sonya’s blog

Goodbye, Vox

nobody@vox.com(sonyaseattle) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:00:36 -0700

I'm sorry...it's been fun, and you have a lovely interface...but I'm leaving you. The one thing I can't get past in our relationship is this: you don't let people comment unless they have a Vox account. And apparently people don't want to sign up for yet another blogging service - and who can blame them?

So I'm packing my HTML and my CSS and my custom banner and Flickr badge, and heading over to Blogger.

You'll find me there from now on, at this address:
http://sonyareasor.blogspot.com/

I also co-write a blog for the community of Shoreline, Washington called "Ronald Bog Blog" here:
http://ronaldbog.blogspot.com/

And...you can comment!

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Findableness

nobody@vox.com(sonyaseattle) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 11:17:41 -0700

I was just reading about a new search engine that's in the works, called "Powerset," which led me to this blog post by one of its developers. In it, he mentions that an acquaintance gave him his business card, on which was printed only his first and last name, and nothing else. When the developer asked what his acquaintance's email address was, he said, “Just put my name into any reasonable search engine and my homepage will pop right up.”

I think this is interesting. Used to be, companies would list their websites as "http://www.company.com" on advertising materials. Then it became "www.company.com" and then just "company.com." So now, I think most people just go to Google and type in the company name, rather than all those extra characters; I know for a fact, and without trying it, that if I enter "Adidas" into Google, the first result will be the company website.

So why not have that convenience for people? I have a fairly uncommon name (the blog post above is titled "The Tyranny of the Common Name"), so when you type "Sonya Reasor" into Google, my LinkedIn profile comes up first; in Yahoo's search engine, my homepage comes up first. Either way, I'm findable.

But the other day, a friend and I were talking about how sometimes, when you're bored, you type in the names of people you went to school with, or knew earlier in life, to see if they have any online presence. I feel sure we've all Googled the names of our elementary school friends, right? Well, if I was hoping for my long-ago friends to find me, they'd have to know my current, married name. There are, as of me typing this, only three Google hits for my maiden name, "Sonya Hash." (Yeah, that's a hell of a last name to grow up with).

But by typing that just now, I've probably added a fourth hit*, and this one will lead to the real me, not the Sonya Hash who lives in another city and who appears to only be 27 years old. It'll possibly help friends from Kent, where I grew up, locate me - maybe people I knew when I was going to Kentwood High School, or Kentridge Highschool, or even Sequoia Junior High (or Jr High) or Meridian Elementary.

You see what I did there.

Do I want to be "findable"? Sure, why not. It would be nice to hear from someone I knew as a child. Not sure what we'd talk about, but it would be interesting to see what people are up to, especially since I've always avoided high school reunions and the like.

Anyway, the internet is an interesting thing, isn't it? Maybe I'll get some of those cards printed up that have only my name on them.

*It took less than 12 hours for Google to find this post.

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Dear trick-or-treaters...

nobody@vox.com(sonyaseattle) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:39:04 -0700

...where are you?? I have a lot of candy left - no, really, a lot. And I don't want to keep it around, so I'll have to take it to work tomorrow. So come and get some! I got the caramel Reeses peanut butter cups....

Picture 1

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Third bee woodblock print done

nobody@vox.com(sonyaseattle) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:32:08 -0700

Bee wodcut 3

I don't like it.

Seriously, I've been looking at this thing in various stages for over a week (almost 2 weeks) and I'm sick of it. Is that normal? I feel like I gave birth to a deformed baby. A lot of work and I don't even like to be in the same room with it.

It was a strange, tiring week, ending in a pretty intense three-day work retreat, which I enjoyed despite the fact that it exhausted me...I went to bed at 9:30 on Friday night. Then, the rest of the weekend was spent on this thing, and I still have work to do in that class to make up for the time I was at Work Camp! And to top it off, I missed two assignments in my other class.

This week will be better, I think; Halloween on Wednesday is something pleasant to look forward to, even though we get only a few kids most years. And the coming weekend is daylight savings time: fall back, hoorah!

And I can start the next woodcut. I do feel like I'm learning something each time, with these. The best part of doing this one was figuring out the sequence: it's six colors, two separate woodblocks, reduction cut on both. One for the yellow, pink, and dark red, and one for the blue, green and black. Having a printing background must have helped; I do know something about color separations!

Anyway, the weather's been nice, and things outside smell wonderfully like Fall...ok, I can't complain too much. Life's good.

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First woodblock prints - done!

nobody@vox.com(sonyaseattle) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:49:44 -0700

And here it is...it's just a one-color (black, obviously) print, since this was my first try at woodblock printing.

Woodblock

The wood was a piece my teacher gave me; it's poplar plywood. The wood was kind of splintery, especially once I got through the first layer.

I did order some nice Japanese printing paper (and some special Shina ply for my next attempt) from McClains printmaking supply, who I am very impressed with. I placed my order online at lunch Monday, and had the package the next day.

The steps in making this print, if you're interested, are below. I basically started with a pencil sketch, which I re-drew in pen and then transferred onto the wood block.

Sketch

Then I carved the wood, which took several days.

Last night, I made the first six prints! I'll make more, probably, but I'm eager to get on to the next one, which will be a multi-color reduction print, like I did with the lino block, but with wood.

Xfer

Carving

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Reduction linocut print

nobody@vox.com(sonyaseattle) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:56:59 -0700

Well, it took most of the weekend and Monday evening, but I finished a little class project: a 4-color linocut block print. Here's a little step-by-step tour of the process.

After doing some thumbnails and color studies, I transferred my final drawing onto a 6x8 inch linoleum block. The colors are printed light to dark, with the largest areas printing first. Each color is cut down to print the next color. Because of this, you can never go backwards; the number of prints you make of the first color is the final number you'll have when you're done. Reading about this, I found that the technique is also called "suicide block" printing, which I thought was kind of cool.

1-first cut

Here's the block cut for the first print; just the areas that I wanted to keep white are cut out.

The design is drawn on in waterproof ink, because I'll have to wash the block as I go along. I have the color studies nearby as I carve, to make sure I'm cutting the right areas each time.

This is the first color, printed and hung up to dry. I did a range of yellows and oranges.

2-first print

3-second color

Here's the second color, a lavender purplish-blue.

4-third color

And the third color, a teal green.

5-last color

For the last color, black, you can see that the block is almost gone; just the black image is left.

6-final yellow

The final prints. I thought they turned out pretty good, for my first try. If I re-did this same design, I'd leave more black areas for that last print. And try to get more fine detail. It's not easy carving that linoleum, but I wonder if cutting actual wood might let me make finer cuts. Maybe I just need better tools.

In any case, I had a lot of fun doing this project. It's the first in a series of 6, all of which will be about bees. I'll post them here as I complete them!

7-final orange

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A pleasant late-summer (or is it early fall yet?) weekend

nobody@vox.com(sonyaseattle) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 20:53:47 -0700

Fall leaves

Days like today are just about perfect, to me. It's cold enough to wear a sweater outside, but the sun's shining anyway, with that orange-ish light that makes everything glow a little.

Yesterday was nice, too. I met an online friend; she and her husband were here from California. We drove up to La Conner, land o' tulips (though at this time of year, the best crop is actually oysters).

La Conner Waterway

A nice day of wandering around the town, looking at the touristy little art shops, followed by lunch at the La Conner Brewery, made for a happy visit.

In the evening we saw the movie Stardust, which I enjoyed more than I had expected (mainly due to Robert De Niro's part, and the Ricky Gervais cameo).

Today was a quiet day, but I did get some uncharacteristic baking done. I only bake a few times a year, but a friend's birthday is coming up, and I had a craving for some pumpkin cookies...

Coookie

There was pumpkin left over, so I also made some pumpkin mini-cupcakes. Then I got crazy and coated everything with dark chocolate frosting. Well, the cookies are supposed to have it, you know! And what's a cupcake without frosting? It's not the thick, sugary kind; it's just good dark chocolate that each little cakelet got a dip in. Yum, sigh.

Babycakes

Next week I start school again; I'm taking another drawing class that I know will have me cursing whoever invented figure drawing, and wishing I could just draw skulls and cats and insects again. The other class is an online "History Of Jazz" class, which ought to be both interesting and unproblematic, since I have a pretty sizable jazz library, and a love of the music. Two local live jazz performances are mandatory - well, all right then!

So another fall trickles in; this is my favorite time of year, at this time of year. In January, spring will be my favorite time of year, and I'll be longing for the sun. But now, I'm happy whenever we finally get some rain, and I'm happy to be wearing sweaters and socks again. And the food is so good right around now...I got some fresh corn in La Conner, six ears for a dollar. Life is good!

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NCD Saturday

nobody@vox.com(sonyaseattle) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:04:51 -0700

Tomorrow is No Computer Day. All day long. I need to clean my office and get some other stuff done.

In other news, this story and photo made me smile.

Happy Friday!

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Que Sera, Sera

nobody@vox.com(sonyaseattle) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:43:34 -0700

Copied this idea from Alex's blog, but very amusing:

1. Go to http://www.careercruising.com.
2. Put in Username: nycareers, Password: landmark.
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top fifteen results.

Now this is interesting! Here are mine:

1. Website Designer
Which is probably one of the things I'd be doing now, if my life had gone slightly differently.

2. Industrial Designer
Yep, very interested; should have gone to college for that.

3. Desktop Publisher
Which is kind of what I do now, so good match, I guess. They probably don't know what "prepress" is over at that site.

4. Interior Designer
Yeeess.....well, maybe.

5. Animator
Would be a lot of fun, I'm sure, but I'm not cool enough.

6. Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator
Nope. Not a big fan of comics since I turned about 8 and started reading "real" books. No disrespect to graphic novels, mind you. I know there are some great ones, I just don't have a taste for them.

7. Fashion Designer
Yeah, I could see that, I suppose. But see the next one...

8. Costume Designer
Maybe. I was never that much into fashion.

9. Multimedia Developer
Yes, I'd do that.

10. Set Designer
Would be fun. Would I get to see the plays for free?

11. Graphic Designer
Done that too, yes.

12. Computer Animator
Why does the site list this separately from "animator," I wonder? Do people really hand-draw cartoon cels these days?

13. Artist
Yes, of course!

14. Exhibit Designer
That sounds interesting. (Would I get into the museum for free?)

15. Medical Illustrator
Which is funny - I love scientific illustration, but show me a dissected cadaver, and drawing it is probably the last thing I'd do (after throwing up, running away and fainting).

16. Craftsperson
That's kind of vague, but I have huge respect for those that make things.

17. Potter
Yes, absolutely! I love pottery.

18. Video Game Developer
Mebbe. I don't play video games, really...maybe I could be the animator. :)

19. Webmaster
Meh. Seems like a job that would get boring quickly.

And finally...
20. Clergy

Heh. The site didn't ask about belief in a deity. Why is it assumed? I'd make a pretty poor clergy-person, being an atheist and all.

Entertaining, though. Try it and see what you should be when you grow up!

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Lazy end of summer

nobody@vox.com(sonyaseattle) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 22:01:43 -0700

It's been a good weekend; even the previous week wasn't the pit of hell I expected it to be. The coming week might be a challenge, but I feel up to it, after a nice, long, creative, sunny weekend. I did a little drawing over the last several days; the silly mantis pastel was just a good exercise, and diverting. I honestly don't know what it's all about, the mantis that's caught itself a rat (must be a big bug).

Mantis with rat

But I played around with pastels on gouache, all on an old book page from a music book I had sitting around here. I was pretty happy with the result. It's our good old cat, Bridget, from a photo of her sitting in the sun and looking pleased with herself. She seems quite dignified, and a little mischievous, in the painting.

Cat symphony

The cats can be tough for me to capture, so I was pretty happy that this one
came out as well as it did. Now I want to try a few more in this vein.

But today, I let myself just relax. I did some laundry, and we went on a nice bike ride in the late afternoon, but much of the day I just sat in the sun and read through the last book in the Philip Pullman series. I am a little surprised at just how much I'm liking those books! I tried to read a Harry Potter a while back, and couldn't even get through the first chapter. I don't like books that "write down," even if they're meant for kids (and I know a lot of people would argue that Rowling doesn't do that, but really, she's no Hemingway). But these Pullman books, despite the young heroes, caught me up in their intricate stories and well-thought-out worlds.

The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2)

Philip Pullman

Anyway, I'm almost done with the last one. When I finish, I need to dig up our copy of The Historian; I've been listening to the audiobook in the car and I discovered that it's missing a whole chapter, so I'll just go with the paper version from that point on. It's very good too; I thought it was a little slow at first, but it rallied and now I'm hooked.

The Historian

Elizabeth Kostova

So, that's it for this week. We'll see how well I survive the upcoming week, with my boss on vacation and a lot of other vital people out. I'm sure it will be...interesting.

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