St Patricks a Long Time Ago

i hope you enjoyed St.Patricks day at the start of this week. it brought back memories for me of a decade ago when i went to New York on a college trip. a bunch of us from art school went to the big apple for a week in 1997 and it was fantastic.

we arrived on sunday 16th and the next day enjoyed the St. Pat's parade. it seemed funny to travel thousands of miles to hear bagpipes. i have a photograph somewhere of one crazy guy holding a book, shouting out that St.Patrick wouldn't have wanted this.

oh, the days before digital cameras, or a least myself having a digital camera. i'll try and look it out. we've had a little snow here this week but it didn't settle. more is predicted. when leaving New York there was a snowstorm predicted and we could have been stuck there for a few more days.

unfortunately we didn't get snowbound and managed to make our flight.

Q:where were you ten years ago?

Architectural Visualisation

a longtime friend of mine is a model maker. not the long leggy types but the small card, plastic or wood types. with everybody designing models on computer and doing computer simulated fly-throughs (should that be walk-throughs?), he went the traditional route and stayed with making the models by hand, even putting small lights which can be switched on and off. while computer work is great, when you have a degree show of 30 computer generated models and one traditional built model, which one do you think stands out? some architects seem to be moving away from cgi and like to go back to a more arty hands on look (but still want emailability). this quote comes from the independent:

Peter Jarvis, from the Society of Architectural Illustration (SAI), says some architects still prefer traditional sketches instead of the "all-singing, all-dancing software", especially when they want to woo a client in the early stages. He feels watercolours have more "integrity" than computers, but agrees that these days visualisers are more likely to be using 3D programmes.

there is something really cool about being able to hold a whole apartment block in the palm of your hand or knock down a tree with a swish of a finger. call it my godzilla complex. :)

he had a client who wanted an architectural visualisation (which is fancy speak for sketch) of a building. usually my friend would draw out the wireframe model, and outsource it to someone else. instead he asked me if i wanted to have a bash at it. the drawing below is what we sent them. we didn't get the gig but it was enjoyable to do as it was the first time i had used the software painter. quite different from oil paint. mix it with a bit of photoshoppery and hey presto:

what do you think?

Red Eyed Monster

the red eyed monster in question is Bulbgirl. red eyed not because she was angry at all but because she has infected eyes with something that has a long name she can't remember. i was in the waiting room at the hospital for over 2 hours and shen she finally did show her eyes were more yellow and orange due to the dye that 2 opthamologists squirted in there. cry me a river, cry me a rainbow more bloomin' likely!

you know when you are in trouble when the docs are interested enough to bring another colleague to exhibit you. another visit she has booked tomorrow, so hopefully that will clear things up and she will see properly again. not see the light, as her eyes are pretty light sensitive at the moment.

i was going to post pics of her peepers but for once i have refrained. this blog is becoming more of a grotty pic blog rather than light reading (although the kid in me always thinks ''ooh, cool photo opportunity!') :)

Let There Be Light

let there be light.

who said that? God, maybe but not recently.in fact it was Sylvester Stallone in the recent movie Rocky Balboa. now he's a man who can appreciate the importance of a good porch light. in the flick he does a good neighbourly turn and fixes the light on the doorstep of Little Marie. although, one could argue it is too bright.

you have probably walked passed a house, even on the other side of the street, and a light beside a house door will turn on. this irritates me, and should be turned down. the whole point of those kind of lights is surely to light the path of visitors so that they don't stumble, not to illuminate the street if a mouse happens to move 20 metres away! there should be a setting to change the distance at which the light will turn on.

or if the idea is to show that you are in, use a low wattage energy saving bulb, maybe a 5w or 7w, and keep it on. constant turning off and on of compact fluorescents is not so good for them. use an incandescent if it is to be turning on whenever any tom, dick or harry passes in front of your house. again a low wattage should be sufficient. some people want a 500w halogen to light their driveway. don't. this only scares foxes, and blinds your guests.

indeed, let there be light, but only as much as you need.