more hollywood, imperial newt, and nasty pear

all of these photos were taken in natural light. except for the pear, which was taken inside on a tabletop, they were taken on the top floor of my apartment parking garage. the top left shows a general view. the lower left one is a tag that someone etched onto a glass window in my apartment building. i liked the way the warm light contrasted with the deep blue sky behind, and the way the tag is illuminated by the light behind it. the pear was one that i forgot to eat, i snapped a photo before throwing it away. and the newt in the upper right is part of a series by jim woodring called imperial newts. he also has a crazy newts series, i really like both sets and will continue to photograph our collection.

Haiku News

Dateline: March 25, 2008 - Raleigh, NC

• A Krispy Kreme Truck
• Was stolen from parking lot
• Hot Donut truck now

• Here's a few links to the story:

• http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1012297.html
• http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=6034398

• There's lots of stories out there about people stealing Krispy Kreme trucks - a common crime!
• Photo from Krispy Kreme website: http://www.krispykreme.com/history.html

tagged! and some more photos

i was tagged by lulu on my personal blog and challenged to describe my live in 6 words. this is what i came up with:

insufficient time and energy for everything

i'm supposed to then tag 6 other ppl, but i don't know that many ppl who blog so i'll have to think about that part a little more and finish that part of the challenge later...

meanwhile, here are some photos:

what's new: 03.26.08

the 'view all labels' link was broken for a while, but has been fixed. in order to fix it, i had to change the way our posts our formatted so that when you press 'return' as you are writing a post, they will no longer be converted to new lines when your post is displayed in the blog. to insert a new line, you should insert the following tags as you are writing:

for a single hard-return: <br />
for 2 hard-returns: <br /><br />

sorry for the inconvennience...

judith day 2

Tonight was the second day with Judith. I was late so I didn't make as much progress as I'd wanted. I'll have to focus on the head next week since we'll probably switch to a new pose on day 4.

egg with squares and lines

This is a smallish duck egg with yellow/orange squares and dotted turquoise lines interwoven between the squares. After I waxed over the squares and lines, I soaked the egg in vinegar for 20+ minutes. Vinegar reacts with the calcium carbonate in the eggshell and slowly dissolves the uncovered parts of the shell. Vinegar etching can be used to create a shadowing effect around the design, unless you accidentally walk away and leave the egg soaking for too long... After etching the egg with vinegar, I scrubbed the egg ever so gently with a baby toothbrush to help remove the dissolved bits of eggshell. I recently switched to a baby toothbrush because my old scrub brush was a little too effective and removed some of the wax on previous eggs. After the scrubbing, the background was a bright white. I decided to dye the egg darker to better camouflage some of my wobbly wax lines (as small mistakes seem to really pop out on a white background). I then dyed the background black, which came out as gray. It's not always possible to get a deep rich color after vinegar etching, particularly with duck eggs. For some reason, this egg made me think of peacock feathers. I'd like to try making a feather design in a future pysanky egg.

jake in the hallway

Greg was brushing his teeth and the hallway was dark except for the light spilling out from the bathroom. Jake plopped himself down in the doorway and I snapped a shot.

uf(o)untain . cubees . jrmyst . tomatoes

some more photos a day: the first was taken at night where i work, my friend suggested that it looked a little like a ufo, and i agreed... in my continued effort to document all of the toys/knickknacks in our apartment (and there are many!) i took a photo of my cubee collection. i saw these on flickr and only had 3 had the time but had to have them all after i saw them... the last two were taken with my new 50mm lens that i got on friday and am excited about. it's going to be my primary lens. this morning, i went to the farmer's market and shot some photos, many of them were blurry/not focused on the right thing. i think it will take some practice, but i like it so far. one of these days, i'll try to actually make something but that is maybe not going to happen for another week or two...

what's new: 03.23.08

changes to the blog format/template:

• header: added 'about, what's new, and how to' links: feel free to add posts to these links by tagging with 'about' 'what's new' or 'how to'
• side bar: about: simplified blurb
• side bar: categories: made a list that can expand/collapse (any item preceded by a * will expand/collapse when clicked); can modify as much as we want, based on the content of the blog. these links are based on searches of a single label; currently, it's not possible to search for multiple labels
• labels: added some labels to everyone's posts to test the 'categories' list---if you don't like any of the new labels that were added, please feel free free to remove them by clicking on the pencil icon below your post to edit it. there will be a 'Labels for this post:' text box, and you can add/delete/modify as needed...
• side bar: added 'recent comments'
• side bar: labels: drop-down menu of labels along with link to full list on a separate page (currently not working)---will try to add label count next to each label on this page; maybe add a labels/tags cloud to the side bar
• bottom bar: moved contributors' profile page links from the side to the bottom bar

nap

jake and elwood, in one of many nap poses.

devil fish ping pong

i'm continuing to try to take a photo a day (pad); here are ones that i took today and yesterday:

1. devil fish:
   
2. ping pong tournament:
   
   the annual ping pong tournament at my workplace has started again, so there are lots of picture taking opportunities during the day at work. last year, i ended up with lots of blurry/fuzzy photos and/or ones of people's backs. i took the idea for this pic from one of etravus's shots last year, but mine is kinda fuzzy/grainy. but it is still going to count as my photo.a.day for today...

Nora in the woods

but seriously

judith day 1

Hi everyone. This is my first time ever posting to a blog! I haven't figured out how to hook this up to flickr yet so for now I will just upload these photos and hope it works :P. Tonight was the first night of a new session at the weekly sculpting workshop where I work. Every six weeks we have a new model, and we pick a new pose for the next 6 weeks (lately we've been changing the pose on week 4). We usually alternate between male and female models. Judith was actually the first female model I ever sculpted 5 years ago, so it's interesting to sculpt her again. On the first day, usually we spend about an hour making the armature and picking the pose, and then the remaining two hours sculpting. I think she is about 1/6 scale.

laser skull

here is a skull sitting on top of a laserpod: i like the red color better, but think that the purple one is a better photo.

another goose egg

This weekend I spent a long time working on a large goose egg pysanky that turned out to have an inch-long crack right through the hole at the end. I didn't even notice the crack until the egg was halfway finished, and blue dye began collecting in the crack edges. Goose eggs have very strong and thick shells compared to regular chicken eggs, and they seem to take dye more reliably than duck eggs. Hopefully the crack will not spread further through the shell after it is varnished. This design was abstract in nature and used 7 colors (turquoise, blueberry, navy, violet, apricot gold, lime, orange). I got to practice making my wax lines smooth, straight, and evenly spaced, a skill that I'm finding to be a challenge. The first photo shows the egg during the wax application; the second set of photos show the egg after the wax was removed. I still need to apply some polyurethane varnish to bring out the colors and make the surface smooth and shiny.

Go try this now - Middle East Cast-On!

I have gone crazy with the knitting this past week. Maybe it has something to do with a local yarn store going out of business which led to my sudden ownership of beautiful yarns and knitting books with wonderful projects. My husband had to finally put his foot down b/c I would wake up and immediately start knitting and would knit until bedtime. Sigh .... Anyway, one of the projects I have been working on is a pair of socks for my grandmother. My recent yarn discovery has been the Koigu sock yarn. I love the colors and texture. Though I'm usually not a fan of entrelac, I was very intrigued by this pattern by Eunny Jang published in the Spring 2007 issue of Interweave Knits that I found while browsing through Ravelry. I thought it was well designed. A knitting friend of mine actually owned this issue and so luckily got a hold of the pattern sooner than later. I have gotten this far on the project. I'm not going to make the socks as long since they are for my grandmother. The socks are knit starting at the toe. My favorite thing about this pattern is that I learned the Middle East Cast-On which results in a seamless toe. It's very cool! On the other hand, I probably won't do another entrelac project.

I also just finished this headband for a friend of mine (also found on Ravelry). Here is the pattern. I used a skein of Noro Kureyon. I casted on only 100 sts. and used #7 needles. It's a little small, but I think it will still fit.

my dinner

Tonight I made baked tofu (marinated in soy, sesame oil, nutritional yeast, ginger..) and stir-fried some veggies in five-spice, etc. It was yummy. I had to put a charge in the camera so veggies looking a little wilted.

Yesterday I made a spinach-feta sauce to go over quinoa. But no pictures because I ate it.

Last week I made this really yummy bean soup with red nightfall beans (heirloom), loads of celery and onions and tomatoes. Shared with cute law school boy living upstairs from me. No pictures, all gone.

I'm off to see a Bollywood movie with Ryan and Pey-Ning. Might bring a book to read.

bug bracelets

practicing more with the 20d; i'm using an efs 60mm macro lens. it was easier to use in daylight today than last night:

tired of piggies yet?

ok, we are probably sick of looking at the same piggies, but i took pics of them again 1. to practice using my new canon 20d that i inherited from my husband (he got a new one); 2. to try to combine the dark background from my first photo with the composition of my second (based on feedback from sukogirl); and 3. because i decided today that i'm going to start taking a photo a day along with my friend risakimu.

green leaf pysanky egg

I haven't had much time to work on pysanky eggs recently, in part because my mom was here visiting us until yesterday and also because I got obsessed with reading The Golden Compass. The last egg I posted on thing-a-day in February had a green abstract leaf design. This is the finished egg after several further iterations of dying and waxing. Unfortunately I dropped the egg while I was cleaning off the wax. It survived the fall mostly intact, but there is now a small web of cracks slightly visible on one side of the egg. I will eventually varnish it and use it as an ornament on our egg tree.

more pink piggies and skulls

i took more pics of the pigs in daylight: and another skull:

skull with pink bunny and piggies

i was having a crappy day today, so my husband surprised me with a piggie keychain that kind of matches the lighter he gave me before... when you press the button its head, 2 bright blue led beams shoot out of its nose. i don't recommend shining it in your face when you do that... yesterday, i tried to take a photo of a bunch of toy skulls that we have acquired, but i wasn't happy with the result. here is just one of them:

First post!

So, we had a pretty bad blizzard yesterday - 40 cm (more than a foot) of snow!! It snowed all day long and at times I could barely make out the house across the street. I kept thinking, this is what it must be like when hell is freezing over. But today is a beautiful day! I went out and took some pictures. Meet Nora! You will be seeing a lot of her, she is my favorite subject. I've always been interested in photography, but I want to go beyond that and learn the basics of photography, taking photos and what you can do in post. I would appreciate any advice and suggestions. Currently, I am using a Sony DSC-H2.

labels

how to: make

this blog is for anything/everything you are making, have made, want to make. this includes, but isn't limited to:

• artsy/crafty: knitting, crochet, sewing, metal working, jewelry, clothing, drawing, painting, photography, card/print making
• tech: gadgets, electronics
• writing
• music
• cooking

you can also post about things that you've seen that you think are cool. you can copy things that other's have done.

how to: post

• for every post, please add a label with your login name (and any other labels you want), so that they will be accessible via the 'authors' links in the side bar
• there are categories along the side bar that we have already included---please label your posts appropriately if you want them to be found under the category links; also, if you'd like additional categories/sub-categories to be added, please let use know
• labels should be comma-delimited
• when you join, please feel free to write a introductory post to describe your goals, interests, and any other info you want. this is optional

about icky tandoori buns

welcome to icky tandoori buns! this is a place for us to document our creative ideas and projects. we are still setting up/organizing how we want the blog to work, so please bear with us. if you have comments or suggestions, let us know.

hello, world!

we (sukogirl, robinde, and cignoh) have created this blog as a place to post our creative projects, works in progress, ideas, and thoughts. the three of us participated in thing.a.day 2008 in february and really enjoyed it, so we wanted to continue to post and share our work... here are our thing.a.day posts:

• sukogirl
• robinde
• cignoh