On my mind and in my dreams

I think hydrangea petals are as beautiful in death as in life.

Our planet is full of environmental oddities and phenomena we still cannot understand or explain. We barely comprehend common phenomena like lightning and tornadoes so chances are we have a lot more to investigate in the future. Weird shit is happening on our dear uncanny planet, so for you, we have collected the 15 strangest phenomena of nature:

1. Circumhorizontal arcs
This optical phenomenon looking similar to a fiery rainbow has actually nothing to do with rainbows and flames. It is rarely seen and it’s appearance depends on location and latitude. To be formed the sun has to be very high in the sky and a “Cirrus cloud containing relatively large plate-shaped ice crystals must also be present” (Wikipedia Quote). Sunlight entering, hitting those ice crystals and exiting at a 90° angle somehow creates this shiny rainbowy thing in the sky.

2. Sailing stones
Well the name speaks for the product, except they do not sail as much as they move along smooth valley floors in long tracks. How these stones owned the plants at moving and relocating is still not understood. They usually like traveling for 3 to 4 years and they sometimes roll-over and even change direction. Some of them sometimes decide to go back the same way for some peculiar reason.  So what did the scientists think of when it came to explaining this movement of rocks? Strong gusts of wind is what it probably is, though the origins of the Thing sounded more appealing to us.

3. Red tides
Once again a misleading name for HABs in marine coastal areas. The species’ color is often red or brown so they tint the water to a reddish color. Why these so-called HABs happen to occur in such locations is totally unclear, nevertheless the red bloody waves are as beautiful as they are horrifying.

4. Light pillars
One more visual phenomenon caused by reflection of light from ice crystals. It appears when the sun is at or low to the horizon in which case it’s called a solar pillar. The light can come from multiple sources like the Sun, the Moon or even streetlights.

5. Fire whirls
Sometimes called a fire-tornado is a phenomenon where fire takes an upward vertical form resembling a tornado with a fiery filling (yum!). These fires are pretty lethal sometimes reaching heights of more than 1 km and wind speeds over 160 km/h. A good example is the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan where a firestorm was caused and created one of these fiery tornadoes that killed more than 35.000 in less than 20 minutes. Don’t play with fire whirls, kids.

6. Blue holes
Also called vertical caves or submarine sinkholes (whatever rocks your boat), these holes are circular depressions and their name comes from the contrast difference between the dark color of the water in their depths and the color of the surrounding shallows. They have low water circulation and therefore they aren’t very good at supporting sea life, though they contain a shitload of bacteria. The deepest one in the world is Dean’s Blue Hole with 202 meters depth.

7. Columnar Basalt
Fractions are formed during the cooling of a thick lava flow. When this cooling occurs rapidly, contraction forces are increased. Since lava flow cannot shrink horizontally without fracturing as easily as it can when it shrinks vertically, a network of fractures develops and columns  are formed. The most popular (probably) basalt flow in the world is Giant’s Causeway located on the northern coast of Ireland.

8. The Moon changing color
The reason why this occurs is due to the scattering of light by the atmosphere. When the Moon is on the horizon, moonlight has to pass trough much more atmosphere than when it’s directly overhead. By the time it reaches us the purple, green and blue pieces of visible light have been scattered away by air molecules leaving only the red, orange or yellow for us to see. The Moon can also “change” color when it’s directly overhead if there’s pollution in the atmosphere. What actually pollutes the atmosphere will determine what color you see as it can be red, orange or even blue.

9. Ice circles
This phenomenon occurs in cold climates where the water is moving slowly. Ice circles form at bends in the river where the accelerating water creates a circular current that breaks off a chunk of ice and rotates it in place. As it grinds against the surrounding ice it smooths out into a circle.

10. Sundogs
An atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots settled on a luminous halo around the sun. These “dawgs” are formed in very cold weather when sunlight passes trough ice crystals found in high and cold cirrus clouds. The actual explanation is much more confusing so we won’t get into that.

11. Lenticular clouds
These saucer-shaped clouds form in high altitudes “where stable moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains” (quoted from Wikipedia). Because of their shape they’ve been mistaken for UFO’s and sometimes even called “visual covers” for UFO’s by paranoid UFO believers.

12. Penitentes
These snow formations take the form of closely spaced blades of ice with the actual blade facing the direction of the Sun. They can be as tall as a person… wait, what now?! Having said that, skiing probably ain’t the most popular sport where these impaling machines are found. They are commonly formed on the Andes by the strong winds there.

13. Mammatus clouds
The name comes from the Latin word mamma which means udder or breast. It’s applied to the pattern of pouches resting beneath a cloud because they appear to resemble boobs. They do resemble many things but I guess it’s what people first think of when they see them. Unlikely to the nature of breasts, these clouds tend to indicate that a strong storm or even a tornado is coming.

14. Sinkholes
Known by many names including shake hole, swallow hole, swallet, doline or cenote, come to think of it, you call them whatever you like. They’re natural depressions caused by removal of bedrock and soil by water. Coming in various shapes and sizes, they acquire depths and diameters ranging from less than one meter to several hundred. Their formation can be slow or sudden, but nevertheless, if your yard starts to descend into a pit to hell, you might wanna consider moving.

15. Ball lightning
This electric atmospheric phenomenon is highly debated and controversial. They’re reported to be seen as luminous spherical objects which last much longer than split-second lightning strikes. The ball lightning has been seen in various sizes ranging from one centimeter to a few meters. Their existence is based solely on public sightings and there’s no physical proof aside from photos reported to be the real deal (kind of a UFO situation).

Essa inglesa tem uma linda capacidade de utilizar cores.
No seu Flickr tem vários testes.

Suas ilustrações tem força e muita, muita cor!

Candy coated eyes and lips are all the rage right now…You can get your own look with these beautiful palettes. They also make the perfect Christmas gift!

Real: Sephora Collection Ultimate Blockbuster Eyeshadow Kit, $62.00 at www.sephora.com

Steal: Eyes Lips Face 141 Piece Master Makeup Collection, $40.00 at www.eyeslipsface.com

Pietari Posti é Finlandês de Helsinki mas atualmente mora em BCN, España.

Dear Bill,

Oh dear. This weather is very dull. When there’s a tiny ray of sun shining into the house I go and stand in it. I need color! At the moment I have several sensible knitting projects on the go but I’ve simply dropped them for the following:

You can see this is the beginning of  the simplest of shawl patterns. I toyed with making another Charlotte’s Web shawl out of the incomparable Koigu KPPPM but decided to forego the lace and let the yarn speak for itself. And what it’s saying is–you don’t need the sun. Just look in your stash for bright colors! Which is what I did.

Now I’ve told you a great deal about my sweetie husband’s father’s side. Here’s an old photograph from his mother’s.

The baby is Catherine, my sweetie’s mom. (And who gave her that horrible haircut, I’d like to know?)  

Holding her is her grandmother, Katherine (my sweetie’s great-grandmother).

To the right of her grandmother is her mother, Gertrude Dorothy (my sweetie’s grandmother). 

And on the far right is Emma, her great-grandmother (my sweetie’s great-great grandmother).

Don’t you think the women are absolutely beautiful? Look at those aquiline noses and clear eyes. I love their hair, their tranquillity. Sweetie Jim’s mom didn’t inherit the nose–but it’s still evident in the family.

I’m not naming any names. You know who you are.

Love!

Momma

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

source: http://color-stripes.blogspot.com/2009/09/october-palettes.html

What a dedicated, creative, active bunch of artists these women of the Toronto Bead Society! If you live anywhere in Ontario and love to bead, you are lucky. (Their next meeting is “Techniques Night”… wish I lived in Toronto!)

I had so much fun, and was inspired by their color, their skills, and their creativity. Thank you, Toronto Beaders! (Thank you, Jo-Ann Woolverton for the photos.)

CorelDRAW had its 20th anniversary just recently. If a software can stand for 20 years it couldn’t be that bad, right? But yes, it looks awkward and many people simply ignore it, since it is not “cool” enough. Its designer community isn’t large and the software itself has some disadvantages, which make it look a bit awkward. Let’s reviews some advantages and disadvantages of using this software.

Introduction

Why is that only people already addicted to CorelDRAW use it? Maybe they know something we don’t. In this article, I’ll review some of the issues with CorelDRAW. I think the developers of this software have created a sharp program, but not so user friendly.

CorelDRAW is very precise and reliable. All the tools give maximum control, but you must fight your way through to learn them. It’s definitely not the software that you can take for a quick spin and easily create great artwork.

The good news is that when you get used to its feature set, it becomes part of your thinking and can be a strong tool for creating astounding artwork. Let’s review a few pros and cons of CorelDRAW.

Er…How Do I Navigate?

First of all forget about the Space Bar equals Pan thesis. CorelDRAW has a navigator board but I must admit it’s not the real thing and most people don’t even know where it is (small box at the lower-right corner of the interface).

The easiest way to navigate is to zoom in and out to the pointer area with your mouse. This can be tricky sometimes if your mouse isn’t smooth enough. Sounds strange but once accustomed to this navigation technique you will get addicted to it. If you still feel lost grab the Hand Tool (H) to pan, and press spacebar to change back to the previous tool.

What About Freehand Brushes?

This is a real pain. CorelDraw’s freehand tools are only a concept but are nearly impossible to use them. Just try to do a quick hatching with the the freehand tool. You will end up with a mess, since you will continuously select the previously drawn lines.

It’s OK though, as this is not primarily freehand painting or sketching software. There are some other industry standard tools on the Corel palette (for example Painter) which excel in this field. But once again this is a week point since the core concept of the software is not to painting.

The World’s Best and Easiest Curves/Nodes Management

When you get down to the details you will be amazed how easy is to use the bezier tool and how precise its curve management is. If you are after vectorization then Corel Draw is great. Corel Draw is excellent software when it comes to vector tools. You have all the control over the nodes and curves with mathematical precision.

The right-click context menu makes vectorization so precise that technical illustration is easy to create. I take a deep bow in front of the team who developed this. This part is the strength of CorelDRAW from the dawn of vector software.

Super Fine Gradient Mesh

You need photo-realistic vectors? Just grab the super easy gradient mesh tool and you will make unbelievable vector portraits in no time. The Corel company has bundled photo-realistic art already in the version 8 clip art, and don’t forget the Hedy Lamar illustration on the cover of version 8. If you check the Corel community galleries you will find some gorgeous photo-realistic portraits, though the galleries are sometimes awkward and the community isn’t very exciting.

Highly Controllable Boolean Operations

I simply love this part of CorelDRAW. When you need to cut, weld, trim or intersect just open up the shaping docker and you have maximum control over the Boolean operations and the resulting shapes. Actually, you can base your style on these fine set of tools. Check them out for yourself.

Strange and Useful Effects

The effect palette is also a strength of CorelDRAW. I use these tools most of the time, especially the contour tool. Try some of this for extra options.

Color Separation and Prepress Goodness

If you’re working in the DTP business, CorelDRAW is your humble servant. It corrects your mistakes silently and makes color separation and prepress work as easy as it can be. The main concept of this software, the precision, has its word in the printing menu.

Screen Refreshing

If you want to spare yourself from getting upset, then don’t forget to press Command + W often to refresh the screen. CorelDRAW tends to forget to do this for you, which can be quite annoying sometimes.

Trace!

CorelDRAW has top notch tracing software integrated. It is quick, highly-customizable, and precise. Even if you don’t like other parts of the software, trying Corel Draw’s trace is a must. As a plus they have included a font recognition routine in the X4 version, which uses What the font! to find out what font was used on your scan. Nice idea!

Who uses CorelDraw Anyway?

Some really great artists from all around the world use CorelDRAW. Here is a short list to demonstrate.

AtixVector (Santiago, Chile)

machine56 (Bandung, Indonesia)

umidelmare(Wonderland)

Igor Tkac (igortshirts)

anhem

trojza (Alexander Poslykhalin)

GruberJan (Tatsyana Prokofieva)

Alexxx1 (Alexey Oglushevich)

RookeMare (Denvah, Colorado)

Ramonova (Russia)

Bmart333 (Pittsburgh, PA)

Conclusion

CorelDRAW can be awkward, especially to new users, but powerful in the hands of a seasoned user. You must decide the right vector software for you.

If you are a fan of South Park, choose Corel Draw because all the characters, scenery, and props are drawn using this vector package, as wikipedia states.

Finally, below is some artwork from renowned vectorist Roberlan, which showcase the choosing a vector software platform controversy.

If you’re living in America, Thanksgiving’s a pretty big deal.  Everyone’s got a to-do list that’s got eating, traveling and a bit of cooking on it.  These snapshots encompass all of the above, intersecting at color, layout and theory. This farmers market spread showcases autumn’s rustic spectrum and is sorted by food and color. Following a similar path, this Scion xB advertisement taps autumn’s palette revealing a basic grid for display.  The tag line for this youth-oriented Toyota reads, Same Shape. Different Boxes, reminding us how we live our lives, sorting information as we go. Whether you’re a passenger or a driver this holiday season, you’ll undoubtedly find yourself scanning and sorting, be it food, family or football.

WHERE DID THEY GET TO?  We got off of the bus together, but with photos to take, etc.  The three ladies in the front got to New Market long before we did!  It seemed like all of Dhaka was near New Market doing pre-Eid shopping!

via

“a seven minute exposure…”

“Sandusky Wall #4

Image Copyright © George Cannon, All Rights Reserved.

“Cathedral #1″

Image Copyright © George Cannon, All Rights Reserved.

what is it about owl’s that is just sofa king cool? especially a huge glittery one on top of a building in barcelona.

image via flickr.

…to BE yourself!

Skin: [rQ]Design ~ ss-TYPE.o7/Lust
Hair: [rQ]Design ~ [rQ]Dare~ONYX

Pants: :Bijou: ~:bijou: Puppet highwaistpants
Shirt: <<< negaposi >>>~Gamine girl camisole
Jacket: [ Out of the Blue ]~[ OB ] – Steampunk Shortcoat Black
Belt: hazard~hazard – classic belt
Boots: Sweetest Good-bye~[SG*] Wild Punk Boots -Red (Left foot)
Legwrap: >>> moloko <<< ~>>> moloko <<< Box Legwraps Black RESIZER
Face Piercing: *~Ultra kitty~* ~ UK.Sonyeo piercing
Bracelets and Necklace : * LOULOU&CO * ~ ENIGMA