I found a water leak in my home. I spent the rest of the year fighting with my homeowner’s insurance. It is a long story. On January 14th, 2024, I was able to move my family back home. That week we had snow days and classes started at UMW. I got food poisoning. My husband had a rough week and I had to take care of him. He has PTSD and is a disabled veteran. So, I didn’t do this post. For some reason having to type out my goals scares me. It puts in writing what I want to do for everyone to see. I am afraid I will not do well and then everyone would know. There would be no hiding it if it was written down. Not writing it down keeps it a daydream and privet only for me to see. It keeps me safe. But that doesn’t help me grow.

I have been trying to think of goals for this class that go beyond just surviving. I want to be able to make a gif. I want to be able to make a short video with balanced sound. I want to be able to know how to use WordPress and not have to watch a tutorial online every time I want to change something. I want to be comfortable using a computer to make art or graphics (even if they are simple).

This class is making me really stretch and learn new skills. I am excited about the hard things I am learning to do. I know I will fail things at times, but I will learn from my failures even if it is simply what not to do.

Daily Create Colour it in

Good morning. I like to do my daily create while have breakfast. Or a loose interpretation of breakfast as the case may be. Today’s morning activity was Google are currently offering a Colouring Book Experiment. Choose one and color it in. It is quite a fun activity to enjoy while having your morning coffee or tea etc. I chose to give more color to a painting by Van Gough “roses”.

After I saved the image, I realized I missed one spot and left it white. Have fun finding it.

MsMapex (@[email protected]) – ds106 Social

Cat on a Toilet

The daily create had a cat with a camera. We were asked for the picture it was about to take. Below is a link to the assignment so you can see the picture.

#tdc4398 #ds106 Cat Photographer | The DS106 Daily Create

I decided to play with the AI generator on Adobe Express. I first asked for a wedding between a cat and a fish. Then a cat wedding on a beach. I decided to go with something a bit more grandeur a cat in a ballgown in a bathroom. I think the toilet is a nice touch. This cat was also the least creepy looking that the AI algorithm put together.

MsMapex: “I used Adobe express AI genera…” – ds106 Social