Odosketch

New favorite website! Not that I really had a specific favorite before, but I think I have one now: sketch.odopod.com This site is SO much fun. You just sit there and sketch… whatever the hell you want. The canvas is your browser window (Want a smaller size? Shrink the window!), the brush your mouse or trackpad. Or in my case, this site made me bust out my Wacom Intuos Tablet and play for a few hours. :P

Things I love about this site, is the textured background. It has that grainy paper feel that just gives it that little bit of realism rather than the obviously generated, perfectly white computer screen you get most of the time. Another thing I love, is the texture of the colors. I can’t decide if it’s like marker or like chalk. But the properties of the utensil (whatever it’s supposed to be) are very intuitive, with slower motion bringing it to a smaller point for detail work, and the fattest width when you scribble quickly. The other thing I love is the limited palette. Whoever made the color choice, made it very interesting. The colors aren’t loud or vivid and they all work very well together. It gives every users work just a little bit of professionalism because it takes away any garishly bright colors your average 14 year old would first pick.

Overall, I love the Indie feel of this site. I just don’t know what it is about it other than the above mentioned that makes it so homey. Great job Odosketch creators! Check out my sketches!

Chicago Again & Contemporary Art

I’ve been lagging again on posting. But! I’ve been absorbed with life so I consider that a better use of my time, really. Haha! But to play a little catch-up now, here’s a bit about my trip to Chicago two weeks ago with the art department.

It was the usual trip to The Art Institute of Chicago, which in the past 2-3 years I’ve been to at least half a dozen times. I have the layout of the museum memorized for the most part. I feel like I could give tours and even speak on a few art pieces I know well. Nevertheless, it was a whole new experience for me this time because I had not seen the new, recently completed Modern Wing. Which was awesome. A whole new wing to explore, and whole new collections of recent art of this century to see, and current artists.

One current artist being Cy Twombly. First thing, how awesome is that name? It’s just so fun to say! Cy Twombly. Hehehe! There was also a photography exhibit under works, an audio/visual room for movies and sound pieces. Plus the architecture was just stunning. I highly recommend checking it out if you ever go to Chicago.

Anywho, the other stop on the art department Chicago trips is the Museum of Contemporary Art, a straight shot down Michigan Avenue from the AIC, next to Water Tower Place. We went specifically to see an exhibit that was leaving soon. The main exhibit was by artist Olafur Eliasson.

Olafur Eliasson is from Copenhagen, Denmark and is a very contemporary artist and deals with interactivity with the viewer, one of my favorite things in art. This guy makes you think about his art, without needing much explanation. I was struck with the simplistic beauty of his pieces, but then wondered at the complexity of making them. It was completely spectacular.

One piece, above left, is one of my favorite, a 360º Room of Color. It was a bare, round room, with slowly changing colors of light. It was another sabotage to my eyes, especially from blue to red, or pink to green. But again, it was so beautiful I wanted to stay. Even within the plain circular area, there were different ways to view this. You could stand in the middle and watch other people, and see the changes of color and their faces and follow the rotating colors around the room. Or, you could step in closely to a wall, and erase all trace of people so your vision was filled with pure color. Both were like entering a new world and took time to adjust to.

My other favorite piece, not pictured, is called Room for One Color where the hall of the Museum for Contemporary Art was bathed completely in yellow light. I loved the shock to your eyes as all colors left your vision and they strained to cope. And I loved that as my eyed adjusted while walking down the hall, I began to see that people in the hall looked monotone, yellow and greyscale. It was like looking at a beautiful photograph. I lingered for a while to look at my own clothing composition in greyscale, though I was originally trying to get out of the room as soon as possible to rest my eyes.

The name of Olafur Eliasson’s exhibit is Take Your Time. Basically a request from the artist to slow down and examine the different possibilities of the art around you. And I certainly took my time. I admittedly rushed a bit, but I went around the gallery two or three times, marveling more and more with the many new discoveries that kept coming out of such simple installations. Olafur Elisson is definitely a new favorite artist of mine.

Favorite RSS Feeds

Really Simple Syndication or RSS Feeds! Do you use them? I certainly do. And though, I don’t always keep up with them since I have over 60 total feeds, they do provide a great procrastination tool when I do decide to read them all. Some are just for fun, others are to keep up on the world, and some are just to admire. Either way, here are my favorite feeds out of each of my category folders.

(By the way, I use Google Reader to get my feeds. If you have a gmail account or use Google Calendars, Google Docs, etc. you can set up Google Reader as well. I reccommend it if you don’t already have a feed reader.)

Friends

ErrorInSyntax.com – Blog site of my good friend, Nick. A little outdated right now, but if/when he updates it, the design is mine.

MikeRapin.com – Another friend of mine who is all over the internet. Seriously, just insert “mikerapin” into any social networking URL and you’ll find this dude.

Robrogan.com – This guy is in Barcelona right now, so if you’re taking Spanish or interested in culture or travel, watch this blog. And he’s also a friend of mine from college as the above two are.

WilChow.com – The power of the internet, more specifically Twitter, where I met this cool guy. We like to geek around about photography and webdesign n’ stuff. Both interests show in his website, so check it out!

Comics

Kawaii Not – Ultra cute, buu not so innocent comics.

Post Secret – Who doesn’t want to read someone else’s dirty secrets?

Questionable Content – This is a very popular webcomic. Needless to say, it’s popular for very good reasons. I only started reading it less than a year ago, but the few panels I read made me like it enough to go read the first 3 years of content in two weeks. There’s even a store that sells t-shirts that the characters have worn. Go read it!

The Bunny Comic – A hilariously random comic out of the UK sometimes with some sneaky social commentary. I’ve been reading this comic since 2004 if that says anything.

Art & Design

Brand New – Brand redesigns. If you’re into logo design, definitely follow this one. They give the before and after for many large corporate logo redesigns and the plus and minus on each.

Packagings of the World – Exactly what it says, package designs! Great practical use of graphic design as seem on the actual products. Some are so juicy, it really makes me want it until I realize it’s shampoo from Denmark.

Yanko Design – Really awesome and futuristic designs for practical products. Unfortunately, they are only concepts, but these are so awesome you wish some were real.

Photography

Amy Carroll Photography – A great wedding photographer that I admire, right out of Grand Rapids! She also does engagement and family portraits, and gets great wide eyed and sparkly shots out of kids that are just fantastic.

James Rubio Photography – Holy shit. Talk about gorgeous wedding photography. The sheer talent of this guy’s photos and the lighting has me drooling. Not to mention they’re all in Hawaii. Really makes me wanna get hitched in Hawaii and hire this guy. Anyone wanna elope for lulz? (Just kidding, seriously.)

The Big Picture – Amazing and gorgeous photographs of current worldwide events. Often time shocking things they don’t show in mainstream news.

Tech/Other

The Next Web – Really cool relevant articles on everything new on today’s web.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog – To catch up on all your Apple product needs, updates, and rumors.

WebUrbanist – I can’t really describe this too well other than it’s collections of really cool stuff.

My Favorite Painting

“What is your favorite painting?”

I was asked this by sleepingpoet on Twitter today and I immediately knew what I was going to respond with and I thought it would make a good blog post.

Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877 by Gustave Caillebotte

I don’t know why I love this painting so much. It just seemed to strike the right chords in me and I fell in love with it right away. I had never seen it before, and mind you, this painting is approxamately 7ft tall and 9ft wide mounted on a single wall in the middle of a vaulted room in The Art Institute of Chicago with a glass ceiling. I came at it from the wrong side, but when I turned around and saw this giant painting in the impressionism wing, I literally gasped and stood there with my jaw open.

It was probably pretty funny, but I loved it for some reason. I soaked up as much info as I could about it form the tour guide and the facts about this are just so interesting! What I remember most, is this painting was made only about four years after the invention of the umbrella so they were all very fashionable at the time. Also, this is at some famous five-street intersection in Paris which still exists today, but if you look in the background of the painting, partially obscured by fog is scaffolding because at these time these buildings are still being built. It’s just amazing the amount of history Caillebotte captured in this painting.

Me and my parents reflected in Could Gate, a.k.a. "The Bean" on a rainy day in Chicago, April 2008.