If you want people to value your opinion, don’t be so eager to offer it.
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Category: Create
I built this bench to go with our Rustic Farmhouse Table. Since building it, it’s been a great addition to the table. In addition to the “look” we were going for, it’s really useful when we have a houseful of children and need to cram a bunch of them around the table.
Inspired by the DIY farmhouse table design by Ana White, I decided to try this project out. It’s a great project for an ambitious beginner and because it’s a “rustic” design, it’s a pretty forgiving project.
(P.s. If you like this post, check out my Rustic Farmhouse Bed)
I’m writing this post on a pad of notebook paper. I haven’t done that in a long time, but there’s a reason for it. Recently I was waxing eloquently on my WordPress dashboard. I was in the zone and it was pure genius. The poetry of prose flowed and my mind glowed. And then, in an instant (you of course guessed it), it was gone. I hadn’t saved a draft periodically. An amateur mistake. And I know you know the feeling; like a deflated balloon.
I’ve been meaning to get a couple Excel tutorials up here since I’ve been getting so many questions about how to manipulate and analyze data in Excel. Here are two videos that review using filters and pivot tables in Excel 2010.
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“Morking”
For the creative professional, whether the entrepreneur, designer, craftsman or artist, working is all about making. When we go to work, we are going to make something useful, powerful, provoking, beautiful. Making and working… we’re morking.
Customer service reps, accountants and doctors don’t mork. They just work. And we need them working. Things don’t get serviced, paid or healed without them.
But it’s the morkers that are additive and create value. Making something from nothing. Morking turns an idea into a transmission, a thought into a painting or a hypothesis into a vaccination.
Solving the customer’s latest problem certainly pays a wage. But creating the customer’s new paradigm changes the world.
There’s poetry in running. Not the oft spoken “runner’s high.” No, the poetry is in the moment, the sense of place and being that I inhabit on the road, in neighborhoods, in lonely and in-between spaces, through city blocks and along the trail.
It’s in the intimacy of quiet neighborhoods in midday when everyone is at work.
It’s in the intensity of training, with an eye on the goal and a resolve to press on.
It’s in the awakening and the unfolding energy of the early morning city. Over whitewashed sidewalks, by stirring shops awakening, dodging, unloading of trucks, unfurling of cafe tables and chairs, Running beside beginnings.
It’s in the solitude of the open road through those uninhabited, in-between spaces, between neighborhoods, along country roads, outside of the city. I catch a glimpse of that which is still wild, uncultivated and am aware of breathing, rhythm, motion.
It’s in the company of partners, come together, encouraging and competing, all bound up in the strange tension of companionship. Talking, breathing, silence, measuring.
It’s in the brooding aloneness, yet not loneliness, of a familiar path as the spring storms approach. When sensible people are inside, warm and dry.
It’s in the hot & humid night air, like sediment swirling around the track lights. Past the evening walkers. Speed, rest, Faster again. And again. And even the water is warm.
It’s in the crunch of snow underfoot, glistening, like little prisms whispering some hidden secret. Quiet and cold. Each breath visible, although numb. Pressing forward for some prize that exists only in my mind.
There it is again. It’s presence, rhythm, cadence, flow. Of breathing, of strides, of sounds and sight. There is a place there, just in front, yet out of reach, but in plain sight. I focus on it and am drawn toward it, always just a few strides away. Always moving. Aware of everything, yet focused. Moving always forward towards an inevitable end.
Convert CMYK to Pantone Colors
Once again, I’ve made another newbie mistake. When putting together color combinations for our second round of screen printing, I picked my colors using the basic CMYK palette in Adobe Illustrator. I tried to be extra careful this time by sending both the CMYK values and the Hexidecimal codes for the colors so I touched all bases. But when I sent the artwork and colors to the printer, I got back the e-mail… “thanks, but can you send the PMS #s?”
PMS #s?? What’s that?
Well after an hour or so on-line figuring out what PMS#s are and trying to figure out how to convert my CMYK colors to PMS, I wanted to share 2 quick tips to help you deal with this and get close.
First… there’s no perfect match between custom colors and PMS. If there is, then it’s coincidental that you picked just the right color combination. And there’s no whiz-bang app that will somehow magically do it for you. But there are a couple helpful things that you can do to keep from having to wade through more than 1,400 swatches (and multiple variations based on the print medium).
Tip #1: A Helpful Website
http://www.netfront.fr/Services/rgb2pantone/
There’s a helpful website that will at least get you in the ball park. Bookmark this site and then enter either the RGB numbers or the Hexidecimal #s and submit your query. This will give you a range of colors that are close. That’s a big time saver there. This is no substitute for getting color cards or designing using the Pantone palette in the first place, but if you’re in a tough spot, this can help.
Note: If you know the CMYK numbers but not the others, just open the color picker in a program like Photoshop or Gimp, plug the CMYK numbers in to get the color and equivalent Hexidecimal and RGB numbers.
Tip #2: Recolor Artwork in Illustrator
Use Illustrator to automatically re-color your artwork. Before you pull up a Pantone Color Book and spend an hour or more hunting & pecking around for the right color match, use the really helpful “recolor artwork” tool in Adobe Illustrator.
Here’s how it works (see the video for a quick 4 minute example):
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=P5gnRqz1TB0
The Steps
I created a 2 inch square swatch in Illustrator using the CMYK color numbers from my original artwork in Photoshop. Then I created a duplicate swatch to change that I can overlay on the original to see how close it gets.
From the Edit menu, select Edit Colors, then Recolor Artwork.
Illustrator will give you a dialogue box with a lot of different options.
Select the small icon (the one that looks like 6 small squares) to select which Color Book (there are lots of options here) you would like to use to recolor your artwork. In my example, I use the Pantone Solid Coated color book.
Then select ok and Illustrator will automatically recolor the artwork making as close a match as possible. You will see the Pantone color name/number in the swatches palette. Place your swatches next to each other or overlap them to see how close you are.
Now, go back to your original artwork and start changing colors.
I just watched it… wow, that was cool. And it’s as if we’re on the verge of it right now. The YouTube spot is a little long at 5:32, but hey, it’s a day right? Who would’ve thought something this neat came from a glass manufacturer? Watch for the moving pictures @ 0:56 (you’ll see them again later). @ 2:04, “I want that car!” And I’m especially loving Mr. Metro at 2:56. Why can’t I look cool like that? Enjoy tomorrow today.
Now I’m just waiting for the sequel from the company that’s creating the operating system…
Just finished my first wedding video ever. The actual service was pretty long, and is going onto a DVD, but I put together this highlights video that I thought turned out pretty nice. I’m going for “emotional but not cheesy” and hopefully I did ok on that. Yes, I know there’s some slo-mo, but I took a somewhat classical approach to the music in order to make up for that. Finished this up late last night. It’s amazing what a decent musical score can do with very average video footage!
I’m so glad that both the wedding service itself and the highlights video turned out ok. Since this was the first time I’ve done a wedding, I had that sinking feeling the whole time that I was getting the wrong angles, the lighting was bad, the audio wasn’t picking up, my footage was too jerky… all that stuff. And honestly, the footage wasn’t that great – there’s quite a few things I’ll do different next time – but all in all with some helpful post production filters in FCP, I am hopeful it will be a nice heirloom for Carmen & Charles. Congratulations to the two of you. God bless.
Music (once again) came from my Stock 20 music library. This is such a great library of stock music and I’d recommend it to anyone out there. I did all the editing work on this one in Final Cut Pro with extensive use of the ProcAmp filter!