It very much resembled this owl, apparently in decline. Well, thanks for showing yourself, lovely owlie!

Apparently the graphic designer who added the red pagoda and thank you message is unknown. It was fun to read all about that box; I love folding, packaging and origami.

http://www.slideshare.net/evanpebo/patagonia-recyclable-shoe-box

The above posted photos showing various views.

After googling around a little, here’s another post:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgoralnick/3187204355/

Surprisingly I didn’t find a direct link to Patagonia’s site. No PR, marketing? Or has this product been around so long that it’s no longer news? Patagonia is heavily invested in environmentalism:
http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=2329

Well, thanks, Patagonia. More companies need to be this forward-thinking.

It seems to say “don’t worry, be happy, include everyone and forget about terrorists lying in wait to blow us all up.”

The clever and eccentric logo developed for the London Olympic Games defies the stereotype that the British are stodgy and elitist. Under their reserved exterior lurks a mischief and exuberance. And yes, the Olympic Games could serve to change lives rather than express the domination of a few countries over others.

Lovely! Brilliant!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/magazine/the-trivialities-and-transcendence-of-kickstarter.html

I took a similar version of this course last summer. Kelly Williams is an excellent instructor, with expertise on a subject rarely taught in this format. A huge bonus is getting to use (and bring home the leftover) authentic pigments like lapiz and real gold leaf.

Course description:

https://www.uclaextension.edu/r/Course.aspx?reg=W1591

(Estimated supplies cost is $25.) Before manga and movies, decorated books inspired and awed the public by illustrating famous religious and secular tales. This three-part course explores stories in illuminated manuscripts through lecture, discussion, a museum visit, and a studio session. The first class investigates how and why these books were made and includes a hands-on exploration of medieval materials used in their creation. Class two visits the Getty Museum for an extended tour and sketching exercise of the exhibition “Stories to Watch: Narrative in Medieval Manuscripts.” The third session is a studio class, where students use manuscript templates to create their own illuminated page. Internet access required to retrieve course materials.

Westwood: 415 1010 Westwood Center
Saturday, 10am-1pm,
March 12

Los Angeles: Getty Center
Saturday, 10am-1pm,
March 19

Westwood: 321 1010 Westwood Center
Saturday, 10am-1pm,
March 26

3 meetings total

Another post about medieval art you might enjoy:

http://animary.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/discovered-got-medieval-by-craig-pyrdum/

Design Pattern using Visual Thesaurus

If you look up the word “design,” then select the connector between pattern and figure,  voila, this lovely shape fans out, just like a peacock!

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 11 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 38 posts. There were 19 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was June 16th with 41 views. The most popular post that day was My Illustration for the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were maryyaeger.com, obama-scandal-exposed.co.cc, zzsst.co.cc, en.wordpress.com, and stumbleupon.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for harold pinter, pinter, bedford hours, old times pinter, and old times play.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

My Illustration for the American Journal of Psychiatry September 2007
4 comments

Harold Pinter’s play, “Old Times” March 2007

Lady of Light, After a Bedford Hours Miniature January 2008
1 comment

About Mary Yaeger, aka animary March 2007
4 comments

Best Picture Yet of A Hedgehog May 2007
4 comments

By Kurt Ulrich

1

Thirst does not believe in what
might cure and thus
destroy it. Thirst

concocts a dream of the ocean
dry as a bone, but
full as ever; and my bridges

never completely burn—thirst
prevents them from this,
gathers force with its elongated

figures of an evening
such as the talk with
El Greco inspired. Imagine

you had managed a meeting
with the utmost more
grace than you had expected:

the guests would never leave or they’d
seem to be hiding,
to have gone so quickly they would

seem either never to have gone,
never to have really arrived,
or to always have been, or

be yet to come.

2

Rafters of a type we’re less
than only a little
accustomed to, and devised

under the ice-blue
lights of an ordinarily
pale enthusiasm

for rote good humor, seem,
scaled, sturdier by
far than when, straining our

backs in order to
see them in relation to the
drapes and decorations

our usual homes entail, they
did little more than trace
the arc of the heavens; did

little more than the grass
might flow, that is; and
held no home away from

what is perhaps richer, graver,
more deliberate and thrilling
an environ, but which should

be sampled by and by, as befits
an entire neighborhood, and not
in such a manner as would

keep us from sleep, too immune
to a kingdom divided
from our fondest dream.

3

Today it’s that there’s not
really enough for us to merit
that splendid regard

of the luminous—were
there enough we’d be
probably much worse off than where

the whole thing stews today: under
something dark and crisp and
electric, cold, and heedless. I

have sanctioned these poems
exude charm, but nothing distracting,
nothing visual, expected or

cooperatively italicized. Clouds
are suggestive and familiar, and
find us at least most of the time

on our way to the building
in the rare clear city, tears
in our eyes as we continue to

expend our sway inappropriately,
toward the darling little flowers
who travel in schools, and toward

the women happily married, or so
they thought. Blush of clarity, tolerant
impossible private hue, our passions are

only and all for you, but then
you’re gone and the day turns
sunny, damn it, everything’s

easy to understand, everything
tags along after us, asking us
what to do, and paying us

a compliment full of deadlines
as good as a threat, while our children
turn pale as clouds, as you.

“‘to write a song that is remembered and taken to heart,’ Richards notes, ‘is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart.’”