check this out - if you are already IMing using messenger this is a no brainer.

I’ve spent a few months being a non productive printmaker. This is partly due to lack of inspiration, and partly due to the distractions of living life. Today I designed and cut a block for my next project. This project will be about days and capturing these days in a way that makes interesting lines and shapes for me to cut into lino blocks. These prints will be dated the day I start them, they won’t be a literal diary. I will not make one every day. I will have some motivation built in to this project that makes it visible which days I have done work and which I have not though, which will be part of what makes this project interesting when looking back on it.

Sometimes when I show people the prints I make, they say they wish they had more time to do something creative. I usually say that you have to prioritize a little, have family that helps you make doing some artwork a priority, and probably have to watch a little less TV than the average person. You really probably could still be watching the Wire on HBO if you can multitask though, so don’t panic.

When thinking about what to do next, I wanted to do something that would have meaning for me, that felt more like making prints for me than making prints for some mythical art buyer. The days idea came to me when thinking about the time I spend making prints and the interval between them, the way a notebook with dates on the page tells me later what sort of imagery I was noodling with at that time. The date itself will be at least initially the largest part of the image. There will be other shapes and lines and patterns that I will invent, borrow and steal. The date may be more or less visible and readable in each print, and at some point may be less important to me. For now the date will be the prominent part of the image, this is where (and when) I am starting.

Print 02/13/07 has been cut, and will be printed sometime soon.

http://www.worldwidechild.com/

Some really nice soccer parents from my daughter’s team have an online toystore, and are opening a store in in the Ravenna neighborhood here in Seattle. Check em out. Eco friendly, fair trade, pretty neat stuff you won’t find in the mass market.

check out kiva.org

I’ll let them explain it, they’ll do a better job than I will.

I set up an account in a few minutes and made loans to a carpenter and a seamstress. Pretty amazing that you can make a loan halfway around the world in so little time, and save that person from paying the insane rates they’d normally pay in their own country.

Today is the Pinewood Derby at the 9lb Hammer in Georgetown. It’s not for scouts, it’s for we who’d normally go there for a beer.

There are 3 classes; Speed - the regular pinewood race rules apply, Art Car - use the pinewood kit any way you see fit to build an art-car, and Vintage - bring the car you made as a kid. I’m entering two cars, one in the art class and one in the racer class.

Pictures to come after the event…Should be a hoot seeing what people create.

 Bubbleshare is a photo sharing site. I tried posting one of their embedded slideshows, but when I did - it made most of this website disappear… Guess they have bugs with WordPress. Here is a link if you happen to care what bubbleshare can do. 

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A short video I took at Insanity 19 - Camera was clamped to the handlebar for the rides.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GIM_zgPZV9o

In the great pantheon of superheroes, Chickenman is unknown to many. This is my portrait of this undersung hero.

 Thanks to the greatness that is the internet, you can listen to a few of his archived radio exploits here: http://www.mannyhomeslice.com/mannyhomeslice/chickenman

 More Chickenman info: http://www.usssatyr.com/chickenman.htm

I’ve been slacking a bit lately and haven’t created a new print in a while - but then drawergeeks new assigment was listed…and it was Superman. I’m looking forward to the new movie. The source material for this print was two separate photos. I liked that this particular superman wasn’t of the stylized overbuilt huge-chest-and-massive-square-jaw type currently in favor with cartoonists and animators. The appeal of superman I think is that anyone could be superman… well, if your parents sent you off to another planet with the right color sun and all.

Finally made good progress on our backyard patio this weekend. Picture here. N hauled all the rocks around the house, and I placed them over about 3 hours. I used every stone - amazing we just hit about the right amount with the slate we ordered after having collected misc stones for a few months. There are still small squarish and trianglish gaps that we’ll go back and infill with something else. I’m pleased with how it is turning out.