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March 17, 2009
Oasis Bead Show This Weekend!
Just wanted to write a quick note to let folks know that there's still room available for all of my classes at the Canadian Bead Oasis Show this coming weekend at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
I'll also be hanging out with the fine folks from Dragon's Lair Beads (located at booths 49 & 50), so if you want to check out any of the pieces from Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry in person, or pick up an autographed copy of any of my books and tutorials, this is your chance! I'll also have a selection of my other jewelry and ring kits from my friends at Metal Desginz.
I look forward to seeing you there!
January 15, 2009
Better Late than Never
I have just completed arrangements with the fine folks at the Canadian Bead Oasis Shows and my friends at Dragon's Lair Beads to attend the "Almost Spring" Bead Oasis Show in Toronto this March 20th, 21st and 22nd.
For folks interested in learning how to make beaded chain jewelry I will teaching 3 classes based on projects from my new book, "Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry".
It's been a while since I've had time to teach classes, so I'm really looking forward to this opportunity!
For anyone who is interested in obtaining copies of any of my books, tutorials or kits, I will be hanging out at the Dragon's Lair Beads booth while not teaching classes, so come on down!
For more detailed information and pictures of the projects that I'll be teaching, please check out my main website.
Hope to see you there!
December 23, 2008
An Early X-mas Present for My Readers
Recently, several readers of my new book, "Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry", asked about some of the specific materials that I had used for each projects, which gave me the idea to put together this list, which, in turn, contains specific references to just about every jump ring, bead and finding that I used for every project in BCMJ, along with a few useful notes. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!
Arrowhead Wrap
For this project I wanted to create a piece of jewelry that was super versitile, which I accomplished by designing the chain to wrap around multiple times, meaning that it can as easily be worn around the wrist or ankle as it is worn around the neck!
(photo courtesy of Lark Books)
Check out Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry, available everywhere January 6th, 2009! Available Now on Amazon!
December 16, 2008
Dancing Bells Anklet
This design has proved to be a fan favourite at my market table over the past couple of years, especially in the summertime, when shorts and sandels are at their most popular!
The supplier reference lists Fire Mountain Gems as the source for the bells, but recently my friends over at Metal Designz started carrying them and in multiple colours as well!
(photo courtesy of Lark Books)
Check out Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry, available everywhere January 6th, 2009! Available Now on Amazon!
December 11, 2008
Drops of Jupiter
This is one of my personal favorite pieces from "Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry". The beads, which contain actual flecks of pure Yukon gold, came from a friend who had been visiting Dawson City in the Yukon and picked them up at a place called "Forty Mile Gold" for me .
After it was too late to change the product reference, I found the original card from Forty Mile Gold that states the beads were made by an artist named Charlotte Fort of Hood River, Oregon. I tried to find this artist on the web to no avail, but if anyone is interested, be sure to check out Forty Mile Gold's website.
(photo courtesy of Lark Books)
Check out Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry, available everywhere January 6th, 2009! Available Now on Amazon!
December 10, 2008
Andromeda Necklace
To help celebrate the launch of my new book: "Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry - Timeless Techniques with a Twist", I have obtained special permission from my publisher to post some select photographs of projects from the book. Over the next month (or so) I will be trying to post a new project every few days, so be sure to check back often!
For my inaugural post, I would like to present the "Andromeda Necklace"!
(photo courtesy of Lark Books)
The beads for this fancy dress necklace came from a friend who is a master Lampworker, but who wishes to remain anonymous. I simply can't thank them enough for contributing such original and beautiful art beads to my new book!
Check out Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry, available everywhere January 6th, 2009! Available Now on Amazon!
December 8, 2008
Bolt in Vivid Technicolor (Sorta)
Owing to a minute break in the oppressive snowfall of the late fall here on the island I found myself in Sudbury this last Sunday on a "supply / x-mas shopping run". Never having been one to waste a furlough, I decided to cap off the evening by seeing a movie at the Silvercity in Sudbury.
Sadly, choices in movie-going fare were limited, so I decided to see the latest CG film from Disney. More out of curiosity over the new digital 3D technology (having missed out on Journey to the Center of the Earth
) than actual interest in the film, which I had correctly assumed would be standard Disney fare.
Earlier this yes, I had seen "Wall-E " at the Silver City, so I knew that at least one of their screens (Screen 8, to be precise) had gone digital with impressive results. "Wall-E", if somewhat uninteresting in its preachy eco-friendly message (I mean, how many times do we really need to have this message bashed over our heads?), was still a visual treat. PIXAR is still king of the hill when it comes to CG movies and Wall-E was definitely a crowning achievement, especially when it came to scene rendering, which had an uncanny ability to mimic the real world with visual trickery, especially with regard to depth of field effects. This, combined with the clarity of brand spanking new digital projection equipment, gave the film a tremendous cinematic feeling that almost allowed me to forget that the movie was entirely computer rendered.
So, needless to say, I was excited to see how this same digital projection equipment handled this new digital 3D stuff. However, the experience was somewhat marred with the feeling that the equipment at the Silver City was somehow misconfigured. My suspicions started to arise with the first (non-3D) preview for the new CG film: "The Tale of Despereaux", which seemed rather washed out colour wise. At first I thought it may have been a visual effect,
similar to the muted colour pallet of Fallout 3 , but then the next two previews for Ice Age 3 (how the heck do they render such nice fur? I have a hard enough time rendering nice metal finishes on chainmail pattern illustrations!) and Monsters Vs. Aliens, respectively, were similarly colour-mute as well.
Because the Ice Age 3 and Monsters vs. Aliens trailers were 3D, I spent some time fiddling with my glasses, taking them on and off in order to examine what kind of effect they had on the viewing experience. I noted that the glasses themselves, while not specifically tinted (unless you look in them backwards, more on that in a moment*), did slightly change the colour palette of the movie, making it slightly darker and perhaps a little more greenish in hue.
So, at first, I suspected that the overall hue of the digital projector had been altered in order to make the movie palette truer whilst donning the 3D glasses. However, after watching Bolt for awhile, I suddenly realized that the brightness of the red side of display seemed rather lacklustre. Red and orange objects were super muted, even when I raised the 3D glasses the blurry picture seemed yellow heavy. This led me to suspect that Sudbury's digital project needs an adjustment to balance its RGB, but at the same time, perhaps Bolt itself was just rendered with a yellow heavy palette, I'm not sure and considering how far I am from any other theatres, I'm unlikely to find out for myself until the inevitable DVD release. In the meantime, I would love to hear feedback from anyone else who's seen the Digital 3D version of Bolt and how they found the colour representation (both with and without glasses) to be?
*Fun with 3D Glasses section:
A - Look at the movie through the 3D glasses backwards (arms facing away from your face). Effect: a heavily yellow tinted world, which I'm guessing is related to one way polarization in the plastic lenses (technical folks feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this!)
B - Look at the movie with the 3D glass on upside down (So that the left lens is in front of your right eye and visa versa for the right lens). Effect: Inverted 3D depth, objects which should be closer to you will appear further away and visa versa for objects which should appear to be more distant. (Note: I only discovered this trick during the credits of Bolt, so I'm not sure how the effect plays during the actual movie. It's almost worth going back to find out!)
C - Blink your eyes alternately. Effect: See the two sides of the film and how they're offset from each other.
D - Raise and lower your 3D glasses. Effect: Contrast and compare colour differences between the (blurry) regular projection and the proper (3D) projection through the glasses.
E - Tilt and move your head to different angles. Effect: Note that it doesn't matter what angle you are viewing the screen from, the plastic lens will always polarize the light correctly for the 3D effect to be visible.
F - Look away from the main action in a scene. Effect: Note other background dimensional effects and screen edge blurring/ghosting.
G - Anybody care to add any other interesting discoveries?
Oh, and what did I think of the film as a whole? Well, it was pretty predictable and pedestrian (What else can one expect from Disney?) But, if that's your kind of thing, then I'm sure you would enjoy in thoroughly! My only real complaint is that when the director has made the decision to drop/shoot/spray etc… objects directly towards the audience I found that it broke my suspension of disbelief by violating the fourth wall and I kept thinking "Oh, the director decided to angle this or that shot specifically so they could invoke the 3D effect, not because it was necessarily the best angle for a given shot."
For me personally, anytime that I'm thinking about how and why a shot or scene in a movie was constructed, rather than the movie itself, there's something wrong.
But, I guess that's just an inherent risk with any 3D movie, I remember thinking the same thing with the 3D version of Friday the 13th that came out when I was a kid, so I very well just may be too damn jaded!
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March 2009
