Yearly Archives: 2009

Large Print

Large print

Large print

I final­ly got a large print made for myself, of the frozen lake from my trip to New Hampshire. You real­ly need to see the orig­i­nal from the entry (on black) to get an idea of what the pic­ture looks like, because the shot I took above does­n’t do it jus­tice as I was expos­ing for the gen­er­al area in my liv­ing room, los­ing much of the detail of the pic­ture. At over 48″ wide and 32″ tall, it cost me a pret­ty pen­ny, but it was oh so worth it.

After some extra tweak­ing on my end to bring out the con­trast, my awe­some print­er brought out the trunks of the white birch trees in the left for­est using Photoshop, adding a touch of con­trast and detail. The pic­ture was lam­i­nat­ed with a mat­te fin­ish, so there’s no glass to reflect (and hence dis­tract), from he win­dows. Then my framer used one of her new fram­ing tech­niques where she takes tex­tured fab­ric and stretch­es it over an inside bor­der (instead of a mat board), then adds a frame that’s smooth but not flat1. The colours fit right in with the walls, while the bor­der and frame match­es the couch.

It’s the first pic­ture I’ve used to dec­o­rate the main floor of my house, because I’m real­ly picky about the stuff I put up on my walls. This one was cho­sen because the sky, the sun­set, the ice and the pat­terns in it, all speak emo­tion to me, which is what I try to achieve in my pic­tures, and some­thing I enjoy look­ing at.

  1. This means I sign, stamp, and num­ber the pic­ture on the pic­ture itself, since there’s no mat board to write on. [↩]

Sleepwalk

Hi, and wel­come back to anoth­er episode of “Télévision Educative”. Tonight, I’ll show you how dreams are pre­pared. People think it’s a very sim­ple and easy process but it’s a bit more com­pli­cat­ed than that. As you can see, a very del­i­cate com­bi­na­tion of com­plex ingre­di­ents is the key. First, we put in some ran­dom thoughts. And then, we add a lit­tle bit of rem­i­nis­cences of the day…mixed with some mem­o­ries from the past.

I slept through the night. This means I’m either exhaust­ed or com­pla­cent. I’m not sure if I want com­pla­cent because it prob­a­bly means I’m resigned.

Resignation is so depress­ing. At the same time, it’s a cer­tain­ty that brings com­fort, the same way hope is both tor­tur­ous and inspir­ing.

“And work­ing is the best rem­e­dy, then? Keeps your brain busy.”

“How can you work? Love is too pow­er­ful. You can’t con­cen­trate.”

I’ve been work­ing the last two week­ends, try­ing to catch up on time I lost while I was away. I real­ly could­n’t afford to take so much leave from work with­out pay, and there are dead­lines for projects I’ve tak­en up on the side.

This week­end was espe­cial­ly pro­duc­tive. I got a lot done, but there’s so much more to go. It seems like there’s nev­er enough time, so I just keep my head down and work through it.

I haven’t had much a break since I’ve been back. So this is my break. The writ­ten word.

Feels like I’m sleep­walk­ing, lucid, unsure of what’s real or what I’m feel­ing. This morn­ing I asked myself, “Have I real­ly wok­en up yet?”

Welcome Home

Joel and Charlotte agreed to take care of Dolly while I was in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the com­bi­na­tion of anoth­er cat, a dog, a new envi­ron­ment, and my absence, stressed her out. She start­ed mark­ing her ter­ri­to­ry (on their couch), even with her own lit­ter box in a seclud­ed area, so they decid­ed to bring her back to my house, and let Julie take care of her from then on.

Cat drawing

I found this draw­ing on my white board when I got back. Along with an espe­cial­ly affec­tion­ate cat, it was a nice lit­tle thing to come home to.