Meanwhile ...
in the non-graphic arts part of my brain, these are posts (first to latest) on another project I’ve been working on for a while. I blame coffee.

@theartofmadeline
Stranger Things

PR's Tumblrdome
Show & Tell

#extradirty
sheepfilms
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

izzy's playlists!
Cosimo Galluzzi
occasionally subtle
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
DEAR READER
Not today Justin

oozey mess
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Sweet Seals For You, Always
h
trying on a metaphor
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
seen from Bosnia & Herzegovina

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seen from Singapore

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@margaretdahm
Meanwhile ...
in the non-graphic arts part of my brain, these are posts (first to latest) on another project I’ve been working on for a while. I blame coffee.
It’s an eraser!
Don’t toss your Speedy Cut carving blocks. Even if your design didn’t work or you have pieces of block left, they work as a MOST excellent eraser.
I’ve been making patterns and learning how to make them repeat and now have enough to open a virtual shop. Really fun. My first large sample came today from spoonflower.com. Exciting. Now the possibility for coffee cup sheets and gumbo recipe towels exists!
Waiting for the bookmobile
A very long window cling I was able to design for my library in honor of our Bookmobile of yore. Fun project and it keeps folks from watching us eat our lunches.
The woman in the wheelchair was a nice patron, named Carolyn, who passed away before I started sketching.
One image of the line drawings in order and a piece of the final installed. The outlines of the ridges around the county run right through the people.
I think that’s pretty accurate, in a way.
Library window sign!
A while ago I got to design and make a pop-up sign for my library, for ... you got it, the pop-up books. IT was great fun and pop-up books were found in their new location and checked out.
Meanwhile, in another part of the library, we have a stellar community outreach program called the Preschool Outreach Program. They send books out to daycare centers and preschools, sometimes with people and puppets to read them.
Renovations moved the pop-up books to an obvious spot and the 3-D sign was no longer needed. The head of the program above has a spectacular 3-D brain and recognized an acronym when she saw one. The POP sign had a new home.
Soon, thanks to a generous boss, I was able to make a large window sign for delightful head of POP, using the motif of the multicolored library checkout cards on the 3-D sign. So much fun, and so lovely to have people happy with your work. Right?
See the original post here:
https://margaretdahm.com/post/630918162619170833/it-was-super-fun-to-make-this-for-my-library-this
Printing with one hand, sort of
Recovering from shoulder surgery, I shouldn’t and probably actually can’t handle knives so printing is not happening. This is a 5 x 7 greyscale card I made to send to folks. I love the way two of them look together before I cut them apart.
From cardboard to cabinet
Just finished a class at a local library and made a more detailed instruction sheet than when I posted about this eons ago. Easy, water soluble fun.
It’s been a year and An Asheville Bear is taking a break. Learning to make a comic on a deadline while working a full time job is one way to keep from worrying about the state of the world.
But I can draw a respectable, cartoony bear now, so that’s fun.
If you want to read the whole thing, possibly the first part, visit anashevillebear.com and scroll all the way down to the start.
Some random images for you...
New little bear in big city comic
Every fursday, news from local bear on a screen near you @ https://anashevillebear.com/
It was super fun to make this for my library this week. If you want to try one:
GIMP tip to add TV static to an image.
I made this image but didn’t like the style. It was too crisp and dull.
In order to add an overall distortion, like on the old cathode ray tube televisions, I selected FILTER/BLUR and applied the preset GAUSSIAN BLUR levels. After this, I selected FILTER/NOISE and changed the levels for all colors under RGB NOISE to 422. Play around with it, but below is the new TV-static’d image.
I like it better.
GImp is the free, open source program for people who don’t want to pay for Photoshop. It works great.
3-D models for drawing
Trying to draw an object in different positions, from different viewpoints, is easier if you have said object in front of you. In 3-D. The next best thing is a 3-D model which you can rotate.
I needed to figure out what Dutch wooden clogs would look like when they’re in use. This is a 3-D modeling site which helped a lot. They don’t have everything, and you don’t have to buy anything, but there are quite a lot of objects you can rotate, tip and turn upside down at will.
Hope this helps somebody.
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/dutch-clogs-size-9-us-d2848d30625a4fd685143b98780e26d7
these windmills are made for ...
Drawing windmills is not very difficult. A cone shape with a few appendages, a cap, a walkway or gallery around the outside for maintaining the sails, these are fairly straightforward.
But I need my mills to shift their weight from side to side. More than this, I need them to walk. I could not get my mind around where the pivot points of anything that might work as legs would be or how the curves would change as the pieces moved.
Decades ago, I had a very enjoyable job as a draftsman in an architectural office. The architect, Bob Biery, Sr., was a generous, lovely man. He once had a poem about streetcars published in the Times-Picayune and, more important to my 19-year old ego, told me he loved the funny poem I wrote for his birthday.
I would walk slowly past the room next door whenever I left the office because that was the model room. Architectural models are imagination made real. The miniature scale models of buildings show exactly how the massing really looks, how shadows will fall and and give a feel for the spaces which no plan or drawing alone can do. These cardboard marvels have saved professionals from innumerable brick and mortar mistakes. Sometimes, at least before CAD programs became de rigueur, the models were used as models for drawing.
At 10 pm last night, I remembered this and decided to make a model. The most amazing thing is that I had BRADS in my drawer. Not quite medieval technology, but, still, the odds were not good.
Now, I have more of a feel for what the motion might look like. Miles to go before I sleep, but, hurray! Baby steps.
OOTA
Out.Of.Thin.Air.
This is a new acronym I am giving to the electronic universe.
If there were ever a time we all need to be making things up OOTA, it is now.
Stories, drawRings (the Oxford approved pronunciation), plots and schemes to make the world a better place only and ever come from OOTA, after research of course.
Frankly, I don’t see how one can remain sane without having somewhere hopeful to go in your head. If you work hard and don’t listen to naysayers, you can make a bit of your world seep into the larger one and that, people, is a “gooooooaaaal.”
Ready, set, go.
How on earth do you draw people on the street before they move? Fun to try and you can only get better. In Amsterdam, the sky is grey but the people are kind, unpretentious and seem to have great faith that their children will bounce.
Leave us not forget...
that there are free posters and images for you to use to fight the good fight of making the world a better place (so long as you send me a picture and give me a nod) on stopgaps.tumblr.com/
do glyphs dream of speech?
I spent the weekend trying to make my first font, and it sort of worked.
I love GIMP, the open source (read socialist) Photoshop. I thought I’d give INKSCAPE, the similarly politicized vector program (read Adobe Illustrator) a try.
I spend a bit of time sketching phrases, scanning and placing them into documents so things will look a bit warmer. I wanted to try making a hand drawn font to eventually save time. And who doesn’t want to feel a bit like Hephiastos, limp and all, on a Monday?
The first interface I tried worked, barring operator error. I expect there may be something better among the other free interfaces. If I find one that I really like, maybe I’ll post an instructional video - another new skill!
A font that is basically your own handwriting is bound to be easier than something designed for the purpose. A nice way to get your feet wet, then.
My favorite font is Optima.
What’s yours?