Following on from the recent post about our friend Blue’s recent adventures with creative mark making, it reminded me of the fantastic unique artwork created by the equally fantastic and unique Torben Ulrich:

T.U.’s work with ball, rope, racquet, and rice paper has its beginnings in 1971, when the Lions Club of Copenhagen asked a variety of politicians, actors, writers and others to make “a blue elephant” for a charity exhibit to benefit a senior center in Denmark.

Today, using primarily skipping rope and tennis racquet and ball, T.U. makes imprints with ink and / or acrylic on rice paper. First, with the rice paper on the ground, weighted down, he skips an inked rope onto the rice paper. When dry, the paper is then posted or held against a wall and an inked ball is played / volleyed onto it. Later, a text may be added.

T.U. tends to call these works “rice papers”. Some are photographed and go into the computer, where the colors or textures are sampled or played with further.

• Paintings by Torben Ulrich.
• Torben Ulrich.com – home to all of his other creations, including music, film and writing.
• Apparently his son is quite a creative type too.

I got my Sheaffer Saratoga Snorkel fixed today – w00t.

I did this pic to thank the people at The Fountain Pen Network for all of their help, and Ian at Cathedral Pens for getting the parts I needed to me quickly.

Now it’s working, it’s a lovely pen. Writes very nicely – the best of all the pens I’ve got (and that’s quite a few), and filling it is actually fun.

Not bad as a water pistol, either

UPDATE – Added Blue’s latest mark making experiments. Simply beautiful.

Our groovy spiritual friend Blue is playing with paints again and indulging in the best form of creativity – getting out there and enjoying nature’s own art materials. See the interesting results of painting with coarse grass, leylandii, pine needles and a simple dry stick. Blue says:

Anything can become a brush. A hand, a stick, a rock, twigs, leaves, grass…I have had no more direct painting experience than this…to pick a fist full of grass, to dip it thoroughly into a dish of my favourite green gold watercolour, and to make a simple one stroke painting. Here are a pair of one-strokes. Painted out in the open, in a free and wild painting session, exploring my basic instinct to paint, to make marks on paper. I found myself loving this new process, liberated from brushes.

So great to see you painting again, Blue!

Alllrighty then… it’s time for me to have a squee… stand back, this could get messy.

That little Zep fella has had more than his fair share of squee thrown at him. To celebrate me finally getting my hands on a copy of Ain’t Life Grand, and just because it’s high time he had some more, it time for me to squee over the man that personifies everything that’s cool, sexy and downright fantastic about rock and effin roll. Yep, it’s his turn.

Slash! You half Brit hard rocking mound of loveliness… , everything about you is just perfect. You’re still the ultimate rock star. OMG! You are teh hottest! The greatest thing to happen to Stoke-on-Trent since the oatcake.

Oooo! Loookit that divine leather-clad bee-hind! Even he can’t leave it alone!

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

(did I do good WOTW?)

Pentrace have a useful article about the basics of nibs.

• You can also view the most recent photography-related posts, like a blog.

Learning

• The Rule of Thirds: One of the most basic rules for composition, but worth remembering, and sometimes worth breaking.
• Jodie Coston’s Online Photography Course on morgueFile is excellent, right from the very first bit of advice: “Get in close. No, closer. Nope, still closer. There! You’ve got it!”.
• CameraHobby: A useful ebook, covering a number of areas of photography. Aimed mainly at beginners. The style is more friendly than professional, but I quite like that, and it feels like it’s being done in the spirit of sharing whilst learning, and being improved all the time. (Found via Lifehacker.)

Specific Situations

• Party Photography: Lots of people do it. Badly, usually. The problem is that a party is actually a very difficult thing to photograph. Also covers photographing fireworks, which are a bit easier than people usually expect.

Lighting and Flash

I’ve never really got into using lighting to any great extent. I don’t usually even bother with a reflector, though I do have one now.

• Strobist’s Lighting 101: an excellent resource on lighting – enough information to be useful even if you already do know a bit about it, but all taken steadily enough to be useful to those who have very little idea. I’m learning a lot from this site, though there’s a limit to how much of it I can use with my little Ixus

Tools and Toys

• Canon: I like Canons. I have a Canon, so I’m slightly biased here, but they make some of the best cameras around – they’re not cheap, but they’re worth the money.
• Panasonic: I have a general rule with cameras: Never buy a digital camera from someone who never made film cameras. I might be willing to make an exception for Panasonic, but they seem to just miss the mark slightly every time. I still have high hopes for them, though, and if the little flaw in one of their cameras doesn’t affect you, they might be ideal.

• Sony: Only the Cybershot DSC-H2 so far.

• Digital Camera Batteries: A bit of info about the things that power all these flashy (heh) cameras.

Projects

Gear Projects

Making or modifying your gear…

• Photography Hacks: Photo Tricks for the Lifehacker types.

Photo Projects

• Transparant Screen Illusion: Make your screen look clear. Looks great if you can get the angles and zoom just right.

Post-photo Projects

• Post-Photo Projects: On a page of their own, now. Lucky them.

Inspiration

• Creativity Out There: Getting creative out and about, including some photography ideas.
• Staten Island Boat Graveyard: Some wonderful pics if you’re like me and love shots of rust and decay.
• Flickr is a great place to get some inspiration. Yes, there’s a whole lot of snapshots and some awful stuff, but there’s also some really great photographers sharing their best there. Pick through, and you’ll find some fantastic work.

Sharing

• Sharing Creativity Online: Especially Flickr for sharing photography.

Going Pro

• How to Make Money from Micro Stock Photography, from DIYPhotography.net – an interesting article. I might even have to have a go at submitting some of my better shots.

Related

• The photography section in People.

One problem with getting into fountain pens as much as I have recently (and I really have) – my handwriting is awful.

I could do with improving it, and it could make a good article here too. A few resources to bookmark for now…

• Penmanship on Wikipedia: not much of an article, but some useful links.
• Handwriting Styles on DrawYourWorld: includes links to some nice little diagrams on forming letters. This one is very good, but a ‘z’ with a descender? How does a ‘z’ have a descender?
• Handwriting Tips form Paperpenalia: more about the background – holding a pen, and which muscles to use – but useful stuff.
• The Penmanship Forum on The Fountain Pen Network: good discussions from helpful people.

Some nice unusual doodles posted in the Fountain Pen Network. They strike me as a little bit Yellow Submarine in style, somehow.

Waking up this morning after yet another week of feeling like utter shite, I came to the realisation that maybe it’s time to do some work on my mental health and emotional well-being. Immaculately timed as ever, Chris Brogan linked to a blog I hadn’t seen before called The Happiness Project in which Gretchen is spending the year exploring all the theories and studies that supposedly affect our happiness and is reporting on her findings. As she does this she’s uncovering loads of great tips and tricks that’s getting me thinking about things I can do to pull myself out of this latest angsty rut of mine.

Here are a few of Gretchen’s tips on keeping your house in order:

– know where to give things away: books, clothes, kitchenware, toys. It’s much easier to get rid of things if you can imagine who will benefit. Figure this out before you start a major clutter-clearing effort.

– never accept anything for free, unless you’re thrilled with it. A mug, a tote bag, a hand-me-down toy, the lamp from your mother-in-law–if you don’t need it, don’t take it.

– don’t let yourself run out of necessities like envelopes, tape, toothpaste, stamps, Band-aids, batteries, and the like. If you hate to shop, buy large quantities and stockpile them.

– never allow a drawer or a closet to get so full that it’s hard to open and shut.

– get rid of things that don’t work. If you’re like me, you’ll be amazed at how many things you have around the house that are perfectly useless.

Also, check out these great posts:

• The “negativity bias,” or, bad feelings are stronger than good – this one really got me. Why do bad feelings always hit harder than the good ones?

• Do you hoard your new underwear? – about acquiring new possessions and then saving them. If I buy something, I normally can’t wait to get it home and use it/wear it/eat it/etc, but my mum always used to say “why don’t you save it?”. Something I have never understood. If you have it, enjoy it!

• Tips for cheering yourself up–from 1820 – some marvellous advice from a letter written in 1820 which reads like a Victorian version of Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen

Thanks to Gretchen for creating this blog, and thanks once again to Chris for sticking it on my radar. I think it’s going to be a big help.

Things I have loved this week:

• Michael
• Talking on the phone to the lovely LadyMercury
• Flavia Rich Roast coffee

Things I haven’t loved this week:

* Yet another crappy temp job – have all the good companies stopped having temps?

Bah. Still…

Things I am about to love this week:

• Three day weekend
• Michael being my slave for the weekend (when he can be yoinked off eBay, of course)
• Sleeping in
• Drinking copious amounts of tea