September 3, 2008
Font of Knowledge
One of dad's requests when designing his new "Manitoulin Island Sketch Book" was that he wanted to have the text written in his own handwriting. I know that technically it would be nearly impossible to get a good quality, readable reproduction from a regular scan of handwritten text. However, I recalled reading an article many, many moons ago about software that allows one to convert scanned glyphs into regular font files. This, of course, allows for a much higher print quality than just a standard scan. However, I couldn't remember the name of the actual software and even my well-honed Google search skillz couldn't turn up anything in the way of easy to use and affordable font creation software.
Eventually, I dug back through my records and discovered that software I was looking for was created by a company called "Fontlab", which, fortunately, was still in the business!
After reading through the descriptions of the various pieces of software from Fontland, I decided on a combination of ScanFont 5 and Type Tool 3.
Basically, Scanfont allows you to scan a page of glyphs and assign them to letter positions in your font, while Type Tool is used to finalize the glyphs, correct problems, set kerning and basically do everything required to create new fonts. Given the complexity of creating fonts, I found both programs surprising easy to pick up, just a couple of references to their respective manuals to clear up confusion over esoteric font terms and I was ready to go. In the end, I would estimate that it took me about a 8 hours in total to take samples of my dad's hand writing and convert it to the two original fonts we used for the Sketch Book, which is pretty good efficiency for starting off with no font foundry experience what-so-ever!!!
Time allowing, I will hopefully be able to post some of my original font creations for download, in the meantime, I wholeheartedly recommend Fontlab products to anyone who's ever been interested in creating their own fonts!
P.S. As a bonus, here's a great little tool for identifying mystery fonts: What The Font?!
Manitoulin Island Sketch Book
One of our exciting new Manitoulin Illustrated projects is finally ready to go! This hand-picked 90-page compilation entitled: "Manitoulin Island Sketch Book" contains a collection of well-known Canadian artist Jack Whyte's sketches, drawings and prints of the Island from the past 50 years, along with select complimentary stories and anecdotes.
You can click this link for a sample tour of the Manitoulin Island Sketch Book and ordering information, which is being handled by the excellent, high-quality print-on-demand service: lulu.com. I will also have a limited number of copies for sale at my regular and holiday market tables on the Island and hopefully at various retailers both on and off the island, which I will list as information becomes available.
November 5, 2007
Odd Ballz
My buddy Draxenn posted a comic recently based on another of my real life market adventures!
Actually, the conversation was more like "It's a dodechedron {pause as potential customer closely examines, then drops ball} That's a Platonic solid consisting of twelve faces, not a communicable disease!"
But apparently even my regular verbosity was too acute to be immortalized as a web comic! LOL
So now all I'm allowed to say at my able is "I make... Dodeca.. err... Stress Balls, yes, that's the ticket, Stress Balls!"
May 9, 2007
Cool Little Article About Etsy.com
http://hubpages.com/hub/My_Favorite_Etsy_Shops
May 2, 2007
Etsy Treasury Madness
I just found out that some of my work has been posted on a couple of Etsy.com treasuries.
One created by a good friend, showcasing some of her favorite Etsy sellers and another focusing on Canadian Etsy sellers.
If you would like to help out any of these talented artists, please consider visiting these treasuries and clicking on each of the 12 featured items. This helps to raise the popularity of the treasury, bringing it to the front page.
Or even better, consider purchasing any of these wonderful hand-crafted items!
Thank you!
April 4, 2007
Let's Get Ready to Gruuuuuumble!
My good buddy Draxenn has been working on a special series of Grumbleduke Cartoons related to a huge cross-over story happening on the Drunk Duck comic hosting website.
As part of the cross-over, different artists are doing drawings of each other characters, one excellent artist has already drawn this totally rad version of The Grumbleduke (from this thread):
April 3, 2007
Artisan Jewelry
Sandra Eileen is a cool Artisan Jewelry designer that scores big points for shrugging off the commercialism of MySpace and having great flower pics on her blog.
March 30, 2007
Beatnik Coffee House
So I got roped into doing a small performance at a Coffee House evening that the local writers group put on. It was actually fun, with lots of excellent stories and poetry. I was sure what I should read, so I ended up writing the following spoken word type piece, entitled "Spam".
Are you too small? Pills make you larger! Viagra, Cialis, increase your volume, louder, impress your wife, last longer, be harder, less caring, more caring, sensitivity training for adults, love you long time soldier boy.
Too large? Shed pounds! Loose inches! Real Hoodia, See ya, Hydroxycut myself shaving this morning. Drink more water, carbonated water, flavoured water, just add water, bottled water, Evian is naïve, Dasani is coka-kookie at twice the price and all but one of the ingredients, cheese grater, grate on my nerves, high heel stuck in a grate, heel boy, heal thyself.
Need more Energizer bunny keeps going and going and going. Energy Drinks, Full Throttle Jolts Rockstar, Red Bull Chivalry is dead, get women any where, any time, hundreds of singles in your home town, Russian brides at your fingertips, Filipinos flip flirtatious feathers, pleasant mother pheasant pluckers.
Too many bills? Trained councillors will console as you consolidate your corporate conglomeration, Caffeinated Keyboard Kowboys type wild western enigmas, coding, dot dot dash, counting, zero one zero zero, calculating, 404 page not found, herbaceous hepatitis, one shot protects, hole in one, hole in the wall gang, gang bang, chitty chitty bang bang, download, upload, reload, press F7 to load program.
C Colon Backslash, bracket, exclamation ata tilde hat, pound greater than, less than forward slash, gash, bash, cultural whiplash, lick the wax from my moustache.
Real Replica Rolex imported at your leisure suit Larry in the lavish land of lounge lizards, watch the watches witness witless lessons, television, the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation, radish, dish, disrespecting my home rates have never been lower, mortgage, amortize, realize, actualize, hypnotize, demonize, would you like fries with that?
Corporate stock tips, LPT COM OEM software, adobe acrobat tumbling from windows vista. Check out the view from above, instant wealth, forward to 18 friends in 7 minutes for 30 years of good luck. Get away, get out, inconvenient truth brought to you by the liberal democratic new conservative republican overlords of acid.
Social engineering, sociopath networking, who do you know, what do you know, how do you do, who do you do? Information, disinformation, everything you know is wrong, you are being lied, abuse your illusions, aim higher, AOL Instant Messenger, American Online, join my network, nitpick myspace, get out of my facebook, book travel, cruises, flights, hotels, car rentals, Expedia expedites exhilarating expenditures.
Get your degree now! Six degrees of separation, separate your whites, wash in hot water, wash in cold, stain fighting, fast acting. Ring around the rosey collar is a thing of the past. Retrofit, retroactive, stay active, stay fit, one hundred calories pack my suitcase, file my case, hear my case, get off my case, the case is before the courts, the judge adjudicates jurors without prejudice.
Tune in, Tune out, Turn off, stay tuned for the next episode, next time on as the world turns by the guiding light of the days of our lives all my children are young and restless and will only have one life to live due to the passions of the general hospital staff, distaff, distil, destroy, staph infection, Staphylococcus caucus contains cocoons, Cancun, saloon, beyond Rangoon, Gorilla Monsoon, contagious coughs, latest, greatest, most fulfilling, rewarding, happiness is just a phone call away. Supplies are limited! Act now! All for one low price! Free shipping!
Paranoid, Humanoid, Philip K. Dick Android, Constipate, Emancipate, Liberate, Revaluate!
Spam, the medium of the message, is the message, is the medium, is us, spam.
March 27, 2007
Bacon Sandwich
I stumbled on this really cool t-shirt by the creator of the webcomic "South of Sanity".
With the all the rough times that smokers have been through of lately, I think we should all show them our support by wearing Radec's narfy cool "I Like Smokers…" Tee!
February 25, 2007
More of The Collector
I came across some pictures of a custom that I put together a number of years ago that I called "The Collector". I actually one a couple of awards for this costume, best in show and best overall construction, I think it was 1994 and Primedia in Toronto.
February 23, 2007
All in the Family
Looks like I've inspired another unusual kilt-wearing cartoon character, everyone, let me introduce you to the creature who could be the Gumbleduke's long lost cousin, it's "Bicker 1" and "Bicker 2". Inspired from adventures on the Etsy forums, where you too can hang out with all sorts of cool artists!
February 21, 2007
More Scare Bear
I came across some pictures of a custom that I put together a number of years ago that I called "Scare Bear". I actually one a couple of awards for this costume, best in show and best overall construction, I think it was 1995 and Primedia in Toronto.
GreatTrompe l'oeil Artist
Very nice stuff!
February 17, 2007
Etsy Blogs
Anyone who's read this blog for a while knows that I'm a huge fan of blogs and online journals. Recently, there was a post in the Etsy forums (Etsy being the coolest place in the universe for finding handmade goods online) asking if people wanted to cross link blogs, which seemed like a totally faboo idea!
Therefore, for your reading enjoyment, I'd like to present this list of other Etsy vendors who keep blogs (if you're a creative person, have an interest in creativity, or just want to shop until you drop, there's some very interesting reading here):
3 Haute Mommas
A Punkin Card Company
Art of Andrew Daniel
Art Lovers
Backwoods Creations: Living Life Creatively
Beautiful Brushstrokes
Busy Bee
CAM Studio
cArried AwAy
Circular Accessories
Creative Sparks Studio
Creativity, Fine Art and Jewelry by Ellen Leigh
Claire Creations
Cupcake 2 Create
Curly's Queue
Dragon in Knots
Etsy Needlework
Eye Pop Art
Glassgrrl Studios
H. Garr
Indie Finds on Etsy and Elsewhere
Jessica Torrant's Artist Journal
Jewelry by Tara
JK Creations Boutique
Karma's Kreations
Knot By Gran'ma
LaPella Art
Lemons and Lollis
Lucid Cortege
Mermaid Creek
Mill Girl
Miss Mish Mish Mish Mash
Mrs. Dragon's Wares
Mouse Trails
Ms. Belle
Paw & Claw Designs
Plastic Pumpkin Designs
PoppyCat News
Rainy Day Art
Re:Form
Right As Rain Creations
Rita's G-string at Celticharpanddrum
Seaside Quilts
Simply Shell
Sylvia's Jewellery
The Blog of the "Lazy Cats"
The Creation Station
The Wine Bottle Orphan Chronicles
The Viridian Muse -Naturally Inspired
The World of MI Zombie!
There's Beauty in the Breakdown
Tina Rice
Whatever Strikes Mrs. Kwitty's fancy
Windys Designs
WoodNVisions
Yarn & Coffee
Yaslani's Groove Spot
November 29, 2006
No Comment
I categorically deny any knowledge of the events which inspired Draxenn’s latest Grumbleduke episode of A Jagged Mind.
November 19, 2006
Stumbling Along the Artist’s Path
Recently I received an email from an artist that visited my dad about 14 years ago. It’s funny to remember “the old days”, growing up with all sorts of people dropping in to visit our home and talk to dad about art. Life is so different now, living with Audrey and the cats and taking great comfort in the fact that (thankfully) hardly anyone ever drops in!
Anyhow, this artist has a cool blog (that I’m adding to my Allies) with tons and tons of different art links, lots of stuff that you wouldn’t normally come across just surfing the ‘net at random. His site is part of Stumbleupon.com, a fun site that’s actually dedicated to helping people find all those weird and wonderful sites.
I also wanted to mention that my father has an art show coming up (or on now, we’re not sure) at the Lennox Contemporary Gallery in Toronto.
November 13, 2006
War of the Surreal Worlds
Start with the distinctive voice of Richard Burton:
"No one would have believed in the last years of the 19th century that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. That we were be scrutinized as someone with a microscope watches creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us."
Next insert a thunderous string arrangement and you have the opening of a rather unusual rock opera (and one of my favorite LPs of all time) from 1978: "Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds
".
I was introduced to this album (yes, album) when I was very young because my father was probably the biggest Moody Blues fan in the world. He was always sitting me down with a pair of ancient headphones stuck to the sides of my head to listen to the Moody's or War of the Worlds, which we were lucky enough to have a cassette tape copy of, although, later, we also gained a copy of the album insert from some unknown source.
Continue reading "War of the Surreal Worlds"
November 12, 2006
The Scarebear as Art
The final piece of old data:
My father, Jack Whyte, created this piece of collage art after my costume called "The Scarebear". The piece of art is physically 5" x 7". It was given to me as an X-mas present in 1995.
June 2010
