He started watching Primitive Technology and was inspired.
Finished laying decking
The last board is ripped to size, then I try to mimic its factory round bevel with the sander. Worked pretty well.
The ends having been cut need to all be resealed.
228 square feet, half of the house we moved into.
The trees are perfectly placed for some late afternoon shade. These nice trees are the few sticks which survived our reclaiming the land from brush years ago.
Protected: Cool Duplo Project #51 – Transcontinental Railroad
Protected: Cedar Decking Install
Sealing Cedar Decking
Load off my back, money in his pocket.
Portraits and Stuff
Esther at different “resolutions”, rendered with Ivan Murit’s Texturing
Robin & Esther, the lines created pen motions conducive to ink goop
Nicole Texturing’d I need better lit pictures of my subjects.
I got a CMYK pen to experiment with multi color renders, particularly ones where the colors can mix into the full spectrum.
And so…
Nicole CMYK, the result is cool but I definitely want to improve. On a wall it’s a bit spooky, it captured her essence perfectly but it dissolves into chaos as you get closer.
Interpolated Random Grid courtesy of llemarie @ turtletoy.net
Bricks courtesy of markknol @ turtletoy.net
The Great Seal of Vermont, courtesy of Vermont
Appalachian Autumn courtesy of base12 @ turtletoy.net
I was looking for blue ink, I pretty much had to get this “the last color of the king”. A nod to the 1789 scholarly experiment to check if noble blood was in fact blue. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t. I love Noodler’s Ink, I came looking for UV ink and stayed for the jokes (and the quality). Gee I wonder what color billionaire blood is.
The fountain pen is loaded with it now, I’ll be playing with handwriting in the near future.
I was never an artist, at all, but I have really enjoyed how my pursuit of perfection with the plotter, mechanically, electronically and programmatically has ended up making me care deeply about ink quality, flow, and paper properties. It reminds me of all the times artists explained their art medium and I was completely oblivious to it. I never understood that the medium was relevant, yet today it defines the boundaries for what I can do. It’s the possibility space. Much of the artistry of pen plotting comes from the various algorithms, processes, programs, one manages to get running and combine. It’s as much a skill as learning how to draw, it takes effort and skill. Only a borderline unhealthy obsession with seeing a machine wield a pen drove me develop one for years, yet today I’m happy the journey took me from the automaton to exploring more artful things. I’ve been bathing in computing for as long as I can remember, it’s nice to look outside a little. And in the end, it’s computing that took me there. How’s that for a stream of consciousness?
More Compost
I asked a neighbor if they were doing anything with manure from their horses. turned out they had a ton extra and were cool with giving it away. It also turned out it was all piled up nicely already, and was pretty much already compost. I left things very tidy and we gave them some soaps Nicole made, what an absolute score.
6 loads without a dump truck
I added the 2 buckets of ash we keep for icy weather. We’ll have time to rebuild our stock come Fall. We’re mixing in wood chips and grass clipping. Pretty much anything green we can get our hand on. It will be a serious pile of serious compost soon.
Chestnut Progress
3 year update after planting 3 little Chestnuts, piggybacking off a New York guy’s effort to reintroduce Chestnuts to American forests: they all look wonderful.
The stronger growth comes from the one that’s in the shade, go figure.
We got a few more this year since they’re doing so well and promise to deliver a bounty in a few decades.
We’ll find them a spot in due time.
Protected: Spring Leaf Picker
Deck Work
I worked through the week end, but it was really fudging hot and that slowed me down. Still, the deck it taking shape. And that shape is that of 2 decks to be joined with a couple of steps.
