December 25th, 2008
Almost everyone has one of those family members that gets you the stereotypical gift of socks, or a jumper etc.
My Nan was one of these people, each year she would get one of those gifts, be it socks or perhaps a pack of handkerchiefs.
(more…)
March 30th, 2007
Been a while since I last posted, been rather busy trying to get the ever increasing amount of projects I am undertaking completed. Not to mention looking at some of the things I should be doing which I no long do, like painting. I cannot say I am surprised I haven’t painted in a while, College and University really burned me out when it came to art, left me feeling like everything is so fake and pretentious, like indie Hollywood.
But lately I have been feeling like I would like to dive back into my assortment of oil paints and see what I can do. Not only that but I have been looking at digital painting again too. So I have decided to start trying to get into the swing of things by starting off with some speed paintings, it’s obvious to myself that I am out of practise and I am hoping to do at least one speed painting a day if possible, but we shall see.
Painting of an orange, no reference (light and shadows show this in my opinion) and painted with my mouse for some reason.
September 14th, 2006
I find this rather interesting, for years people have been writing “clean me” on the sides of dirty vans and what not, its only a matter of time before people take it to the next level. This is what Paul “Moose” Curtis does, using cleaning fluid and a shoe brush/old sock he creates graffiti by cleaning surfaces in public locations.
Its in interesting take upon graffiti which often “damages” a suface this infact repairs and yet authorities still call it vandalism which is highly amusing.
August 22nd, 2006
So me and amon were talking about updating various sites we run today, when he mentioned the “Redesign and Realign” statement I had on the beta build of greyskies which I had read about last year on A List Apart and it got me thinking.
I have been designing websites for almost 10 years now and when I started I couldn’t design a nice looking layout for toffees, this of course changed over the years as I learned how to better use Photoshop and apply the knowledge gain at Art School to what I was working on. This combined with looking at website codes taking them apart and seeing how they work taught me how to create beautiful looking websites but with not much thought to semantic markup and user end interface.
Since making the change (for which I give amon credit for introducing me to Jeff Zeldman and Designing With Web Standards) I have found that I am more interested in making the site as pleasent and easy experience to the user than I am in having the site look pretty. Asthetics will always be a apart of it as I love to create its what I do its why I am an Artist. Take DJC for instance, I have worked on DJC since I was introduced to Myst back in 1998, when the site first went up it was on fortunecities (and we remember how nasty those sites looked) as I became more interested in designing features of the site myself instead of using masses of animated .gif’s and starfield backgrounds I started using MS Word (how could you I hear you cry, well I was new to this so give me a break). It was only when I started visiting RivenGuild that I learned about more complex coding and different programs to use (ie frontpage express), I had used WYSIWYG editors since then up to 2003/2004, it was only when I met Jen that I started working with CSS and divs and using notepad to code with (I used both notepad and WYSIWYG editors).
I am however now free of such devices, I only use Photoshop and Notepad++ for my websites and have felt better for doing so, I am at the stage where I know my code is valid XHTML before even validating it because I have written every fragment of the code and don’t have a WYSIWYG editor adding nonsense code, misreading tags and bloating my webpages up with items I do not need. This means its so much easier to go through my pages to change sections and has cut down the amount of server space used for a site. Not only that I find my sites working nicely on IE, FF and safari which means users aren’t met with;
“Site best viewed in Firefox at 1024×786 resolution.”
I know from my experience as a user of varous sites, if people are looking for information they want to find it quickly and easily, hiding information away behind “mystery meat” navigation and throwing adverts in the way is just not the way to go about it. Last thing I want to be doing is reading an article and having an advert smack bang in the middle of it (which is often the case when reading articles posted on Digg.
Although I still have alot to learn I think making the change has been very worthwhile, and if people find it alot easier to find what they are looking for on DJC then I have done what I was aiming for.
With the new update for WordPress released I figured it was about time I upgraded my blog to the new build, I have been meaning to upgrade for a while but haven’t had the time to do so. Think I might work on a new theme for the blog too, possibly incorperating it into the beta version of greyskies.
I have also been looking at npages, which is a CMS from amon. Its pretty nice little application, needs a few changes here an there obviously but its promising and for the most part very easy to use.
May 17th, 2006
IO2 Technology has the coolest sounding display I have ever seen called the M2i. The device projects a 30″ diagonal 4:3 aspect ratio display into the air. That’s right, into the air like a hologram. The entire projection unit is designed to be hidden out of site so that only the display image shows.
This looks so cool, maybe I can make one into a D’ni imager or something. Not quite holographic but its a good step in the right direction.
March 22nd, 2006
Just for some random silliness I decided to start a Ninja Meme, because you know the internet doesn’t have enough memes.
So I present T Shirt Ninja Keith, now with 100% less cowbell.
(more…)
February 18th, 2006
After my getting my last tattoo, I had been wanting to get another, I decided on getting another Myst related one (yes I’m a geek).
Found the rough design I wanted to use, had to tweak it in Photoshop until it looked as I desired. I had decided to get it done on the same arm as the other one, just up the inside of my wrist this time.
(more…)
