Number 19

19. The Ancients called this the ‘Number of Surrender’ for your life needs to link up with the Universal Life.

The number 19 is an endurance vibration.  It brings everything into focus, winds up old accounts and starts off anew.  People influenced by the number 19 can be completely self absorbed, are usually extroverts and are often egotistical.  They can also become dependent on others and will find that there are many obstacles in their path until they work forward, balancing their needs with the needs of others. (http://numerology-thenumbersandtheirmeanings.blogspot.com/2011/05/number-19.html)

So here we are at the end of the quarter and the last entry on this blog. What better way to end it than to delve into a little Numerology as we wind up old accounts and bring everything into focus.

This has definitely been a challenging quarter for me and I would attribute it to doing too much and dealing with family and health issues, which might have allowed me to become dependent on others who were generous with their time in helping me to clear obstacles in my path. But within that struggle, I discovered many others were facing roadblocks as well and I observed the entire class help each other at one time or another. I never heard anyone say "I can't help you," without trying to solve the dilemma first. That is a generous quality.

One of my struggles this quarter was getting the hair to work on my cat that I created in 3D Modeling. This cat looked like it had been doused with gasoline and set on fire. It looked terrible. So my solution was to watch a tutorial on making believable hair and giving my sad little cat a new lease on his virtual 9 lives. 

This is where you may watch the Lightwave Hair System Tutorial (http://vimeo.com/30132850) and here in this blog is where you can compare the old and new versions of my cat.

 This poor cat... after applying the details outlined in the tutorial, the cat crashed my computer so I had to systematically remove bits and pieces of the tutorial elements until my cat looked a little like a puff ball. Also, I could not render in HD because it was going to take 72 hours to render one frame. I have no idea how Mr. Vaughan managed to render the caveman.

4 days later, I am putting this one away and moving on.

Spring is a sign of beginnings and many of us will move on to new starts. I am excited about the personal and professional connections I have made this quarter and am eager to see what is next as I move forward... beyond the number 19.

Thank you to Brian Martin for providing an excellent learning environment and to a classroom full of helpers, you are awesome! I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

 

The Eighteenth Element

The Atomic number 18 on the Periodic Table is Argon. The name Argon is from a Greek word meaning lazy or inactive. Argon's existence was suspected in 1785 but not confirmed until a century later in 1894 when two Lords had nothing to do so they removed the oxygen, carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen from a sample of clean air and instead of finding nothing... lo and behold there was Argon: chemically inert, colorless, odorless and nontoxic as a solid, liquid and gas. It sounds like nothing to me, but I am not a scientist nor a Lord with nothing better to do than figure out what is left when you remove all the known gasses from air. (Thank you Wikipedia. Remember this may or may not be true... but it's out there like a whole lot of Argon.) 

Thankfully, I am an artist and this week's assignment was like old-school graphic design. Make an Art Deco poster out of nothing... which, to Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsey, is impossible... because if there is nothing it's probably loaded with Argon. But like Argon, Art may seem like nothing when it is in the form of an idea. (Ar-t like Ar-gon. It's amazing how these things line up in the universe.)

I love the Art Deco style. I decided to stick with my strength and incorporated people into my design.

When people dance the Tango well, they can sometimes suck the air out of the room but what is really happening is that they are sucking oxygen, carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen out of the room. 

And what's left? Did you guess?

Nothing. Because, unless you've got skills like old English Lords, you are not going to be able to leave the 18th Element behind.

Assignment 18: The Art Deco Poster

Seventeen for the Road

I didn't get my driver's license until I was a senior in high school in Pasco, Washington... and I was 17. Across the state, in Bellevue, my future Husband also waited until he was 17 to get his driver's license. A match made in heaven.

So, when our oldest daughter was up for driving, we didn't see the need for her to get her license earlier than we did, so a trend began.

All of our children have not gotten their licenses until after they were 17 years old. I like this plan because that means, they were all a bit more mature when we sent them out on the road to be teenage drivers. (With my kids, this rated right up there with being the only kids not watching Friends. They thought this made them Freaks. I am sure it made them smarter.)

http://clinedesignart.wordpress.com

And here we are at Assignment 17. The cute little slice-em-up web page. I like this assignment because I often create web pages that have elements that just wont work in a div tag type layout. Being able to cut up the pieces is a great way to allow more organic elements to a site. I like this process.

One more note about driving, my son is now 17. After our three girls all followed in their parents footsteps regarding driving, my son appears to be breaking the mold again (the first time was him being our fourth child and a boy.) He has still not gotten his drivers license and he is halfway through his 17th year. (His future kids, if he chooses to have any, might just want to invest in bus passes.)

In for a Penny, In for 16 Ounces

Ah, the Card Dance. I do love a good slide show and the Card Dance is pretty darn awesome. (I only used 8 pictures though, not 16. It couldn't be helped... this is me trying not to "make the universe when I was asked to make a ball.")

I didn't need a "pound" of flesh for this one although I had many stops before the start. I did find that the AfterEffects program on my laptop was not in compliance and refused to show any motion. This created much drama in my household... it truly rivaled my math meltdowns which really just consist of a lot of whining.

Once I came to the lab, the problems magically removed themselves and it left me wondering if I had imagined the whole thing. "No," my family says.

Here lies the Card Dance. 

Soon, I will be "pounding the pavement" looking for that perfect job. Hopefully, when they see my Card Dance of 8 pictures twice, they will understand the power of Assignment 16 and hire me on the spot.

My Dad used to say wish in one hand and ..... well, we wont go there today.

Fifteen and Pregnant

This week was a study in rolling with the punches. It is no secret I have been struggling with my schedule organizing time to study for four, 5 credit classes, managing work, getting sick, keeping track of my 17 year old son, trying not to ignore my sister who was visiting from Virginia and waiting for a new addition to the family.

My niece was having a baby and this was the week. She called and said "my water broke." Right on schedule.

This is a good thing, although, it took time away from my homework. I have very little time to spare these days, but we all know, the baby wont wait for me to get it all done. I knew a little rearranging was in order because my niece wanted me there. I couldn't say no.

She is not 15. she is 32. But this assignment is number fifteen. See the connection? There is also a Lifetime movie "Fifteen and Pregnant" starring Kirsten Dunst. Remember "After School Specials?" Yes, it was like that.

This assignment was interesting because I have tried to understand WordPress and it seemed a little confusing. But like most things, it was made better by repetition. I had to go through four different themes in order to find one I could change enough to fulfill requirements. This was a good project for me because I feel like I will use this resource quite a bit and practicing with all the widgets and trying to finesse the code is a good way to learn the skills I need to be able to do this for a client.

By the way, Hollis Katrine and her mommy are doing well. Hollis is quite adorable and pretty tiny too at almost 6lbs.

Fourteen Psychopaths

It's only Seven Psychopaths and it is a movie I want to see, mainly because of Christopher Walken, but I needed a fourteen connection and the psychopath connection was a valid one this week because I could feel my sanity slipping away, wondering how I might get everything that I had to do, finished. Add work, family, stress... multiply 7x2 equals Darcy going a little crazy.

An then I watched the tutorial at 3am and realized, I could do this. The Edge animate was the breather I needed. It was very easy to follow and I was quite relieved.

However, this would not be Darcy's blog without making note of some kind of glitch. Today, my fail was that I didn't bring my artwork to school to turn it in. I left my pretty flowers around the word "GROW" on my desktop at home. So the only thing to do was to quickly create another. I was happy this assignment was easy to do because I had time to finish but not time to work out glitches. Oh, well, such is the way of this quarter. 

See the results below.

Before...

After...

The Missing Link.

13 Coins

Way back in the day of Sting's Glory days, there was a restaurant called 13 Coins. This seems like a bit of foreshadowing to me because 13 coins went bankrupt in the '90s and closed, restructured, then opened again.

Maybe like lightening, bad luck doesn't strike in the same place twice.

This week's assignment, as usual has a very thin thread that leads to my intro. The number 13, although bad luck for the restaurant, good luck for game-making aficionados everywhere.

I was happy to have been able to use the tutorial for the Construct2 game. I followed the steps, and I do love a few good steps. Maybe that makes me a follower. I am okay with that because the world would be in big trouble if we all wanted to be leaders. Like the family members in Family Feud, I am good help.

I found the most difficult point of the assignment was coming up with a theme for the game. I can do graphics very well, but making a decision about who did what to whom was a real challenge. I finally took a reality check and remembered that that was not the most important part of the task.

I did learn how to put together a game in Construct2 and more importantly, I know where to find the information I need to make more games in the future. Lookout! THIS WILL BE EPIC!