A Learning Experience

Hi everybody!

Late last night, I was lying down on the coach in the living room, not wanting to go to bed nor watching the TV. I was looking at my bare feet, and decided to take the camera from the coffee table and take a picture of it. I started to play with different features, and the above picture was taken with the camera. It came out exactly like that - it was not modified or changed in the digital manipulation software. The camera changed the color for me - it's so eerie but cool.

Anyway, thanks so much for your patience as I am still working on the problems reported by the readers with these three blogs. For example, someone reported that there was no link to the book page in my book review post. I should have tested the blog post in Firefox as I discovered that it did not appear in that browser at all. So, I have modified yesterday's blog post and you should see the underlined book title.

As for the links between three blogs, I am planning to include the links inside every post so that you will be able to return back to where you first entered into the triad. I am thinking of putting in the code so that a new window will appear instead of the going into another blog within the same window.

But the bottom line is that I apologize for the inconveniences and thank you for your patience! And I would appreciate if you will let me know any kind of problems that you experienced with these three blogs. Thanks so much again!

Book Review: The Art of Decorative Paper Stencils 2

Last week while I was working on this blog's renovation, a package containing two books came in the mail. One of them happened to be Kanako Yaguchi's The Art of Decorative Paper Stencils 2: Traveling with Stencils.
I love this book because of the way the "paper stencils" (I prefer to call it "kirigami") was cut as per the patterns found in her travels to various country. This is really great in that she was "cross-breeding" the Japanese paper cutting techniques with the local patterns from different countries. Not only that, she used the same patterns to record the wonderful memories that each trip created. I will have to start looking at brochures & ephemera differently, and then cut the patterns based on the local design motifs. I will then scan them into my computer to create more design possibilities. The other interesting technique that she used in her book is layering. I am familar with the concept of layering from the acrylic painting or mixed media classes, but I never thought of using different paper cut-outs to create layers.

The Art of Decorative Paper Stencils 2: Traveling with Stencils

I do have a copy of the first volume, but it's somewhere in my house and I can't find it to do a review. As soon as I find it, I might do a review. Anyway, two days ago, I was gathering soda bottles for cutting up to reduce storage space, but I always get distracted by several ideas that came up in my head whenever I see anything. You can see what I have learned from this book and what I did with the soda bottles by taking a cybertram to the other blog. I strongly recommend this book as one of the great tools to sharpen observational skills while traveling in another country.

Navigational Aid

As I was thinking about creating directional signs and possibly new weekly table of content pages, I thought that maybe some of you might got a little bit confused by the new layout. So, those of you who are reading the posts inside one of the three blogs, I have come up with a simple map which might help you understand how they are linked together to form a triad (or a 'megablog'). I have also added the underline to the links above this post so that they become more obvious as links to other two blogs. I hope this will help some of you, but, unfortunately, these map and links may not make sense at all to those of you who are reading the posts in the email subscriptions, Google Reader, iGoogle or anything outside of this blog.

Welcome Back!

Whew! I finally finished the refurbishment of this blog as well as the creation of two new spinoffs. As you can see in the photo above, I was reviewing the progress and checklists for all of the three blogs. Oh, by the way, that blue thingie on my belt is an insect repellent - I was outside reviewing the papers and enjoying the beautiful weather.

I have heard that some of you were very concerned by what it seemed like I was closing my blog out forever. It was temporarily "closed" for safety reasons as I would hate to see you get hurt by the falling debris or slippery floors, or get the stray paint or wallpaper paste on your good clothes. I apologize for causing you to be concerned, but it was nice to know that many of you do enjoy reading my posts.

Anyway, I have given this blog a new "wallpaper", moved its previous one to another blog and gave it a fresh coat of lime green paint. In the third one, I put up the sunprints on the wall. I also moved the furnitures and accessories around, and put in some finishing touches. To make your navigating experience an easier one, I have created the following specific objectives for each of the three blogs:

1. Creative Life: In this new blog I will be sharing the joys and challenges of my life as a creative professional, and also how I meet the challenges of maintaining my own creativity and addressing its needs despite my hearing impairments and other obstacles. Sort of like "The Agony and the Ecstasy" but not quite. You can join me in my creative journey as a fellow colleague by using Google's Followers gadget on the left sidebar.

2. Wanderlusts and Explorations: This blog will focus on travels & my personal observations of various places from a designer's/artist's perspective. This is part of my attempt to be more globally minded - by looking at the various cultures locally and globally. Also it caters to those who are more interested in getting off the beaten path or looking at places with different eyes. Additionally, as I am currently going through my slides and digitizing them, I will be retrospectively writing about my earlier excursions. A new feature has been added to allow you to look for the posts based on locations, i.e. New York City or Seattle. You also will have an opportunity to join me as an "co-explorer" by using the Google's Followers gadget on the left sidebar.

3. Urban Paper Arts (UPA - this blog): This is still in development as I am still working on the development of the product line and unique offerings for sale. It will contain book & product reviews, links to my artworks and publications available for sale, cards & prints, and various kits. It may include my teaching schedule for both in-person and on-line workshops.

Each blog has two links installed just below the large banner and above the first post title - you should see two highlighted links with hyphens in between. This location should make it easier to you to find them much more quickly than the left or right sidebar. All of the three blogs are linked to each other so that you won't get lost. If you do, please holler for help!

The reorganization of the current posts from this blog is not yet completed. They will be either stay here, or moved to other blogs. However, they will be reviewed, and may be either re-edited and re-published in one in the above blogs, and the others will remain in my own archives.

Links will be made between posts as long as they're related. For example, if I visited a museum, my account will be published in the travel blog; if I bought books or anything from its shop, the reviews will be published either in the UPA or Creative Life blog; and if my design/aesthetic sense is influenced or motivated by my visit to that museum, it will be written and published in the Creative Life blog.

I am very pleased and proud with what I have accomplished so far, and I do hope that these three blogs will either inspire or motivate you to produce your own art/design work.

Yours for a creative life,

Published!

A while ago, someone gave me an article from central NJ newspaper (The Star-Ledger - my father used to work there) about an art retreat experience in Portland, OR, and it was written by Jeannine Stein. I have never met her before, but imagine my big surprise when I got an email from her, inviting me to submit my contributions for her new book, Re-Bound. So, I got myself to work on creating two books from discarded packages and children's board books. The first one below was created when I noticed that many food-related journal or recipe books out on the market were geared to only one specific purpose - recipe card storage, scrapbook, lined journal book for writing (no pockets), business cards from restaurants, or anything related to food. So I created a book with lots of pockets from food packaging, boxes, paper placemats and discards using duct tapes to store all kinds of food-related information and ephemera in one place.

I think it's a great book for me, a real foodie. I can put in all kinds of information about diners (NJ has the largest number of diners in the USA), restaurants, special recipes, food stores (Paramus, NJ now has four great food stores), and even my own edible garden. The other project involved recycling children's board book and it was not included in the new book. But I really like this wall hanging - it's foldable and collapsible for easy storage as a "book" which can be placed on a bookshelf instead of being put away in a box and placed out of sight somewhere in the house (probably either in attic or in basement). And you can easily either flip the whole thing around or take it down from the wall if you are expecting company (especially relatives or in-laws) that might not appreciate your personal taste.

I am sure that you can see the big grin on my face when I first saw my food journal in the new book up at Squam Lake in New Hampshire last week. The book will be coming out next month (July), but you can pre-order this book from Amazon.