I'm Seeing A Pattern

Before I was ever introduced to photoshop, I used the aged classic paintbrush. In high school I had a typing class every day for an hour and a half. Each student got his or her own computer and would have to finish their typing assignment for the day before class finished. I was already a great typist and would be done in ten or twenty minutes. So I came to spend the rest of the day playing solitaire or doodling on paint brush. I became really fascinated with patterns and intricate designs. At some point I made this one:

Paintbrush doesn't have any sort of blend or blur tool, but I realized (accidentally) that if you saved a picture in jpeg format it would reduce the quality somewhat and give you this effect. In this case it worked out pretty well. Anyway I would create the initial pattern and use cut and paste to fill the frame with it.

The Original

So my very first post featured the image that I use for my City Noir logo. As I was going through my files I found this one. This is my first attempt at mixing images found on the net to make one picture. This one is different from the image in my first post in that I wasn't trying to make it look realistic, I was going for a patchwork look, plus it was a concept for a college ministry website that never was used so I didn't put much time into it. But its interesting anyway.

Real Estate Project

Last Semester I had a project with 3 other classmates where we had to design and develop an office tower to owner specifications. Among other things, I was responsible for creating our sketch/rendering of the building. Once again, I used photoshop. The project specs called for a waterfall (unrealistic, but still part of the project), and several other features. There are 3 iterations with the last one being the final result that was used in the presentation.

Lake Time

Over the long weekend I was lucky enough to go to the lake with my beautiful wife, family, cousin, and friends. Even though there is less to do at the lake during the winter I still love to go and make fires in the fireplace. I've gotten really good at it (compared to a few years ago when I first tried to make a fire in the fireplace) Something about a fire reaches most of us at a fundamental level. My wife, Catherine, and I would find ourselves sitting and staring at the fireplace for long stretches of time, better entertainment than TV I guess. There is something comforting and basically good about a real wood fire. Anyway here is a picture of the fireplace from last weekend.

T-Shirt No. 1

So I just want to say thank you to everyone for checking out my blog! I really appreciate all the posts and visits and encouragement :) Thanks!
Well for the past two years I've made t-shirts using, you guessed it: photoshop, and iron on transfers. The t-shirts were gifts for my little bro Eric and they are inside jokes which I wont explain. However, I thought it would be interesting to post them and do a little contest. So here are the rules: look at the image and come up with a short story or explanation for it. Every week or so I'll judge the entries and declare a winner. Winner gets a featurette post about them or their website/blog. Or if they don't want that then I'll come up with something different! Lastly, if you have direct knowledge of the inside joke, ie. you're my little bro, then you cant play; sorry. Alright, here goes:

That Library Smell

I'm reading Hamlet for my lit class right now and I'm actually really enjoying it. However my text book still hasn't come in yet so I paid a visit to the Georgia Tech library. I love that place! It's filled with books from the 20s, 30s, 40s and up, maybe even earlier than that I think. Any way, one of the things I love to do is pick up really old books that look like they havent left the shelf in ages and turn to the library card insert. They stopped using these a while ago at Tech, now they use barcodes. But most of the old books till have the card in them. It's amazing to see whats in them, entries from 1946 or names of people who are old and have lived lives that make the world what it is today. Here is a picture of what i found in the back of my book.

UPDATE!: Sadly, this picture is lost. :(

The card is some random chemistry book in German (in Hamlet, go figure!) and a receipt from a girl named Leigh Anne Grimes in 1985. Maybe she became a country singer and changed her name?

Family Crest

So I have to admit, I wish families still used coat of arms or family crests. They're fascinating! About a year ago I started making dvds out of our family home videos for my mom's birthday. To finish the effect I got some dvd cases and made covers that had all the logos and such that come with any dvd. I figured I needed to make some sort of family logo, here it is!

Back onto the subject of family crests and coat's of arms; I wish we still did this. I made one for fun a long time ago and the second one as a concept for the Buckhead Church college ministry. Tell me what you think! and what would your's look like? or even send one you make and, if its good, I'll post it.

Rustic Aesthetic

I love the great outdoors. Lord willing I'll get to live in colorado at some point. I went through this rustic phase, which is also where I started doing carpentry. Since I can't own my own mountain cabin at the moment I thought I would draw one up. Here she is, another photoshop creation:

The cabin and the stars are both pulled from different internet photos, the trees hill, and clouds are all made from scratch.
On a totally separate note, i'm trying to make these posts interesting to read and not really good at it yet, so if any of you bloggers have suggestions, im all ears. Thanks!

Movie about cats

Almost six years ago I made a very short film. I was dating someone at the time who was obsessed with cats and I didn't feel like doing my homework so I made a film about cats taking over the world. I'd say more but I don't know how I could make it sound any more crazy. This was also pieced together from video on the internet and photoshop pictures.

My First Post

Everyone on planet earth has something they love to do. Something that is their own, that makes them feel worthwhile. That something for me is creativity. I'm enamored with creating things: furniture, pictures, books, art, websites, etc. Not that any of it is necessarily good, but I enjoy allowing my ideas to go from the confusing, bustling metropolis of my mind to the tangible world around me. My aim is to inspire ideas, and hopefully the desire to fufill them. I'd love to hear commentary on the stuff I post and see what others are making.
I thought I would post the image I made that gave me the inspiration for the theme of my blog. "Dark City"Its actually made of 14 different images that I found on the internet and photoshopped together. Here are some of the originals for you to look at:

Here is a very very early version of the picture before most of the formatting and finishing touches were done, i was also exploring some other ideas like the car.