Pencil Me In!

As long as I can remember I have adored pencils and pens. I have vivid memories going into the Sanrio store at the mall in the early '80s and not being interested in anything but the center kiosk filled with colorfully designed pens and pencils, organized by character, color, and even smell. And then there's a memory of viewing the Andy Warhol Retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago and then visiting the art supply store just a block down the street, its shelves filled with every kind of colored pencil, mechanical pencil, drawing pencil, marker, ballpoint pen, calligraphy pen, and fountain pen you could dream of. How to buy just one? And then there were the character pencils from the '80s, like Garfield, and pencils with rainbows or unicorns, shiny pencils... *sigh* So today I pay homage to the pencil, on this National Pencil Day, with some pages from the 1897 A. W. Faber Lead and Colored Pencil Catalog, and some fun pencil facts:

1. The pencil has been mass-produced since 1622.
   
2. On March 30, 1858, the first U.S. patent was issued for a pencil with an eraser on the end.
   
3. 75% of all pencils are yellow.
   
4. A single wooden pencil can write 45,000 words, or draw a line 35 miles long.

Pysanky: Traditional Ukrainian Patterned Eggs

Pysanky (pronounced "PIH-sahn-kih"; singular is pysanka, pronounced "PIH-sahn-kah") are Easter eggs intricately decorated using wax resist and bold colors. The Ukrainian tradition of decorating eggs has been around for many generations, and their design motifs date back to pre-Christian times. The amazing sample of colored plates below are from a book illustrated by Erast Binyashevsky in 1968. You can view even more of the plates on the Traditional Pysanky website.

22 DIYed Easter Eggs

Just in case you're like me and haven't decided yet which method or methods you'll be trying this year for making Easter eggs, here are some ideas!
Dyeing Eggs the Natural Way from Two Men and a Little Farm (what a color palette!)

Ombre Easter Eggs from Sugar & Charm

Gradated Tints from El Hada de Papel (reminds me of paint sample chips!)

Neon Dip-Dyed Eggs from Oh Joy!

"Airbrushed" Eggs from Ashbee Design

Silk Tie-Dyed Eggs from Our Best Bites

Chalkboard Eggs from Oleander + Palm (A more permanent version could be done using black dye and white crayons.)


Off-Register Graphic & Type Eggs from Martha Stewart

Huevos de Pascua from La Receta de la Felicidad (Instructions are in Spanish, but photos are pretty self-explanatory.)

Gilded Eggs from Pencil Shavings Studio

Pantone Chip Easter Eggs from How About Orange

If you want to skip the dye and do something different:

Decoupage Easter Eggs from By Wilma

CMYK Dot Easter Eggs from Martha Stewart

Origami Flowered Eggs from Family Circle

Embroidered Eggs from Design Sponge

Photo Print Eggs from A Subtle Revelry

Washi Tape Easter Eggs from Lovely Indeed

Fabric-Covered Eggs from Better Homes and Gardens

Three different Sharpie ideas:

Doodle Eggs from Alisa Burke

Black and White Eggs from Obviously Sweet

Journaled Eggs from Alisa Burke

And if you don't want to use real eggs at all:

Pappersägg (Paper Eggs) from Craft and Creativity

Find any you might try?

Never Judge a Book by Its Dust Jacket

Swedish Flickr user Book Cover Lover has compiled images of beautiful, hardbound book covers that were at one time hidden by dust jackets. There's just no room for me to show all these amazing works of art to you here, so I present her beautiful rainbow ombre thumbnails. Click here to see them all up close and personal.

Thank Geek It's Friday: Calculator Color Palettes

Color inspiration can come from anywhere, right? That's why I thought these calculator palettes were so cool. I never really thought of how colors might be used on calculators to make them seem more appealing or superior to other calculators. But when the colors are taken off the surface and put together, they really are very modern, techy, and for the most part, masculine. Here are some images from the collection I found on tumblr (where you can find even more). However, the last image (the Texas Instruments TI-30 SLR) is my own calculator from 1987. I was so excited my senior year in high school to finally be in math classes that required such a "sophisticated" instrument. Do they still use calculators in schools?

Filography: Beautiful String Art from the '70s

In my spring cleaning quest I have come upon another book that was hidden away up in the attic. When I was growing up in the 1970s and '80s, my dad always had some sort of in-depth project going, whether it was putting together an intricate model of an old race car or building a telescope. But I also seem to recall him doing "string art" at least once, because I remember him teaching me how to recreate the same effect using lines on paper. So when I uncovered this book, The Beautiful String Art Book: 100 Projects You Can Create, written by Raymond Gautard in 1978, I couldn't help but spend the rest of my allotted cleaning time leafing through it. The book not only features geometric "filography" designs (betcha didn't know there was even a term for string art...neither did I!), but pictures that can be made, like butterflies and even the Eiffel Tower. And it includes detailed instructions and diagrams. Here are some highlights.










The attic is so messy that I can't even get to my stash of childhood artwork right now, so I couldn't find the filography drawings I did as a kid in time for this post, but I decided to do a quick version in Illustrator, to show how easy it is to do two-dimensional versions on paper, or virtual paper in this case. No string or nails necessary!

First, to make a basic curve, place dots down a vertical imaginary line, equidistant from each other. Here I placed them 1/4" from each other. Group them, then Copy and Paste and rotate 90 degrees so the copied dots are now horizontal. Place them at the bottom, 1/4" below and 1/4" to the right of the bottom-most vertical dot. So now you have vertical and horizontal axes. Next, you can either physically number the dots as shown, or just imagine they're numbered as such. With a line, connect the #1 dot on the vertical axis to the #1 dot on the horizontal axis, then connect the #2 dot on the vertical axis to the #2 dot on the horizontal axis, etc.



Once you have connected all the dot pairs with straight lines, you will have a curve! (Looks very Space Agey, doesn't it? Kind of like those '80s video game matrices... And didn't they use something like that for "Friday Night Videos"? Sorry, I got sidetracked there...)



Group all of the dots and lines together. Copy and paste the group three times. Rotate one of the pasted groups 90 degrees, rotate another 180 degrees, and rotate the last 270 degrees (or -90 degrees). Place them on top of each other so they form a square.



Now you can colorize each grouping, or even each line, however you wish.



Copy and paste and rotate as much as you like, and play around with all sorts of patterns.



Even size them, big or small!



Do you think you might try this? If you do, send me a photo!

Incidentally, when I tried to find if the book is still available out there, I found some copies on Amazon, new and used. Used copies are pretty pricey, and don't even look at the price of the original copies in new condition! You can also find similarly-priced used copies on AbeBooks (great resource!), along with a couple other related vintage string art books.