This vision: a marine habitat, one containing seaweed (kelp), a protozoan and a whale. The community is vulnerable, however, and being damaged by the toxic wastes emanating from a large, yellow chemical flask, containing a corrosive looking pea-green f...

Art Exhibition Review This Soft-Spoken Artist Shouts Through Her Art There has been substantial controversy in recent decades over the popular view that mental illness and creativity go hand in hand. Research shows that the two are not linked in inevitable lock-step. Nevertheless, Gloria Swain (pictured left), who speaks openly about her struggle with mental […]

Close-up food looks really big… Daily create #633 is to “Create a video that takes a close look at the food you eat.” Maybe my selection is a bit biased. Show all the healthy stuff and hide the guilty pleasures? Well it’s my daily create, isn’t it? The several little clips in this video were […]

A map with alternatives… The most recent daily create (#632) suggested drawing “a map that shows alternate paths from here to there.” The ‘here’ and the ‘there’ presumably are of one’s own choosing, so I set out to plot just a few of the various ways for anyone to become an image creator. In addition, […]

Find design approaches… Although the ds106 assignment for week 6 suggested taking photographs of a number of design styles, in typical ds106 fashion I decide to change the assignment. Instead, I used a vector drawing program (DrawPlus X6 from Serif) to create my own designs exemplifying seven of the suggested approaches. You can see them […]

A dozen anything… Today’s daily create asked for a photo of a dozen anything. I contemplated making a picture of a dozen empty holes in an egg carton. That would be a dozen nothings, but eventually it proved unnecessary to sink that far. On an afternoon walk, my wife and I passed a toy store […]

A monkey’s uncle?… Today’s daily create (#629) is: “Create a photo that compares the details in the palm of your hand with someone else’s – bonus points if you can ask someone that you do not know to be in your photo.” I think I win the bonus points for getting a monkey and nineteenth […]

A dozen photos in one spot… The photoblitz assignment was quite a new experience. The most challenging aspect for me personally was photographing continuously for 15 minutes in a public place. My habit in public areas has been to snap and wander on, as I have found that anyone who appears to be doing anything […]

A photo with a center of interest… This daily create (#627) called for making a photo with a central point of interest. I found this contemporary, motorized barber pole interesting because of the long history of this symbol, with a continuity of hundreds of years. Photo taken with an iPhone and post-processed with Filterstorm (for […]

A timelapse video transformation… Daily Create tdc626: “Make a time lapse video that shows a transformation.” This scene is from a bedroom window in Toronto and covers the time span from about 6:55 pm to 7:45 pm. The published time of sunset today was 7:09 pm. Over 1800 stills were taken by an iPhone running […]

Lampshade from space… Visual Assignment #107: “Take a picture of a common ever day object and manipulate the colors.” The photo was taken on an iPhone and post-processed using Filterstorm (tone mapping) and PhotoStudio (Hollywood FX, Predator Vision filter).

New from Mala Vyska Raion… Visual Assignment #44: “So here’s something fun for everyone to do, should be quick and easy, but try to make it pretty. First, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The title of the article is now the name of your band. Next, go here: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 Go to the bottom of the page. The […]

Take apples and make lemonade… Visual Assignment #308: “Take a famous painting or print and do your best to recreate it in real life. Capture it in a photo and present the two in a blog post.” Photographed with an iPhone. The original is a still life by Picasso: Most of the props were handy, […]

Lid of the almond jar… Visual Assignment #340: “Color splash is a technique to emphasize details- you remove all color from a photo, and then restore original color to a single object, e.g. a green apple on a table. Think of the Girl in the red dress from Schindler’s List. You can do this in […]

My secret wish… Assignment #804: “Write on a “post-it” (haha, get it. “Post” secret.) your biggest dream in life. What are you going to school to accomplish? Who would you like to meet? What is your dream job? Whatever it is, it shouldn’t be a “secret”! Tell the whole internet world! After you take the […]

A computer program to tell a story… Daily create #623 – here’s the code: And here’s the story (way down the page, after the yellow blocks): A Family Expedition Today Dave, Norma, James, Dawn, Hunter, Maggie and Pogo went for a walk in the woods They walked some more, saw some trees, saw some more […]

I am ds106 Here’s daily create #622: This was done with Sketchbook Pro and Pinnacle Studio on an iPad.

A path that leads the eye… This iPhone photo shared a problem with many others, too great a dynamic range, with some areas well exposed, some underexposed and some overexposed. My goto app for solving this problem is Filterstorm – I use its tone mapping feature to brighten the dark areas and darken the bright […]

A sound effect story… entitled ‘The Banana Peel.’ Here’s the link to the story on SoundCloud: I had worked with sound files before, mostly when dealing with the soundtrack on videos. So I had been doing a bit of editing – things like splitting a track, cutting out bits and throwing them away, and moving […]

Photo of a grid, off the grid… Yes, this tiled hot pot stand is completely unplugged. Photo for the ds106 daily create taken with an iPhone. Just cropped and with no additional post-processing.

The tai-chi instructor guides with hands… in order to communicate. A still from a short video taken with an iPhone and post-processed with Snapseed.

After the old radio show, Tales From the Crypt: Here’s the sound clip on SoundCloud: The creaking door was recorded with an iPhone, as was the voice-over. Reverb was added to the voice using Audacity, and the clanging door is a fragment ‘overheard’ on the internet. The layered file was produced using Audacity. The accompanying […]

What’s my philosophy?… I have never really been able to get my head around the province of academic philosophers… a seemingly huge realm of ideas, theories, arguments. So here’s my own personal definition, short and sweet, 30 seconds or less: This daily create was supposed to be audio only. But I’m such a visual person, […]

The birth announcement… This daily create was to write a birth announcement for a new Panda cub. Here’s mine: New Arrival in The Bamboo Grove Black and white and cute all over! Mom eats shoots and leaves. Actually, the second line was an afterthought. Wish I’d thought of it the first time.

A photo expressing clarity… The create challenge for the day was to take a photograph expressing clarity. Mine was taken in a restaurant with an iPhone, then cropped and brightened up with PhotoStudio.

Some thoughts on the essence of story… …in handwritten notes. Jack and Jill went up the hill [1] To fetch a pail of water. [2] Jack fell down and broke his crown, [3] And Jill came tumbling after. [4] Up Jack got and home did trot, [5] As fast as he could caper; [6] And […]

A coffee topper… This spherical top for a coffee flask was snapped in Starbucks with an iPhone. PhotoStudio was subsequently used to crop the image and apply a high-contrast, black&white filter. For DS106, daily create tdc611 – an everyday object that may frequently be overlooked.

Always wanted to do this… This was a daily create challenge for last week (Sept 6) – create a movie trailer for your blog (tdc607). It sounded like a lot of fun and I started thinking about ways and means right away. Unfortunately, as is often the case, other things intervened. By the time I […]

Here’s a perspective on perspective… For daily create #606 we were asked to draw our perspective on perspective. Mine was done using SketchBook Mobile on the iPad. The title refers to my process. I started with a simple drawing with single-point perspective. I then added a second copy, rotated, to the scene. Now I had […]

No head for chaos… When the world gets crazy, it’s time to get serene between the ears. Go headless! Replace your head with a sky full of blue, soft hazy clouds and birds soaring on the wind. A twofer’… tdc604 and tdc605 combined. This one was done with Sketchbook Mobile on the iPhone. The background […]