finkoart.net Blog

Archive for the ‘design’ Category

I received my materials for the Stumptown40′s 2^nd Annual contest. The points of this contest are about creativity, functionality and mainly, have a great time with the product. I have not begun on this project yet but I have purple, blue and fins (or duck pillow feathers) in mind. I have to remember to keep the weight of my derby car under 5 ounces; otherwise, I will be disqualified from the contest. In addition, I cannot paint or have anything oil that will not dry before or at the time of the contest event. Below are photos of the materials…Good luck to me!

As the year draws near into the new year, I would like to mention how much I have accomplish this year. I had spent most my time outdoors — biking, yoga, meeting new people from social network sites, art groups from Meetup.com and sketching. There been times I did not feel like walking outdoors because I just felt sad at times cause of the protestors, homicides and technology heroes whom passed away. When I do participate in outdoor activities, these activities help me improve my creative process and charisma.

Other times, I have spent eighty percent of the time working full-time and staying indoors because of the cold temperatures. I keep hoping for rain until today, December 31, 2011 because I love the rain, fog and…hail (whenever that will occur). Within the last month I have practice duplicating my drawings from my sketch book to the canvas. For instance, this current black and white painting below is similar to the drawing on the right in pen.

I have used acrylic colors: Gesso – white and black for the background, black spray paint for speckles and TitaniumWhite. When I painted the flames in Titanium White, I have spent two days painting layers until it was thick and waited a week before adding gray and black flames for the background. I am in the process improving the “flames” so it will shape similar to the drawing. I am not in a hurry to complete the flames; I just want it to look there is shape for me to work into the dotting. I will do a series of these painting until I decide to make it colorful.

Besides the painting and outdoor fun activities, I finished the last few pages of my sketch book for the Sketchbook Project as well the cover of the booklet. I am happy that I accomplished more than five drawings comparing to last year’s SketchBook Project. Last year I focus on pen and pencil sketches of sea animals. This year I focused what I dreamed of being a kid again except the last image of my father which that will be part of my next sketch book project for 2013. Below are a few images of my work and I hope you like it.

Well it is time to end this blog of the year by wishing everyone, Happy New Year! Cheers.

When I am on my phone to check for email messages and read posts from social-network sites, I see something interesting in front of me that I want to take pictures. I used to carry a point and shoot camera most of the time to work and dinner with friends. I go home later to edit and post these photos onto a social-network site(s). I now have the ability to take photos as I go with my iPhone than to carry a 3 pound camera in my handbag. I have used the standard iPhone camera application to take photos and share with my friends; however, these photos are not indulging as I would edit the photos from graphic application like Photoshop and Coreal. Over a year, I have used this popular camera application called, Camera⁺ to take snapshots, edit and share with friends and family as I go. In addition, the Camera⁺ application gives me the ability to add borders, filters and text. Here are some of the pros and cons about the Camera⁺.

Camera⁺ has a unique user-ability so you are able to read and understand what each of these icons will perform before saving your photo. For instance, when you open the application from you phone, you will see your phone is ready to take a picture. At the bottom of the window, you will see the word, “MENU” on the right and photograph on the left. If you click “MENU”, it has options for you to set the sound, zoom and geotagging. The best thing about the “MENU” section is the quality. option. You can your photos optimized up to 1200 pixels or full resolution whenever you are ready to share or edit at a later time on your desktop computer.

Sharp, crisp, clean digital photos are important to graphic designers and photographers and it is tough to adapt the same visual on the phone application. With the Camera⁺ application, you can double-tap on your phone with two fingers and a second auto-focus lens will sharpened and adjust the lighting on that specific area. In addition, you can more the two auto-focus lens all the screen until you adjust the lighting by touching a dark area on the phone. You can also use flashlight or “spotlight” option to help enlighten your photos. You also have the option to stabilized or prevent shakiness on your phone while taking pictures.

I adore the special effects’ choices on the Camera⁺ application. You can use “scenes” to clarify or change the lighting on your photo. Along with these scenes, you can add FX effects for filteration such as sepia, so emo, vibrant or purple haze. If you want more effects, you will need to pay extra.

As I said earliar, I have used the application for a year but there are some down faults using the Camera ⁺. One, you have to make sure you have Wi-Fi connection or 3G network to send photos to email or social-network sites. If you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection or 3G network, you have to try to resend the photo at another time. To fix that, you need to change the quality settings to optimized and re-take the photo. Two, the border choices on the application are simple; however, you cannot change the thickness of a plain border from 1 pixel to 5 pixels. In addition, if you want to add text on the photo, the amount of characters is less than a hundred characters. I hardly use captions unless it is for a special event such as the baby shower I attend last month. Three, like other camera applications, you won’t be able to take good photos at night using the flash standing between 5 to 10 feet from the object. The photo will appear “cloudy”. To fix that, you can use scene, “clarify” to contrast the image. Last, the phone application is only available for the iPhone and it might be available for the iPad as well. It would be nice if the phone application was available for Android or any smartphone so everyone would experience good quality digital photos.

Camera ⁺ is reasonable price phone application for users who want to take and edit photos on the go. There may not be good camera applications for users to take a quick snapshot and edit photos quickly as the Camera⁺. I have used Camera⁺ for a year and the developers had done a superb job defining the clarity in the photos. I would recommend this photo application to any iPhone user if they want fair to good quality photos.

It has been a rough week learning about Steve Jobs’ death along with the shooting spree that happened in Cupertino on the same day. There were some things I did not know about Steve working for ATARI and designing computers like Hewitt-Packard. I used to think he was just a CEO with business or marketing background but no, I was mistaken. This man had a dream and I’m not relating to the common American dream — a car, house, high paying job and family…Of course, he had that but Steve Jobs had a vision developing computers and software applications that help communicate with people around the world. Every six months to a year, Steve had something new to attract consumers to buy and enjoy. Eventhough, Apple computers are(and were) expensive but hell they were worth the investment damaging it!

I don’t want to spend time writing a biography about the man (not a icon), Steve Jobs because a lot of the media nearly wrote a book about him. Even the news made a 5 minute documentary film. Anyway, I want to thank Steve Jobs for developing the first game for ATARI along with his collegues, PONG and other colorful 8-bit pixel arcade games. I did not grow up playing PONG, but I grew up addicted to colorful software programs available for Commodore 64: Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Print Shop (first graphic software program before MACROMEDIA, COREAL and ADOBE). Software programs was not the only addicting programs I grew up learning to achieve points and design 8-bit greeting cards, I even learned to write code and essays. There was not a word software program developed in the early 80s but you could just write text as you were using plain text document and input the word, PRINT. Life was easy back then except breaking keys on the keyboard. The keys were very sensetive, so if you break a key on the keyboard, the letter or number would not be functionable. I remembered my mother upset buying three Apple Commodore 64 keyboards until Commodore 64 were no longer available. I believe she paid sixty-four dollars. My family was Apple oriented with the All-in-One 64 RAM and MacBook until I was in college. I lost contact with Apple computers because they were one, expensive as owning a farm and two, I did not have time catching up programming in Object-C.

While I was in college, I owned my first Apple laptop — 12 inch PowerBook G4 (not the ugly white plastic lining) and I had it for two-three years. I was amazed by the beauty of Titanium and thickness of the laptop. I used my laptop for video editing, designing and developing websites for clients. The only thing I did not like about the Powerbook G4, it overheat and the sound of the fan would sound like a 2-cynlinder engine when I use graphic applications or watching a movie.

It was a tough decision between a DELL or Apple and it was worth it until the screen cracked after a quarrel with my boyfriend. The laptop was still functional after I threw it and the laptop landed on the linoleum floor…And I was in the middle of raiding on World of Warcraft with my old guild, Mixed Nutz! Again, nothing was not broken except for the cracked screen. This was the reason why Apple products such as the laptop and ipod Nano were good to investment. The average cost to replace the screen on the laptop two years ago, estimated four hundred dollars, and it is probably cost the same today. After three years owning the 12-inch PowerBook G4, I decided to sell it on eBay and purchased a used 15-inch Powerbook G4 along with Dell Inspirion (modified for performance), Apple Nano (2nd generation) and iPhone 3GS & 4G.

I am proud that I owned some these Apple products designed and introduced by Steve Jobs. In addition to breaking and forgetting that I leave was in washer and dryer with my clothes. That’s another story but I would not suggests to you, readers to not do the same! Thank you Steve Jobs for the wonderful years of developing better Apple computers today. Thank you, Steve Jobs. Thank you.

When I am in stress about a project or personal issue, I try to keep a clean mind by practicing yoga. Within the last week of September, I’ve practiced shortly after my back began to weaken and an addition to sharp pain on my right knee. I was told by my doctor and physical therapist that I need to walk daily including breaks. For a month and some weeks, I had ignored both doctor and therapist orders.

For seven days, I practiced yoga from this popular Apple application, All-in-Yoga containing programs for all levels, including beginners. The programs include step-by-step video instructions (option) on yoga positions, background music and an instructor. Most of the yoga positions for beginners that I have experienced such as the “Beginner Bala Yoga for Back and Abs (46 minutes)” are repeated but slightly longer in time to stretch out the aches. I had tried creating my custom program but the timing for each position is short – 10 seconds or less.

The main thing I like about this application is the design and user-ability. The background image of the purple hazed wooden background gives a warm welcome to the audience along with the background off-white color for the content. The menu choices are easy to touch and input information about yourself.

After a week of walking, minor jogging at my pace, and sketching, my back and right knee has improve; though, twist my body like a pretzel like yoga gurus. I am hoping to advance my ability to immediate level after two months as a beginner. Whatever it takes to reduce the pain and cracking noise, I’m all in for fitness and better health. If you are into yoga or just want to stretch out ideals, checkout the application on Apple.com. Happy painting!