Cartoons: Groundhog Day, more winter or no?

Sunday is Groundhog Day, a venerable American tradition.  The Patriot-News has published a "Groundhog Day 2014 Guide" with interesting info about the groundhog seer, Punxsutawney Phil, and the town where he resides.  In a nutshell, if it's cloudy when a Phil emerges from his burrow, spring will come early, otherwise winter continues for six more weeks.  No shadow, then spring. No comment on how accurate he's been.

Here are some cartoons celebrating the little guy and his day (hopefully not sunny).

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John Cole, Cagle

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Gary Varvel, Cagle

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Jeff Koterba, Cagle

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Bill Schorr, Cagle

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-- Marge

DIY: Valentines, pro and con

Since Valentine's Day is approaching fast, here are some resources for making your own cards or using online resources to send an e-card.  I've noticed a lot of anti-valentine cards and sentiments this year, so they're included.  Keep in mind that most sites offering e-cards mostly just want your email address, thus the option to spam you.

Blue Mountain offers free, printable cards; Egreetings (a subsidiary of American Greetings) will send a free ecard for you.  The designs are, well, cute. Jukebox will print your cards in quantity (there's an option for digital output in PDF form) for a price and send them to you. What's interesting about the Jukebox site is the discussion in their FAQ of paper stock and coatings.

For projects Inhabitots has "6 Adorable DIY Valentine’s Day Cards to Make for Your Love." Here's a sample.

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Paint Chip Valentine Bookmarks, Inhabitots

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For some punny fun take a look at Buzzfeed's "30 Punny Valentines For Everyone You Love." I like this one:

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Buzzfeed

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And if you really want to get down to the nitty-gritty of romance, take a look at "Nasty, funny, FREE Anti-Valentine's Day cards" at StudentBeans.  You can download these cards as PDF files for printing and giving.  The sample below was extracted from the PDF.  There's a section near the bottom of the page titled ....and here's what can happen that you may want to check out.

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Sample anti-Valentine, StudentBeans

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-- Marge

Figuring out what to do next

Most artwork, unlike the goddess Athena, doesn't spring fully formed from the creator's mind.  This is especially true of sequential art, such as film and animation.  For filmmakers the process of producing a full-length film is further complicated by managing film crews, props, and actors.  Planning ahead can save millions of dollars in production costs.  Storyboarding is the answer and technique many filmmakers turn to, as explained in this video about "Lord of the Rings" and how it was planned.

For a simplified look at storyboarding, take a look at this University of Houston page on its educational uses.  Storyboarding can produce some stunning artwork but usually it's sketched quickly, in response to the need at hand.  Closely related is concept art. I'm a big fan of the artwork found in Guild Wars 2; here's a sample.

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Concept art, Guild Wars 2

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As you can see, video games as well as film use storyboarding. The site Game Design Schools has a short, but informative article, "Video Game Storyboard."

For a nuts and bolts treatment of storyboarding -- especially on camera shots, angles, and movement -- take a look at Brian Lemay's page on storyboarding basics.  At one point on the page he says:

I had a course when I went to college called "Visual Language". It wasn't about storyboarding but rather how we interpret visual input through our eyes in everything we look at. This visual input is a language all it's own. Like any other way of learning a language we need to start with the basic building blocks.

How true.

-- Marge

Cartoons: Who's your master now?

Today's post riffs on the cartoon below and the cartoon below plays on the old RCA logo, which I can't show here because it is subject to copyright.  The subject today is income inequality, a topic addressed here before and will probably be addressed again.  It's important.

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Tim Campbell, The Week

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There is no simple fix for income inequality; numerous articles propose how to fix it, but mostly talk about what's wrong.  An article in The Economist, "Growing apart," looks at some of these effects, such as:

A BARRAGE of new statistics on American living standards offers some grounds for optimism. A typical American household’s income has stopped falling for the first time in five years, and the poverty rate has stopped rising. At last, it seems, the expansion is strong enough at least to stabilise ordinary people’s incomes.

But the main message is a grim one. Most of the growth is going to an extraordinarily small share of the population: 95% of the gains from the recovery have gone to the richest 1% of people, whose share of overall income is once again close to its highest level in a century. The most unequal country in the rich world is thus becoming even more so.

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Drew Sheneman, US News

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From the Economist article:

Inequality can be a symptom of inefficiency. The implicit subsidy provided to banks that governments judge too big to fail allows bankers to overpay themselves. And a highly skewed distribution can lower growth, if it translates into less equality of opportunity for the next generation. This seems to be happening. The gap in test scores between rich and poor children is 30-40% wider than it was 25 years ago: given that the distribution of innate intelligence is unlikely to have shifted so much in a generation, that suggests that rich youngsters are benefiting more than ever from their economic and social advantages. Measures of social mobility between generations, already lower than in much of Europe, have stagnated.

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Pat Bagley, Cagle

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Back to the article in the Economist --

The attack on favours for the wealthy ought to start with the budget. America’s tax code is riddled with distortions that favour the rich, from the loopholes benefiting private equity to the mortgage-interest deduction (an enormous subsidy for those who buy big houses). A simpler, flatter code with no exemptions would be more efficient and more progressive. A blast of deregulation would help, too. Many of America’s most lucrative occupations are shielded by pointlessly restrictive rules (think doctors and lawyers).

Investment in the young should focus on early education. Pre-school is a crucial first step to improving the lot of disadvantaged children, and America is an international laggard. According to the OECD, it ranks only 28th out of 38 leading economies in the proportion of four-year-olds in education. Mr Obama has a plan to push universal pre-school. The details are imperfect, but it is a goal that Republicans should embrace. Equality of outcome will always be a fantasy, but America should do more to spread opportunity widely. A society without hand-ups won’t have much hope.

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Drew Sheneman, US News

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Another way to look at this topic is from the angle of wealth distribution. Dr. Dale Archer, writing in Forbes, asks the intesting question:  "Could America's Wealth Gap Lead To A Revolt?"

If we consider a "master" one who has control over your economic well-being, who's your master? The financial institutions that hold your money?  The government that issues your social security check?  The company that pays you?  Do they owe you a fair chance?

-- Marge

DIY: Staying warm -- and alive

My brother, who lives in Alabama, reports that his pipes have frozen.  Meanwhile snow is melting here in Alaska.  Those of us who live in the far north know to watch the weather reports, dress for the cold (those with half-a-brain, that is), drive on ice and snow, and be aware of what's happening or may happen with our homes. I'm guessing that many people who live at warmer latitudes haven't thought about this much. So here's some information that may be useful or may save your life or a finger/toe or two.

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disastersrus.org

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The main site for all news weather is the National Weather Service (NWS).  For safety information, try their Winter Weather Safety and Awareness page.  The American Red Cross has published the "Top Ten Red Cross Cold Weather Safety Tips." Find out the 5 P's of cold weather preparedness at Disastersrus.  If you have to work or spend extended time in the cold, be aware of the possible effects of cold stress, published by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). You can download a PDF, "Extreme Cold Guide," from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

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CRH.NOAA.gov

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WikiHow has a photo essay on "How to Dress for the Cold;" petMd talks about whether to dress your dog.

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Romp Italian Greyhound Rescue

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Remember, when it gets cold: dress warmly, carry a phone, and bring a buddy (but not the dog above).

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Winter driving, Middleton PD

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-- Marge

Art: how do you construct the world by looking?

Artist William Kentridge explores perception with his images -- and promotes fighting against entropy. As he explains in an interview with Belinda Luscombe in TIME (requires a subscription to read):

What did you mean when you wrote in your new book, Fortuna, that the job of the artist is to fight against entropy?
Entropy in its simplest form refers to the tendency of everything to collapse. If you smash a vase and throw the pieces in the air, they won't reland in the shape of the perfect vase. But the job of the artist is to smash the vase and then fashion something coherent out of those shards.

Artist Kentridge is definitely a thinking person's artist.  Look for it in the works below. To see an extended collection of his works, take a look at this MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) presentation of  his works:  "William Kentridge: Five Themes."  Click on Explore Themes to see the works (It's a flash presentation, so hard links aren't always available or don't work as expected).  Here's a sample from within the exhibit: "Thick Time/Soho and Felix: Sobriety, Obesity, and Growing Old."

Here's a glimpse of the artist in his studio and the piece he's working on, titled "Breathe":

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This next video, titled "Return," is part of a larger project, "Repeat."  Two things that are interesting about this work -- he designed it knowing it would not be watched (the video explains) and, as the piece rotates, now you see a recognizable form, now you see just pieces moving around.

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Artist Kentridge says about perception at Art21:

I’m interested in machines that make you aware of the process of seeing and aware of what you do when you construct the world by looking. This is interesting in itself, but more as a broad-based metaphor for how we understand the world.

-- Marge

Cartoons: Brass pork

When it comes to cutting defense spending in the U.S., nobody's happy.  Least of all the generals.  And the number of generals has been growing -- "Today's Military: The Most Top-Heavy Force in U.S. History." To get an idea of how the defense budget stacks up, take a look at this:  "America’s staggering defense budget, in charts."

Meanwhile, here's how some leading editorial cartoonists see the budget and the military.

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Jack Ohman, US News

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Dana Summers, US News

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Matt Davies, US News

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Scott Stantis, US News

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As you were...

-- Marge

DIY: chewed paper

Papier-mâché (aka paper mache, translation from French for 'chewed paper') is something many school children do in art class.  You apply a layer of soggy wet paper to some form, maybe a balloon. Then when it was dry you paint it with the ever-present tempera paints, getting results often less than spectacular.  Here's a delightful example of the process from Mrs.Euken's Art Mooseum.

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3rd Grade paper mache, Mrs Eukens Art Mooseum

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Paper mache can be an art form or a craft.  The works of two fine artists are shown below.

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Sergio Bustamante, "ZebraTrophy," Papiermache.co.uk

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Chen Qiu-lin show at Max Protetch Gallery, InitiArt Magazine

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Here are some works that border on art, showing popular subjects but done with fine technique:

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Erinle, "TheBlueMask," Etsy

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Carolyn, "Confetti Bowl," Carolyn's Homework

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Cory Triplett, "Obi," Ultimate Paper Mache

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Sites that feature paper mache projects and techniques are plentiful. Ultimate Paper Mache features artists discussing their projects and giving instructions.  There are also tutorials and projects by type. Be sure to check out the recipes for home-made paper mache paste. Another site to check out is the Papier Mache Resource. For inspiration, try "DIY: 10 Stunning Paper Mache Projects," at Babble.com.

Some of these projects talk about paper clay and plaster gauze; both look interesting to work with, so expect future posts that discuss them. 

-- Marge

Breaking down the fourth wall

Interactive theater attempts to break down the fourth wall, the unseen one between the actors on the stage and the audience.  Here are some ways that observers (the audience) are being welcomed into the actors' world.  All of these examples are from an article published at Guest of a Guest, "NYC Interactive Theater: 7 Shows You'll Want To Immerse Yourself In," dated September, 2013."

Accomplice: The Show

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"This murder mystery scavenger hunt starts with a phone call the day before the show. Accomplice New York is a fun experience for tourists or NYC natives looking to get out and see the sights of lower Manhattan for the day. Actor Neil Patrick Harris loved this show so much, he started an Accomplice experience in Hollywood...," Guest of a Guest

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Then She Fell

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"Enter St. John's, a former mental institution, in Brooklyn to the world of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. Allowing only 15 audience members in at a time, Then She Fell takes you into a whimsical and mysterious world of performance. Guests are invited to enjoy treats, drinks and a magical evening...," Guest of a Guest

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Speakeasy Dollhouse (a must-see site -- for tickets try this page)

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"This show gives audience members clues and hints to the unsolved murder mystery before they arrive. Taking place in the Prohibition era, guests make their way through the "dollhouse" and are each given a role to play throughout the evening, encouraging the audience to interact with the performers...," Guest of a Guest

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Some of these shows require preparation, if just mentally.  This article in the Guardian -- "Interactive theatre: five rules of play from an audience perspective" -- may help you know what to expect or hope to experience.

Me, I'm content with the pregnant mystery of an empty stage waiting to be filled.

-- Marge

Cartoons: If it's cold, no global warming, right?

For some interesting insights into the recently reported polar vortex, check out this Huffington Post article, "Sh*t Got Weird During The Polar Vortex."  Meanwhile, here are some cartoons centered on the recent cold spell and climate change denial.

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Steve Breen, US News

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Chris Britt, US News

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Drew Sheneman, US News

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Nate Beeler, Cagle Post

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Pat Bagley, Cagle Post

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Brrrr!

-- Marge

DIY: Draw and paint online

If you google "draw online," many sites will come up (about 606,000,000 results).  Here is information on the top 5 currently listed and an interesting site I found some time ago called Janvas.

With Janvas you can create vector graphics online, store your creations on Google Drive, collaborate online, create interactive content in SVG, and there's a code editor for developers. The Janvas program has many of the features that a desktop-based graphics program has, such as layers, node-editing, effects, and so on.  There's a library and animations can be done.  Also, a Janvas community can be found on Google+.

To see how well your browser supports SVG, check here; to see how well other browsers support SVG, check here. For information on using SVG for mobile devices, take a look at this About.com article.

Why SVG? The attraction of SVG is that it's vector and the images are stored in XML format.  Vector images are resizeable, bit-mapped images resize poorly. 

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Darth Stabro, "VectorBitmapExample." Wikipedia

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As for the other sites found -- OneMotion offers the opportunity to paint and draw online, play games, fiddle with a drum machine or a DJ's turntable, and animate breakdancers. QueekyPaint has a large toolset, layers, and a number of graphics options; it may load slowly at first. Sketchpad has some nice text fonts available; however, when I tried to start a new project, I got an error message -- "Your browser does not support FileSystem API"). DrawIsland is also available on iPad and iPhone. And at ArtPad, sponsored by Art.com, you can replay the strokes you made and splatter paint.

-- Marge

Wordplay

For help with finding that word that will clearly get across what you're trying to say, try these sites.  The word I used for checking how each site works is "happy."

Watching the Visuwords online graphical dictionary respond to your search request is fun.  Take a look and see what I mean.  Word relationships are visually diagrammed.

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Visuwords online graphical dictionary

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Word Storm has a button for exporting the result of your search as an image.  Mousing over each word in the result shows a definition (sometimes not quite right) of that word.

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Word Storm - the visual brainstorming tool

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Word Associations Network is a textual site that offers a simple image to accompany the word.  Each search is divided into parts of speech -- noun, adjective, verb, etc.

Visual Thesaurus by Thinkmap is subscription-based.  You can try it a limited number of times, then are required to pay $2.95 per month, $19.95 per year.  Word generation is fun to watch on this site, too.

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Thinkmap's Visual Thesaurus

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If you want to expand your vocabulary, try Vocabulary.com.  When you load the site, a quiz pops up, and the quizzes will continue until you click somewhere else on the page.  The creators' idea is to assess your language skills and help you learn.  Check the How it Works page to see what's going on.  The dictionary works like a Google search by offering suggestions and the definition selected may talk about the tone and origins of the word.  For example, look at "exacerbate" --

For a formal-sounding verb that means to make worse, try exacerbate. If you're in trouble, complaining about it will only exacerbate the problem.

Exacerbate is related to the adjective acrid, often used to describe sharp-smelling smoke. Think of exacerbate then as a sharp or bitter thing that makes something worse. A drought will exacerbate a country's food shortage. Worsen, intensify, aggravate and compound are similar, but exacerbate has the sense of an irritant being added in to make something bad even worse.

Happy word hunting, y'all.

-- Marge

Cartoons: the GOP vs. us

For an American political party whose members want to be elected and re-elected, the GOP appears to missing the mark.  According to the polls, Obama isn't doing that well, either.  Here are some cartoons showing where the GOP misses the mark with Americans.  (Since I still like Obama, I'm avoiding shots at him.)

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Chan Lowe, US News

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Dan Wasserman, US News

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Chan Lowe, US News

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Gary Markstein, US News

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Drew Sheneman, US News

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It looks to me like the Grand Old Party is just too grand for regular Americans.

-- Marge

Sunrise 2014

After scouring Google Images and Flickr for photos of the sun rising on January 1, 2014, I finally found some in the news.  There are some lovely shots posted on Flickr, but all are designated "All rights reserved."  To see them search for "2014 sunrise."

From NBC News' photoblog here's  "Beautiful view of Tokyo's first sunrise of 2014:"

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Tokyo sunrise 2014, NBC News

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And from CCTV (China Central Television) this is a shot taken at the Great Wall, "First sunrise of 2014 at Great Wall pass:"

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Great Wall Pass sunrise 2014, CCTV/CNTV

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For some stunning shots of New Year's fireworks around the world, try MSN's slideshow of "New Year's celebrations."

Wishing y'all the very best of years.

-- Marge