I like illustrations, particularly pen and ink with watercolor wash. Today I wanted to create a faux plate one might find in a book illustrating various species.

This piece meets a few objectives I set today. Instead of using watercolor crayons with the pieces last week, I bought some tubes of watercolor paint. I wanted to experiment with mixing and blending colors. It is harder than it looks. I feel these came out too muddy looking. It is going to take much more practice to get to a point where I would like to be in this medium. Another goal was to use the LaTeX formatting I installed last night. I was able to format the equation used in this piece. I also wanted to create a program using the equation to create this image. I used the Processing language go generate the butterfly.

For more details check out Mathematterfly Genesis here: http://someoneknows.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/mathematterfly-genesis/

OK, at the risk of causing anyone following me to unsubscribe immediately... My thing for today was finding a way to produce mathematical equations in a document. I actually started last night but it has taken some time to find the tools, get them installed, and learn how to create some very crude examples.

I've been attending a scientific programming study group on Wednesday nights. The discussion tonight centered around several calculus topics. When I took calculus years ago all my notes were scribbled on pieces of paper and most are long gone now. Today I'm accustomed to writing directly into documents on the computer. The language of mathematics is not represented well when using a standard text editor or word processing program.

Equations and mathematical symbols are assembled using a typesetting method, most often the LaTeX formatting method is used. I installed two programs in my OpenOffice word processing program, OOoLatex and CompPad. The image is some scribbling I did trying to see if they work.

Today I added a few supplies to my collection with 2B pencils and a small sharpener. I stopped by a thrift store and found a nice portfolio satchel to keep things in so I won't loose things as easily.

I found one of my test tracks for the line following robots I build. Its a piece of Masonite with a white dry erase surface on one side and I had painted a black surface on the other. I scavenged a 10.5" long portion off one end of the 26" wide board. So I cut this portion in half and made two drawing boards 10.5" by 13" which easily fit in the portfolio.

I have a handy little book titled "The Water Color Artist's Bible". It has a lot of good tips and techniques. I learned about mounting the water color paper on a drawing board to keep the paper stretched out when wet. Last night I tried this and it worked, my scanned image didn't have the wrinkles. After letting my painting dry fully next to the space heater it dried back to the original flat paper. That was part of the inspiration for setting up my art kit today. That and it took a few minutes finding my supplies last night again.

I decided to try another watercolor for today. I took a picture of this building last year and have wanted to do something with it. Kansas City's old Western Auto business is long gone. Today the building has been turned into condo apartments. It's great the residents have chosen to maintain the old sign and light it up at night.

The scanned image of this one looks better. I taped the paper to a board before I started then let it dry completely before removing and scanning. No more wrinkles.

I tried another watercolor experiment. I took a photograph last summer while a tug boat was exchanging barges with the dredging rig. They were harvesting sand out of the Missouri River near Parkville, MO.

This one didn't turn out as good. I think the reason I don't like it as much is I didn't add enough pen and ink before trying to add the watercolors. Trying to hurry before the day's deadline. I missed the deadline a little anyway because it was still too wet to put into the scanner. I need to redo this one sometime.

Also, the image looks worse than the original. The scanner doesn't capture the picture as well because of the wrinkles. I think this would look better with a photograph from a camera but I doubt I would capture colors as well with the camera. Although the scanner seemed to pick out the yellow much more than looking at it in real life.

My Jeep died a couple of weeks ago and refused to come to life again. With telephone support from a friend I switched out the ignition control module. While this may not be the thing I wanted to work on today, it was exciting to hear the vehicle come to life again. Hopefully this new part will last another 334,000 miles.

Before I could replace the part, I had to find the hood again buried under that pile of snow and ice. Repairing a vehicle outside in sub freezing weather is always so much fun. :-(

For my February 9  Thing-A-Day, I decided to create a watercolor drawing.

One of the things on my list of ideas for Thing-A-Day projects was to do a pen and ink drawing with a watercolor wash. Actually, its been on my list for much longer. The watercolor paper I used was from a package I bought about five years ago with the same idea of trying to learn to create watercolor drawings. I finally opened that package today.

It's almost like that package of paper has been a barrier keeping me from giving it a try. Mocking me on days when I notice it setting on the shelf. I need to work on that whole right brain, left brain thing to combine more of the creative side with the analytical side.

Read more about the project here: http://someoneknows.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/my-first-attempt-with-watercolor/

Yesterday I made a replacement part for a tripod I bought at a garage sale. The Sculpey clay pattern probably would work but I can make a stronger part if I cast it in a urethane plastic. I will be making the first part of a two part mold to cast the new piece. The silicone compound needs to cure for about 24 hours.

Read more about the project here: http://someoneknows.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/silicone-mold-for-tripod-part-1/

Sometime last year I bought a nice tripod at a garage sale. The tripod was missing the piece that attaches a camera and the tripod together. For my Thing-A-Day project I wanted to make a pattern for a replacement part. My project today is making this pattern.

Read more about the project here: http://someoneknows.wordpress.com/2010/02/07/thing-a-day-feb-7/

I was hoping to get an image with an artistic sketch type appearance. I was looking for something with a faded and fuzzy look to represent a faded memory from the past. This is the first time I've used Gimp to try creating a manipulated image like this.

Read more about about my project...  http://someoneknows.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/thing-a-day-feb-6/