The Daily Create - Just Do It!

I really have missed ds106.  The Daily Create is such a beautiful concept, you really need to try it.  I am making up for my absence by doing as many as I can this week.

It started off with Kevin Hodgson's (@dogtrax)  PhotoBlitz "New England Leaf Collage."  That got me inspired to check out the Daily Create since it had been awhile.  Birds.  Well, let me tell you, I get to see some awesome birds in Hawaii, but the ones I like the best are the cattle egrets who prance about our lawn morning, noon, and night.  Every try to take a picture?  They can feel your vibration once you start looking for your camera.  So, I moved out to a old fence that was overgrown and, luck a hunter in the blind waited for his prey.  As I sat there, I noticed this incredible looking fruit like yellow thing that I had never noticed before.  I took a picture.  There was a green one.  I decided to hell with the egret, let me do a Autumn Photo Blitz Maui style.  Bananas on the vine, wild poinsettia coming into season, red ginger, and the fruits of the harvest, papaya and lillikoi.  And the fruit like yellow thing?  It is a prickly melon.  I threw in a shot from where I was standing trying to catch a picture the egret just to make you jealous.

Birds! Twitter, Hitchcock, Make it all About Birds

So, as you can see, I came up empty with the egret, but @RockyLou inspired me to be creative with the idea with her "FreeBird".  I realized I had the perfect bird right in front of my face.  This is a lacquer tray with a peacock feather.  I really had to work at getting the lighting because it kept wanting to reflect all the daylight.  I finally put it up against the kitchen counter and turned all the lights on.  This reduced the glare dramatically.  We live with my 97 year old mother-in-law and I use the tray to bring her meals.  When Mariana Funes asked about the tray, it reminded me taking pictures is not enough.  You have to write about them and the process.  My process is fairly simplistic, so I go for the story.  Thanks, Mariana!

Take a picture of a real dog or draw one and take a picture of the drawing.

For over 20 years my husband and I have raised dogs.  Our last dog died about a month before we left the mainland.  I was just going to put up an old picture, but then I realized that our cat, Gita, who made the trip and is adapting well to his new environment (we call him the cane rat mauler), is really our cat - dog.  And, please don't tell him differently.  Fellow ds106er, Mariana, once again, asked about him and shared this clip of a cat who thinks he is also a dog.  I was sorry to have to tell my husband that the video of Gita with his head hanging out of his red pick up had already been taken, so it wouldn't be going viral (in the event he could ever actually get it).  Check it out, it's pretty funny.

Trace a photo of yourself. Upload both the original and your drawing.

I have not yet discovered my inner drawing artist, so I decided to use a couple of apps that I have been playing around with Mobile Monet and Manga.  I had actually used these to create some profile pictures when I started to create my digital identify.  I like the texture you can get with Monet (bottom) and I like the lines you can get with Manga (top).  I suppose I could've experimented a bit more, but, instead, I decided to show the original picture with my Dad taken in 1964 and another with a similar profile taken 20 years later.  Uh oh.  I'm on the left in both pictures........

Stories in/of the Web

While I read through Week 9:  Stories from the Web, I failed to produce any content.  As I was writing up this blog, I received a text from two friends in New Orleans with this picture. Sensing an opportunity at hand, I quickly looked up the local paper, but was unable to find any front page that I could use X-Ray Goggles, so instead, I found this jpeg and was able to tune my Gimp skills by inserting the picture.  The original text went to about 8 people, so I sent it to everyone.  Within minutes, I got the desired response.  It also allowed me to embed a message chat into my blog, which I had never done before.

“I discovered today…”

I discovered today that 60 seconds of a movie has an incredible amount of information.  Fellow ds106er, Mariana Funes magnified that minute by separating the audio and the video tracks of a movie clip for the Movie Reading assignment.  Having worked in a Film/Sound Recording Studio in the 80's, I sat through countless mixes for WGBH's Nature series.  Sometimes getting the layers of sound just right took hours.  Steve Izzi, the lead engineer was a perfectionist and he could make it sound like you were right there in the natural habitat, weaving sounds together into a montage that was clear, clean and crisp.  Movie reading is bringing back that skill set that has been latent for over 30 years.  I guess I discovered 2 things today....

Not realizing that I had missed the narrative Daily Create, I added this one.  It's always funny how you start out with one realization and then come to another.  I suppose that is part of our unconscious mind at work.  Making art gives expression to those deep voices inside ourselves, if we would only listen.

So, as I said, I have missed ds106 and the Daily Create.  But even more, I have missed the community of creative artists who have been on this journey with me, and especially our resident shrink, Mariana, who this week reawakened my creative self.  Thank you.  #4LIFE