One Lucky Shot

We were out for a walk Thursday afternoon. While waiting to cross the street I decided to take a shot of the Don't Walk sign against the backdrop of the tree. (There's a Complementary Colors themed competition at the Online Professional Visual Artists forum and I thought the red and green might work.)

As I pressed the shutter release I could see the "Don't Walk" part of the sign lit. The mirror flipped up for the shot, blocking my view, and when it flipped back down the "Walk" part was lit.

Curious, I took a look at the recorded image. What you see here is what I saw (with a little rotation and white balance adjustment.) Both parts of the sign were lit. The exposure was just 1/125 second. That was some close timing.

Of course I had to run with this for the competition. I cropped the image down to the sign and post. Since the green part of the sign was faded with age to the point of being basically pink, I recolored that part to a nice green. Will it win, place, or show? Who knows? I have other entries in, as do many very talented artists.

Another Week Another T-shirt Contest

In case you missed it, I won last week's Swaggy Challenge. The topic was "grilled cheese" and this was the winning entry. I think it took me about three hours to make. It's not without flaws. The lamp has no switch, though I guess that could be on its unseen base. The light cone ends abruptly at a curve near the bottom of the dark frame. It's a bit subtle, I suppose, so I guess nobody took significant notice of it. The cheese is floating in mid-air, or at least the light isn't hitting whatever it's sitting on. I could pass that off as a minimalist design choice made for the purpose of minimizing distracting elements, but to be honest it's mostly because I just plain forgot to put a circle of light under the cheese. I thought of it after submitting the design, but either in hindsight or in a fit of self-justification, I convinced myself the existing design was the better direction. Good enough, I guess.

At first when I saw the topic of the contest, I hadn't a clue what kind of design I could come up with for "grilled cheese", but soon my twisted little mind hit on another meaning of "grilled." The wheels started turning as I played out the surreal scene in my head. When I imagined the cheese ratting out one of his cheese buddies, I knew what I wanted to do, but I wasn't sure I could do it. I initially pictured a full interrogation room scene, with table, light, crappy walls with barred windows in the background, or maybe a big presumably two-way mirror. I didn't think I could pull it off, but I thought maybe if I took a photo of a block of cheese on a table, lit by a desk lamp, with my finger pointing threateningly at it, I could at least fake a blurred background. The props never came together, so just to see what my limits were I started doing a rough drawing on the computer.

As it came together I soon realized that a simple cheese & lamp scene would be able to convey the whole idea. Throwing the frame and black background behind it let the lamp show up on white shirts and dark, while placing the cheese in a really dark scary place, but partitioned off from our amusing view of it from the outside. (How's that for analyzing art?)

Anyway, the entrants were revealed and I figured on maybe making the top three, perhaps with a tight race for second. The voting went on, seemingly forever. And finally the results were announced. It was a tight race all right, but I had just nudged into first. Wow.

So that brings us to the current contest. Again I will not be revealing my design here until the voting is done, but I can tell you the topic: Bionic Turkey. I think some heavier hitters among the designers selling at Cafepress are taking interest this time around, so my chances might not be so good, particularly since I did another last-day entry but this time not one I could minimalize so well. It was actually my second favorite idea. I'll tell you about my first choice later and about why I didn't go with it. Meanwhile, take a click over to the Swaggy Challenge website and rate the designs.

I've Entered A T-Shirt Design Contest

A fellow designer at Cafepress issued a quick-design challenge this weekend, challenging all comers to come up with and submit a themed design by Sunday night midnight, US central time. (The site says CST, but I think they meant CDT.) Winner gets bragging rights and, if desired, a link to their shop on the challenge host's web site.

The theme is: Grilled Cheese

Yeah, that's right. We had to come up with a design with the theme of grilled cheese. I came up with one, with what I think is a strong concept, but I'm up against some seasoned veterans and I only started on mine mid-day today.

I can't show you the design since the voting is, I think, open to anyone and that would be cheating.

Anyway, here's the design challenge web site if you want to take a look. I haven't seen the other entrants yet. The site is supposed to automatically switch over to displaying the entrants and accepting votes after the deadline, and voting should go on through Friday. This is the first such contest the host has put on, so there could very well be a technical glitch here or there. He seems to be quick about fixing what has come up so far, though. So take a look, and rate the designs. And maybe if the host issues another challenge you can step up and enter too.

Enjoy!