Hallo Everybody,

As you can see (that is, if you are reading this directly on the blog page and not on a reader) there has been a change in the appearance of the blog, which really refreshes the look, and although it is not orange (ahww!) it is very pretty and creative and coordinates well with the posts on the blog.

I’m really happy with it! Huge Thanks to my brother for helping me! ^_^

Now, seizing the opportunity of a the new look, this post is somehow related to the theme.

I really love to draw (think that is obvious by now, no?) but more than that, I love to draw on something that will become useful, that will be appreciated and not just kept in a sketchbook closed away from view, to me it seems a little pointless, though I won’t deny it, I myself have several sketchbooks. They are useful in the sense that you won’t have pages all over the place with sketches, but they don’t exhibit the art, they just collect it and keep it tidy in one bounded “very thin pillbox-shaped” package. They are like photo albums, you only see the contents and open up their world once every now and then.

Drawing on something that receives a daily usage is another story. It’s a window into their world. And it is something that will be appreciated. Notebook covers are one of those places. They are perfect for this. It doesn’t matter the material the cover is made of, be it paper, card stock or plastic, there is a way to draw on them, create something out of the ordinary, open up a window, and stand out from the boring crowd of mass produced printed notebook covers.

I love doing this, drawing on the covers of my notebooks and folders. I also love to make them for others. Here are some examples I have done recently. Let’s start with something simple.

Computer Notes

I made this one to keep in one notebook all my computer related notes, since I continuously keep forgetting basic or essential things, so I usually end up asking my brother once and again the same thing.

Here you can see the design is simple enough, abstract, and the color scheme is on the same side of the color wheel… or for those of us who prefer more technical and descriptive terms, they are all towards the lower wavelengths of the visible portion of the EM spectrum. It gives it a somewhat monochromatic feel, yet it has vareity. The lettering is bold and not frilly, which fits the theme of the notebook and the use it is destined to have. Also the theme was carried throughout the cover, which gives continuity.

It is always interesting to design the cover according to the notebook’s intended use, and also give it personality, both according to the use and the user.

This notebook was done using ink, and three brushes: a thin number 0, a thin number 2 and a broad flat number 4. Before inking, the design and lettering was done using light pencil lines.

Here’s another one.

Mom's English Notebook

I did this one for my Mom ^_^. She told me she was planning on going to English classes, so I wanted to do something special, so she could have something unique and personal.

In this case, I went more with the personality of the user, in this case my Mom, than the theme of the book, as can be clearly noticed: cherry trees in full blossom for an English book.

For this one, I took into consideration that my Mom loves flowers, but not bouquettes or cut flowers, intead she loves the lively ones. She also likes it when the drawing have movement. Cherry blossoms are good for this. They are small yet beautiful, simple, yet a tree in full bloom looks just stunning. Also, the wind blowing off petals gives the image movement and also a certain beautiful elegance. The butterflies where added as a detail, both to add more movement and playfulness and to give some color.

The lettering complements the delicate style of the notebook. For this one I also continued the design all the way from the back to the front, by extending the branches and the flowing petals.

Watercolor was used for this one, though the paints were not diluted, so the white would be more visible. The brushes used where thin number 0 and 2 brushes, and a liner for the details of the stems and butterflies.

These pictures, the one above and one below, where taken by my brother ^_^ thanks!

butterfly and blossoms

In this image you can observe the detail of the blossoms and of the butterfly.

Here’s the last one for this post.

Phyllis' Work Journal

This one I did for my friend Phyllis (子晴). She started doing a research project in the university, so I thought it would be very useful for her to have a lab journal or a work journal. So here is the result.

For this one, I decided to do something related to the use of the notebook, which is a research project in the field of astronomy. I also wanted it to reflect her and what she likes. Thus, I choose this “fish eye” image of the sky as seen from the Lulin observatory, which is located in the mountainous region of Taiwan, as inspiration for the cover, and made the image as big as possible. I tried to do all the relevant details: the buildings and surroundings. As for the stars.. well, they aren’t 100% accurate, that is just too difficult

I choose this image because it gives a good view of the sky, and also because she likes Lulin very much.

As for the lettering… it was of her request ^_^

For this notebook, I used mixed media. I used ink for the lettering and for the silhouettes of the surroundings in the images. For the details of the buildings and trees, white watercolor pencil was used. The sky was done using white and black watercolor pencil and done in a circular manner to continue with the theme of the fish-eye view. The stars were done last using a silver pen.

Pictures (above and below) where taken by 藍仕豪 (he’s a grad student in the Institute of Astronomy, Phys Dept. NTHU). Huge thanks. The above one was cropped and re-sized by my brother. ^_^

In all of my finished notebook, I like to sign them on the inside of the front or back cover, write the date and for whom the notebook was made. It gives it both a personalized look and says who made it. Sometimes, when I remember, I also write the title of the design, like here “Work Journal: Lulin Sky”.

So there you have it. These three designs have been the latest I have done.

It really brings great joy to do these notebooks, not only for oneself, but also for others to enjoy. But more than just doing them for others, it is doing them so that they reflect the intended user, and the fact that they bring joy or at least a smile and that they find it useful is just a great feeling.

I hoped you enjoyed them.

Cheers, NM

Hallo Everybody,

And so it starts again.

You know it’s coming. You unconsciously count the days… then the hours… then the minutes. You see the students start to flow again, fill the sidewalks, fill the campus. The cafeterias start to open on a regular basis again.

Yes.

It’s that time again.

The start of classes!! Oh the joy!! ^_^

But then again, it’s also the end of vacation, winter vacation in this case. Ah well, nevertheless, that breif period was wonderful.

For me, I took advantage to do some things I hadn’t done in while, one of them was sleep , the others… well, keep on reading.

First, I had the chance to travel a bit inside Taiwan. This time, my friend and I went to the Pacific Coast on the northeastern side of the island, more specifically to LuoDong, which is the county of Ilan. We made the trip from Taipei to LuoDong by train, which was really nice, since there are parts along the tracks from where you can see the sea. On the way from Taipei to LuoDong, we stopped at Fulong, which is along the coast. There, after admiring the beach, we had Fulong Bian Dang for lunch from the original stand in Fulong, which is right next to the station, and that was just delicious (I’m actually still craving one).

Beach at Fulong

↑ (this picture thanks to my celly)

admiring the beach

in line for Fulong Bian Dang or Lunch Box

Taking pictures

↑ (this one also thanks to my celly ^_^)

From the train

From the train

These pictures were taken by 子晴 (ZiChing) ^_^ (since my camera decided to not take pictures anymore )

In LuoDong we met up with our friend, who took us to see the traditional art museum. Really nice as well.

Another day, I also had the chance to go to the Palace Museum for the first time. They have some pretty nice pieces there, though I only had time to go through the second floor, which is filled with pottery and caligraphy and paintings from several different Chinese Dynasties.

Palace Museum

Inside the Palace Museum's lobby

Garden outside the Palace museum

The downside of the museum visit was the amount of people there, but of course, since I went during the week of Chinese New Year.

This was only the first two weeks of vacation.

Afterwards, I attended the TIARA Winter School on Star Formation, which was incredibly interesting and informative. The conferences were really interesting, spanning several days  and treating several areas of star formation, such as models of outflows, jets, high and low mass star formation, the interstellar medium and both theory and observational data. There were several experts giving the conferences, which gave it variety.

Overall cool.

As for the rest of my vacation, I dedicated it to drawing and playing around with some paint techniques.

A while ago, I had bought myself a set of watercolor paints and hadn’t really used it much. So I decided this vacation to use them and do a little experimenting with them. So here are some of my results.

First I tried doing something with this year’s daily planner, since it seemed too bland.

daily planner front cover

^_^

Next, since I had some paint left and didn’t want to waste it before I started another project, I decided to play with it a bit, so I took some pieces of paper and a wide flat brush and just started painting to see what came out, and this is what came out:

sunrise... or sunset

and

forest at sundown

Then I started doing one for a friend, which came out like this:

beach

Here I only used a thinner brush for the girl in the image, for the rest, I used a wide flat brush (#4 flat brush)

This vacation, I also started a small lettering project, in which I asked my family to give me a word they liked and related words. I only got to half painting one and just penciled two others. I have still two more to go. But here is my progress:

Pijama

This one is for my soon-to-be-one-year-old niece ^_^ My niece happens to just love bright colors (and dislikes pink!! yay!!) She also likes yellow a lot, so I made this one for her. I still have to do the shading and details, but that will soon come.

Mountain

This one is for my Mom, and it says “Montaña” which is Mountain in Spanish.

Sea

And this one is for my Dad, it says “Mar” which means Sea, in Spanish as well.

This project started after I did my niece’s name in much the same fashion for a folder for her daycare:

the difference is that I did this one with ink, while the “Pijama” one is being done in water color.

I really like the effect that inks provide to an image, and they are relatively versatile. The problem is that if I don’t finish a project in one sit, any leftover ink is wasted. This is not the case with watercolor, where any ink that dries up can be reused by just adding water. Needless to say, both methods can achieve some interesting effects. ^_^

And last, I also did some pencil drawings, though I only managed to finish one: a self-portrait.

self-portrait: greyscale

self-portrait: color

I did it using a mechanical 0.5mm pencil and a normal 4B pencil. Afterwards, I used a paperpen to smooth out the shading. I only used red for the scarf. I then scanned it in greyscale and in color. I really like how the greyscale accents the details, while the color accents the red scarf. Though I still suspect my scanner to be badly calibrated, since it always scans rather odd in color scale.

Finally, I did two other projects that I haven’t yet scanned or taken a picture of, but I’ll post about those as soon as I can.

Well, that is all for now, this post has come out quite long… but most of it is images, so not to much ramblings.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it. ^_^

Now, another semester starts. Let’s see what comes of it.

Cheers, NM

Ok so it’s been a long time since I have posted any drawings. But lately I haven’t done many, what I have done is some lettering and doodles.

Now, I really like to do lettering, make it all fancy or make it go with the theme. I specially like to do this on the front cover of my notebooks, which I usually do when I have free time between lessons or the class has become way to boring even for the least of attention. Examples of this are the ones below, which I did for my EM/biology/general astronomy notebook. Neat huh?

But I also enjoy doing something much more fancier, with much more detail (I love detail! ^_^) like this:

(click on it for a much larger version ^_^)

I really like how the curls come out when they emerge from the words, it gives it a feeling of flow, of movement, yet it is still somehow delicate.

Another thing that comes out nicely is words written around an image, as if mirroring the central object, like this one:

I did this one for a friend’s recital’s poster and brochure. It came out quite nice, though in the end she decided to change the name ^_^ nevertheless, the image was kept, and the wordings still mirrored the object’s image which was the main idea. (btw, that is actually the top part of her violin.)

Also, recently I’ve been doodling this little guy here all over my notebooks:

I find him really cute, but still no name I should find him one.

Well that’s all the art I got for now. Enjoy.

Cheers, NM

“Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another”

Plato

I had mentioned that this semester I took a course on observational astronomy. And man is it worth it. It leaves so much knowledge, and can be really inspiring and informative as to how all the optical observations (which is what we have been seeing until now) are made, and how those striking photographs of nebulas, galaxies, star clusters and every celestial object known to the astronomical catalogues are produced. And from just seeing the image, you’d never imagine it goes through so much processing, but I shall dedicate another later and detailed post to that (when I manage to organize my thoughts and notes )

It’s really interesting to see how information from images can be extracted.

But observational astronomy has come a long way. From old school methods of film and glass plates to CCD devices and satellite images with high resolutions. This Gallery from the Discover online magazine gives an interesting comparison between images taken 50 years ago with the technology available then and images taken in more recent years with our present technology. It’s amazing the long way astronomy observation methods have evolved. Though, this is only a small sampling of photographs from the Solar System, and most (if not all) of it done through satellite and probe imaging, it is still a good example.

This incredible close-up image of a sunspot is another example of how detailed our images have become (and how much information you can obtain from it).

And if you are interested, good source for lots of astronomical (both earth-based and satellite) images is APOD.

Well that’s all for now. Enjoy.

Cheers, NM

We have all seen them flying around, specially on warm nights, near lakes or puddles, big and small, and of almost all colors they come in: Dragonflies.

I personally love them, I find them so beautiful and graceful, and so interesting, how they undergo a transformation from being water insects in their early lives to later emerging from the water and becoming airbourne. They are one of the fastest insects alive, both under and above water (earning them the nickname of torpedeos when in water.)

So I was delighted to find an article -in one of the many physics blogs I tend to read- on the physics of Dragonfly Flight. The article is relatively short but good. It first gives an introduction on the basics of flight dynamics, and then it explains how dragonflies fly. In short, lots of good physics applied to the real world.

Enjoy.

Cheers, NM