I like the process of moving (minus the work). Although, its been a great change considering the outcome.

I have been able to display my scarves and jewelry so I can enjoy them and use them as my art.

I hope everyone enjoys the creativity.

More to come . . . .

Source: My own pictures.

Yours Truly,

s.maldonado

Image via LonnyMag.com

Lets face it, we all don’t live in homes with good placement of vents, light switches, outlets, etc. Sometimes we have to work with what we have. This picture is a great example of how to disguise a poorly placed vent. By hanging art in a gallery style format, your eye does not go right to the vent, but instead blends in with the other shapes.

Image via LonnyMagazine.com

I adore this look. As an artist myself, I love the idea of leaning art on shelves. This allows you to change out your pieces with ease. It also gives a more relaxed vibe. I am toying with this idea for the now blank wall in my living room, but the area is tight on space and don’t want to make it seem smaller. I will have to think about it more, but I do love the idea!

Straw bags as wall decor? Why not!  I have several straw bags from my travels around the world and they were just sitting in my closet. Our mudroom walls (which are in bad shape) needed help and I wanted something that would work with our basket wall on the other side. This fit the bill. So next time you need an idea for wall decor, think about collections you already have and showcase them!

So if you ever find yourself in Birr, Co. Offaly- definitely pop in!

Why not hang art on the outside of your house? We count our deck as a room- we eat outside and hangout there constantly so why not jazz it up! Just make sure to not hang your Rothko and Pollock’s where they will get too wet! You can get extremley cheap art at any of my favs: TJ’s, Homegoods, etc. Just make sure to get canvas or even some of the metal art works well too- you just might want to spray some sealer on top!

1. Choose fresh ferns with good color & all fronds intact.

2. Cut stems as long as possible.

3. Press ferns in between sheets of newspaper or lg magazine pages by placing fern or leaf flat on the newspaper/magazine page and carefully covering it with a few blank pages. Be sure that it is flattened and not overlapping. But really—little imperfections only add to the natural appeal.

4. Weight with a heavy book and allow to press for at least a week.

5. Carefully remove pages to check – you want the fern/leaf to be flattened. Trim the stem to fit your frame, if necessary. You can center one or arrange a collection.

6. Ready to frame. Floating frames work well, as you are basically sandwiching the leaf between the sheets of glass. Large poster type frames also work well, but you’ll need to stick the leaf on a good quality paper before framing.

7. Hang and Enjoy!

1. Use a great calming neutral like this light gray which looks so fresh with white and green. A big mistake is thinking that gray is dark and gloomy, that is why so many spas use gray- it is relaxing!

2. Use big, fluffy white towels and robes to treat yourself everyday.

3. Incorporate nature: ferns, plants and stones. I also love the collections of soaps and the antique asian print. Very Zen!

4. Simple wall decor adds to the tranquil feel. I love the pressed ferns in floating frames. Look for a future post with a pressing tutorial.

In follow-up to my earlier post about Basket Walls, I did one myself in our mudroom. I have a collection of ones given to me and ones I found. It is a great solution in a room with not so great walls. They also can serve as a storage solution (notice the not so pretty bug spray and hand sanitizer, conveniently hung by the back door). My tips for arranging them are to vary the color, size, and shape of the baskets. You can easily re-arrange as your collection grows, I started out with only a few…

It works well over our little side table because it is narrow but tall. A perfect last look mirror on your way out the door.

West Elm
In an office, behind a desk to hold notes or pictures

Pottery Barn
In a living room or in a bedroom, as a make-shift headboard

PointClickHome.Com
In a hallway (I am collecting now to potentially do my mudroom wall, not to the magnitude above but look out for that post)

I love how every basket is unique as well as the textures, shapes, and ability to use them when you need them. Functional Art!

images:Desire to Inspire
Pottery Barn,Decor Pad, HGTV,

I love the mixing of different style frames. Black modern with antiqued brass and white. It gives it a more 3D effect and not as cold and serious.

• A new wall display. Are your walls bare? Or have you had the same displays up long enough that you yourself no longer take notice of them? Time for an update. See 5 Ways to Make the Classroom “Our” Room and my suggestion for a Wall of Proverbs in Teaching Proverbs.

• A new seating arrangement. Okay, if you’re short on space or in auditorium with immovable desks, this isn’t possible. However, if you do have the option of designing your own seating arrangement, you might consider trying out clusters as opposed to rows or using two semicircles rather than one large horseshoe formation. If your room is set up with whiteboards on more than one wall, you can keep the same arrangement but make a 45° or 180° turn. At the very least, you can reposition just the teacher’s desk. The idea is to create a sense of newness yet still have a practical workspace. What promotes interaction among the students yet allows them to focus on you during a presentation?

• New student resources. If you don’t have a designated space for student resources, it’s time to create one. The basics include dictionaries, both a standard copy and a learner’s edition. Be on the lookout for affordable additions.  Occasional treasures turn up at yard sales and flea markets for little money. Libraries sometimes have book sales to raise money and get rid of old editions. A few paperback novels (even with old publication dates) can still offer language practice to students in their free time.

• New décor. Sounds silly, yet simple things like houseplants and a subtle air freshener can create a welcoming environment. (Just be wary of strong fragrances. Some students may have allergies.) Find your happy medium between an institutional setting and “home sweet home”. Knick knacks can add character and serve as conversation starters. They can also be functional. Do you play language games which require students to draw slips of paper? Bring in an old decorative tea canister or cookie jar for this use.

• A new practice. Try something new each month. In January, every Friday can be joke day. You start your Friday lesson by telling a joke (and see if the students get it).  Encourage them to retell it to another person that day.  In February, Mondays can be the day you share the riddle of the week. On Fridays, you see if anyone solved it.  As for the other months? Try tongue twisters, horoscopes, anagrams, and more. The idea is to encourage playfulness with and in the target language, all of which is conducive to communication.

etter known for its high-end digital projection systems, Christie has launched its MicroTiles digital display units which can be stacked like building blocks to create a visual display wall virtually anywhere there is power. The modular MicroTiles can be used to create an almost seamless digital canvas in almost any size or shape using an entirely new, advanced optical design that produces advanced levels of brightness, contrast and color reproduction. The Christie MicroTiles can be joined with only a 1mm gap between each unit, which represents a major step forward in large-format digital display technology. The LED- and DLP-based system is designed for long, reliable commercial use in public areas, with no lamps or other consumable parts to replace. The key component is an LED light engine, rated at 65,000 hours to half brightness usage, or nearly 7.5 years of continuous operation. Screen sizes are 16 inches (408mm) wide x 12 inches (306mm) high, and the tiles also feature a shallow depth of only 10 inches (260mm) and require just 2 inches (50mm) of minimal clearance for rear ventilation making them extremely versatile.

No more reaching around the back of a unit and risking electrocution to make adjustments – Christie engineers have designed the MicroTiles to be fully and easily serviced from the front. In-built sensors automatically keep the tiles “self-aware” – which does away with time-consuming and costly color calibration needed to keep conventional “video walls” looking uniform. While the engineering behind the display tiles is sophisticated, walls of tiles are controlled by a single unit that processes the signal from the most popular digital signage and media players. Christie says it has had its new tiles in R&D for two years and claims technology and visual design experts who’ve seen sneak previews this year have described the system as “one of the wonders of the world in displays. MicroTiles represent a distinct revolution in display technology that allows users to create their own digital canvas or digital wallpaper,” said Bob Rushby, the co-inventor and chief technology officer at Christie.

“With MicroTiles, users can express their creativity and vision, and assemble the displays in ways that have previously been unattainable using current flat panel LCD, plasma or LED walls. Assemble the tiles any way you like, take them apart and re-assemble them in a new configuration, and they ‘recognize’ each other every time and adjust the image automatically,” Rushby added. “Our partners are discovering new ways of using digital display that would have been impossible or impractical before MicroTiles. Christie MicroTiles open up a whole new world of possibilities for the various display markets,” Rushby added. “They offer an innovative, visually striking digital solution to deliver messages and make them memorable.” Of course you can have more information at:

www.christiedigital.com

Source: flickr.com

Topic: GestureTek

It was hot, very very hot.  Placing a bunch of projectors in one room would do that I guess. Vince (Vincent John Vincent) of GestureTek spent around an hour discussing the progress of GestureTek technology to our IMM class as we all fought off the urge to pass out from heat stroke.

Listening to Vince while trying to avoid heatstroke

The story started in 1983 when Vince was studying psychotherapy at the University of Waterloo and working as a doorman at a campus bar that a lot of computer science students attended. After relentlessly quizzing them about computers, Vince ended up working with Francis MacDougall to try to create an alternate reality to use for psychotherapy purposes. Given the technology of the day, Vince and Francis ended up using their technology more for stage effects for Vince’s band.  After awhile of touring,  1986 was the year they co-founded GestureTek. GestureTek technology revolves around live feedback from a camera to the system running a projection to give users real time interaction with the subject matter. Some of the installations use green screens (chroma key) to allow the user to step into the reality on the screen, whereas others use a simpler motion keying method to allow users to see a ghostly image of themselves interacting with the screen.

As computers became more powerful, more of Vince’s original vision for what GestureTek could do was realized.  Recently GestureTek has had much success in the physiotherapy sector with their simulations that allow users to step into a physiotherapy program on the screen. The technology tracks key locations of the person’s body to record metrics of their performance on their physiotherapy routine, allowing therapists to measure progress quantitatively instead of qualitatively.  Personally I found the GestureTek health division to be much more fascinating than the other applications of their technology which centred more around advertisement displays.

We all got to play around with the various installations such as their floor, wall and kiosk displays. Most of these were advertisement based and involved us kicking/throwing around objects on the screen. Their green screen area was quite impressive, allowing the user to step into a cartoon world of gameplay. At one point Vince was even flying through 3D space on a broom in the virtual environment created by the game. It was also interesting to see how well the pointer system worked when Vince was navigating through a typical selection screen using only his finger to point. The setup had two cameras embedded on either side of a frame that would then map his finger point to what appeared on the projector. Holding his finger in one place long enough activated buttons that we would normally click on using a mouse. I was reminded a lot of a guest speaker I had in teacher’s college who had created “magnet lessons” where students would have to create biological processes using magnetized objects on the board. When I asked him why he didn’t create a computer version of his methodology, he became quite agitated and stated that the screen and mouse get in the way of really interacting with the objects. I’m sure that speaker would be happy to see inventions such as GestureTek’s that allow users to immerse themselves into computer generated environments.

The idea of computer generated realities to immerse oneself in isn’t a new idea, but convincing experiences still aren’t quite up to science fiction standards like that of Otherland by Tad Willams.  Science fiction has a long history of realities we can step into using a headset or some sort of plug. The most popularized concept of that being the Matrix movie trilogy with the idea that we are permanently plugged into a very convincing artifical reality. GestureTek’s most convincing immersions I found were the ones in with a green screen was used, allowing the user to at least feel that they were their avatar on the screen.

Another interesting aspect to GestureTek was their use of infrared strips that beam infrared light across surfaces to track user touch. These strips were used both on their interactive wall displays and their multitouch surface table.  Unlike Microsoft Surface which uses an infrared camera situated under their table, GestureTek’s table was much less sensitive to variations in light.

Using the multitouch table

Having experienced both Microsoft Surface and Gesturek’s version of the table, I found GestureTek’s to be much easier and enjoyable to use. It seemed to me that GestureTek’s was much more responsive to touch and unlike Microsoft which supports a maximum of 35 touch points, Vince said that there is no real limit to what their table can handle. Another benefit is that it works directly with Flash instead of having to use Microsoft’s SDK.

With all the touch applications these days, I guess the question isn’t what the pros and cons of each system is, but what direction applications are going. It seems that many industries that involve gesture or touch are focused around advertisement and entertainment. Though much of GestureTek does revolve around those markets, their health division really stands out in proving that such technology isn’t for trivial uses only. I’ve always loved seeing technology being used to improve lives and am happy to see that GestureTek isn’t just about the trivial nature of ad revnue, but also about helping people.

Today’s photo courtesy of Treva Kane CopyKatOriginals

Its faster than normal too because it constantly grabs the next images coming up. So by the time you want to see more, they’re already loaded. (& heaps better in Firefox)

Deb.