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Who would’ve thought that photo paper and watercolour would go so well together? Anyway, I love it because you can use lots of water without the paper warping, and you can wipe things off if you made a mistake. I also just love the way the paint pools on the paper…
So yesterday, I stumbled across this awesome looking book. ”Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills” by David Sherwin.
I stumbled across it online.
The whole title appealed to me. Creativity is fun. Workshops are fun. Challenges are fun. And yes I would love to sharpen my design skills.
I then decided I wanted to buy it. online.
But then I found out that you could check out the first 24 pages for free!
So I decided to do just that. Just to see if I like it, before buying the whole thing!
I LOVE IT.
I did the second challenge today. It was to design a typeface from found objects, in 120 minutes. It did take me about that long to get the leaves and actually cut the letters out of the leaves… but it did take me a bit longer to scan them all and get them into the computer and lay them out and stuff like that.
So although I haven’t been completely strict with the time limits, it’s still been really helping me to speed up. It’s helping me to not procrastinate and just do something, whether it’s perfect or not. There’s no time to fluff around, procrastinate, wonder where to begin, worry about perfection.
It’s fun as well! The challenges are really fun ones, and they are written and presented in a fun way. The time limit makes it more fun as well.
I think my design skills will be a lot sharper once I finish this book!
I can’t wait to finally get my hands on my own copy!
Anyway, I highly recommend this book. I love it. I love it. I love it, and I’ve only seen the first 24 pages.
I only wish I had discovered it sooner! (it would have been awesome to start this book earlier in my holiday, and then I could probably finish the book before semester starts!)
I’m gonna try and do one a day…. (try is the key word, I kind of suck at sticking to one-a-day type things)
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love it 
I was sooo excited this morning to find my lens had arrived in the mail!! The Sigma 85mm 1.4.
I wanted this lens because I love portraiture, and the 85mm is supposed to be a really good focal length for portraiture, particularly for close ups.
I was almost going to get the Nikon 85mm 1.4, which is double the price!! Then I decided that based on internet reviews, the Sigma was going to be just as good, and not nearly as expensive!!
I spent all morning testing it out, paranoid about accurate focusing and sharpness.
I was guttered this morning, when I decided that the focus wasn’t very accurate. It kept back focusing. Luckily, I finally figured out, that through fine tuning the auto focus on my d7000 to -14, I was able to get pretty good results!!!
It’s not the magical lens I was expecting it to be. I was expecting for me to put the lens on, shoot something and for every photo to automagically be amazing. It didn’t happen.
I think that it’s going to take me some practice with this lens to get the hang of it. On my crop sensor, you need to have a fairly good amount of working distance with this lens… I think it would be the most amazing lens on a full frame… I found the working distance too tight for general use…
I was kind of liking my sister’s new lens a bit better. She got a 30mm Sigma f/1.4. I convinced her to get it instead of the 35mm Nikon 1.8 one she wanted to get. My sister’s boyfriend Campbell doesn’t reckon it’s that much different from the 50mm 1.4, but I reckon it’s heaps different. You wouldn’t be able to get this shot with the 50mm… (not on a crop sensor anyway)
Then I was like. Now I want a 30mm lens. But then I decided I would rather get a full frame camera, which would make my 50mm like a 30mm lens. And then my 85mm would look like my 50mm.
Anyway, that would be awesome…. one day.
Anyway, back to my lens, I was trying to take a decent self portrait with it… but as you can see I didn’t really succeed. This was the closest I got… it is impossibly hard…
Luckily my sister came in and offered to model for me. My sister is super pretty
By the end of the day, I decided I was in love with my new lens
And that is all for now. I am looking forward to more adventures with my new lens!
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