A hopeful wish from me to all the things that matter to me. I love design, my family, a lot of my projects, and many of you. Let’s keep going, okay?
Category: curriculum vitae
This is my Curriculum Vitae. If it will help you to understand what I have accomplished, it’s in this list.
On calligraphy
I started making these calligraphic lines many years ago as a way of making shorthand notes on movement while watching a video of ballet. As the dancers turned and spun in the air, being thrown and jumping, I’d record the motion with a pen on a page.
It turned into a primary form of my mark-making ever since that first moment. I have thoroughly enjoyed moving from analog mark-making on paper and canvas to the digital canvas. Inkscape has been a beautiful analogue for that process. The things that I learned in one have definitely influenced the other, and I feel privileged to be among those who had a foot in each pool (digital and analog mark-making).
Using a digital canvas
I never get tired of making things glow, shine, have depth, reflect, or stand out in Inkscape. In this case, I took my Wacom tablet, and with the calligraphy tool, I made the key 3 marks you see. Then I duplicated, applied a yellow, and applied a blur to the duplicate, sending it behind the first marks. I added a deep red background, and to create some depth I made a pill shape and used the spray paint tool set to single path to create the texture.
What about you?
Have you ever practiced making marks on a page? Do you doodle in corners? How would you like to see the ways in which you could turn those marks into art using tools like Inkscape and the GIMP? Contact me at 6095539498, or john@lemasney.com to see how you could get started!
On the importance of design
If you know me, really at any level, you know how important design is to me. You know that I feel like it surrounds us, a physio-visio-spatial fabric that helps to define a space, a culture or a community. I would also say that once you are past the idea that it requires magic or some gift of birth, you understand that you can do it too, given the right tools. Many of the designers I know who are asked to design each day are flummoxed not by the blank page, but because they are using Word or Publisher or PowerPoint to design, and for no other reason other than familiarity.
Using the right tool for the job of design
Let’s stop that where we see it, okay? Inkscape is one answer, but others exist. Oh, there’s one other requirement for design: You have to love it. You have to have a passion for having the right outcomes. You have to care about it. Otherwise, it will just be text and pictures on a page. You need to be able to be inspired by sites like and even if you feel like your work doesn’t belong there.
Passion is a big part of Design
The desire to help people learn is the key skill in being a great trainer. Legitimacy, transparency, and patience are definitely important too. My experience has been that getting past the fear of one’s own designs is really about getting your designs in front of the eyes of others, gaining feedback, improving, and growing. This project has really helped me to do that!
Hope you enjoyed today’s sketch!
Innocence – Poem by Thomas Traherne
“But that which most I wonder at, which most
I did esteem my bliss, which most I boast,
And ever shall enjoy, is that within
I felt no stain, nor spot of sin.
No darkness then did overshade,
But all within was pure and bright,
No guilt did crush, nor fear invade
But all my soul was full of light.
A joyful sense and purity
Is all I can remember;
The very night to me was bright,
‘Twas summer in December.
A serious meditation did employ
My soul within, which taken up with joy
Did seem no outward thing to note, but fly
All objects that do feed the eye.
While it those very objects did
Admire, and prize, and praise, and love,
Which in their glory most are hid,
Which presence only doth remove.
Their constant daily presence I
Rejoicing at, did see;
And that which takes them from the eye
Of others, offer’d them to me.
No inward inclination did I feel
To avarice or pride: my soul did kneel
In admiration all the day. No lust, nor strife,
Polluted then my infant life.
No fraud nor anger in me mov’d,
No malice, jealousy, or spite;
All that I saw I truly lov’d.
Contentment only and delight
Were in my soul. O Heav’n! what bliss
Did I enjoy and feel!
What powerful delight did this
Inspire! for this I daily kneel.
Whether it be that nature is so pure,
And custom only vicious; or that sure
God did by miracle the guilt remove,
And make my soul to feel his love
So early: or that ’twas one day,
Wherein this happiness I found;
Whose strength and brightness so do ray,
That still it seems me to surround;
What ere it is, it is a light
So endless unto me
That I a world of true delight
Did then and to this day do see.
That prospect was the gate of Heav’n, that day
The ancient light of Eden did convey
Into my soul: I was an Adam there
A little Adam in a sphere
Of joys! O there my ravish’d sense
Was entertain’d in Paradise,
And had a sight of innocence
Which was beyond all bound and price.
An antepast of Heaven sure!
I on the earth did reign;
Within, without me, all was pure;
I must become a child again.”
– Innocence Poems – Poems For Innocence – Innocence – Poem Hunter,
Self portrait as Buddha
So I’ve been playing with my Facebook Profile Pic, and I did it mostly with my $100 Wacom Tablet. I’m always surprised and amazed at how easily you can modify a photographic image in Inkscape in order to transcend photography in and of itself. It’s a lot of fun to bring in a picture, trace bitmap in Inkscape, and start to work into it with the calligraphy tool. Hope you enjoyed this example of that.
If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to this site by using the subscription form at the bottom of this page. Maybe Facebook is more your thing? Like our Facebook page at the bottom of this page. We’re also on Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and other social networks listed at the top of this page. Please like, comment, and share if you found this post useful, interesting, or kind.
So I am a bit of a night owl.
Especially on vacations, but most any night, I spend my most productive hours between 10pm-3am. I’m posting yesterday’s sketch, for instance, at 2:23 AM EDST. That’s just me. People scold me, tell me to go to sleep, and those who have meetings with me the next morning raise their eyebrows at me as if to say “late night, huh?” Yep. It was a late night, and I really enjoyed the quiet, and clear thoughts, and lack of interruptions of the day to day stuff. Very often I’ll have the TV going while I work on my laptop, but with TiVo my DVR, I no longer have to watch any of the ridiculous late night commercials. Whenever I’m elsewhere, without a TiVo DVR, I feel like it’s just easier not to watch TV.
The problem with commercial television sans DVR
Watching TV without one, especially late at night, is like a brainwashing session. BUY ME one commercial screams. YOU’RE FAT AND POOR another one bellows. BUY THIS CAR, YOU NEED HAIR, YOU HAVE ALLERGIES. I’d rather not have to pay attention to it, especially when I’m a little sleepy, and maybe a bit vulnerable to self-doubt. DVRs let me skip right past the stuff that asks me to obey. So this sketch is a little illustration of my feelings about late night TV, and I hope you like it!