Some cool bugs arrived in the mail recently. I have decided that I really like drawing "nature stuff" tho' I have no plans for how I shall exploit it for profit.

This morning I thought, "gee, wouldn't it be fun to render the bugs in powerpoint." But when I arrived at the computer station, the mac was on and the pc was off. Powerpoint is currently on the pc, but not the mac. I decided that I was too lazy to bend down and turn on the pc (besides, that monster takes a good 15 minutes to warm up) but wouldn't it be fun to try Illustrator.

I hate to date myself, but the last time I tried Illustrator, I think it was version 2 (my old mac has 7, but its well beyond that now). To be honest, I remember nothing of that encounter except the irritating "vector-based drawing" (which is really great if you are working for John Deere and you have to render every single rivet in the UltraMan Thresher, or something like that). I figured I'd find the ellipse-drawing tool and go from there.

It wasn't nearly as easy to pick up as I hoped. Boeuyed by my recent conquest of Powerpoint (yeah, I know, nothing to brag about) I started by opening a new file. Then everything halted. The ellipse tool was gone. I couldn't find it anywhere. Eventually I put on my computer-teacher hat, and it materialized, not surprisingly, in the tool menu. The sad thing is, I could do a better beetle in powerpoint. i am humbled by my ignorance.

Myriorama

myriorama, originally uploaded by camille94019.

One of the coolest things I have found so far on Swap-bot is directions on how to make myriorama cards.

That is all I can say right now. Its too sunny to write.

::

The sun has finally gone down and now I can sit in my darkened room and not feel like I am missing out on a perfect Flip Flop day. The above is my version of the "landscape" myriorama. The parameters for this were very narrow. The size, the template and even the colors were prescribed. I hadn't worked within such narrow confines since (gasp!) art school (although, since then, there have been plenty of perfectly lame illustration jobs I have turned down).

The Power is all Mine

The small size was delightful, too. I tend to work small, mostly because I have a small work area, but I am intrigued by the idea of tiny worlds. I had a moment of being god to a very flat, insignificant world. I get intimidated easily, and the calm waters and grassy knolls presented very safe vistas for controlled, miniature frolicking. One of the reasons I have slacked off on the Submarine comic is that the world was getting so complicated and there were so many characters (five, but that is a lot of permutations!). Of course, any excuse is lame (especially now that I am looking at it in stark courier).