I recently got back into photography. It’s one of those hobbies that get you out the door doing stuff.

Click for the huge view

I just upgraded to a new DSLR that does video. The first thing I wanted to do was to create my own cinemagraph after seeing some of the ones done by Jamie Beck

Bringing animated GIF’s back…

I left my window open last night and it rained on my sketchpad. Happy accident! This was the only casualty.

A gas pump shows the most common choice. What if a digital interface showed this same kind of wear?

This started out as an excuse to make Helvetica bubbly. It turned into an excuse to finally post something here. I did this all in Illustrator. The background was done with a lot of gradient masks and the shine on the type was made by chopping up corners of the letters and then applying a gradient. Easy peasy.

The line is from the Superchunck song “The First Part”. There are a lot of good memories of events that only lasted a minute but make me laugh years later.

Vroom Vroom! I always feel like a little kid when I draw cars. They’re pretty hard to draw, we should give the kids more credit. Doing these I kept thinking of the song “Be My Girl” by the Donkey’s that starts off “I like fast cars but I don’t have money to buy them for you…I could draw you pictures of ‘em”.

I simplified each vehicle to their silhouette, called out a couple key identifying characteristics, white wheels, similar angle then set it on a glossy surface like it was going out of style…oh wait.

Last night I decided to recreate Gerrit Rietveld’s Red Blue chair as a miniature. It seemed like a quick and simple way to add another beautiful object into my world. I’ve also been living without internet for the last couple months which should explain the rest of this post.

Here’s an original Red Blue chair

via http://www.mmfa.qc.ca/en/oeuvres/oeuvre_79.html

This project got its spark during a discussion at work. I was trying to think of the designer of that “red, black and blue chair that looks like it’s made from boards”. Turns out it was Gerrit Rietveld’s Red Blue chair that I hadn’t really thought about since school. It’s a beautiful chair, I just couldn’t remember the details (art history wasn’t my strength)

I remembered the general idea: De Stijl, cubist, simple shapes, Mondrian-esque color scheme…

I spent lunch relearning everything and decided I wanted to make my own 1:1 foam core version. After work I headed to the closest hobby store to grab some supplies. I could only find the tri-fold foam core you use for science fairs (back in my day we didn’t have that fancy pre-cut stuff!). I moped around a little and checked out all the doll house furniture, fake flowers, puff paint…and nothing really satisfied my determination to create something amazingly awesome tonight. The puff paint almost did.

BALSA WOOD!

I didn’t know they had pre-cut balsa wood here! If I’m not able to make it actual size I might as well make it out of the the same material. Although, I’d consider balsa wood closer to foam core than wood, which is good since I’m living in a tiny apartment and don’t have the space for a wood shop anyway. I had the plans for the chair printed off with the measurements in mm so I had to do some quick math to figure our what sizes I would need to make it to scale.

Just kidding, I can’t do math. I pretty much guessed how much I’d need.

I grabbed:

Two .25 x .25 inch rods

One .25 x .5 inch rod

One 1/8 x 3 inch board

If you have the tools and paint this is easily a $15 evening project. Luckily my guesthamatics turned out OK and the thickness is pretty close.

Here’s the goods!

These are all the “bar” pieces besides the one long piece that holds the back rest from the arm rests. I used hot glue to hold everything together.

I’ve got the bottom, front and back legs together. Having the grid cutting board really helped with this project.

The arm rests are the only thing I didn’t like about this project. They needed to be .75 in for this scale so I glued a .25 and a .5 piece together.

This is the main frame of the chair. This will be everything that’s black.

I support beer so I need my tiny chairs to also support beer. Also, to show scale.

Once I got the frame together I applied a couple coats of glossy black paint. I suggest doing this before you put the back and seat on.

I’ve got the back and seat cut out and laying on the frame to get an idea of how it will look.

Here’s the final photos. I used glossy paint and a sponge brush to paint everything.

Here’s a better idea of the scale. It supposedly came out to be a little over 20% the size of the original.

As soon as I can find access to a wood shop and free time I’m going to attempt a full scale version. I haven’t had the opportunity to see a real full scale Red Blue chair so I’m really excited to experience that.

I’ve only seen images of this chair and I was amazed at how beautiful this char is in real life. Even at this small scale and my crummy craftsmanship, it’s hard to take your eyes off of it. My favorite part is where the arms reach out to the front legs and in your mind you complete the rectangle profile of the frame. My office desk has a new distraction.

I might try an Eames plywood chair next. I’m not sure how Balsa wood will work with steam.

Last weekend I volunteered for sort of an off-road triathlon. Jess and I helped people drop off their canoes and made sure they knew where the course went. We had a blast helping and watching all the racers. I really wish I raced that one!

I took some photos while I was helping our. Here are a couple of my favorites and the rest can be seen at my flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/trtate/sets/72157624817478121/with/4983861969/

“THERE IS NO PHONE RINGING DAMN IT! …there is no phone…”

Here’s a one hour sketch of Charlton Heston from Omega Man. I used Autodesk’s Sketchbook app. This is my first time really using it and the app has a lot more features/functions than I thought it would. The 2 and 3 finger gestures work great once you figure them out. I might try to do a series of portraits from his movies. Drawing got a lot easier once I figured out all the shortcuts. It’ll only get easier and faster from here!

The greatest Sci-Fi actor of all time: Charlton Heston.

UPDATE!

Here’s Heston in Ben Hur

This month has kept me pretty busy. I took a week off from work and went down to Cancun to watch my best friend get married, hang out with friends and relax. Everything about that week was amazing. It’s the weeks before and after that have me stressed haha (it turns out that work doesn’t take vacation). Here’s what’s been going on…

My Etsy items have been getting a lot of good feedback. I’ve gotten a couple sales and a couple posts on blogs. The one I’m was most excited about was on bikerumor.com. I sent them an email seeing if they wanted a free set of my SID decals and then a link to my etsy.  This is a blog I check at least a couple times a day and was amazed to get a reply…and hear that I would get a post! Here’s a link to article… http://www.bikerumor.com/2010/07/09/sweet-custom-rockshox-sid-decals-from-artist-tyler-tate/

My iPad decals have also been getting some love:

http://gamervision.com/users/the_daily_dairy/articles/plants_vs_zombies_decals_for_your_ipad

http://www.buyzombie.com/2010/06/21/zombie-news/the-ultra-nifty-super-thrifty-guide-to-handmade-zombie-goods-13/

http://strumpetscrumpets.blogspot.com/2010/06/again-with-zombies.html

Also related to iPad… I FINALLY got my case from HelloRewind. I knew it would take 6-8 weeks but I’m pretty sure it was pushing 10…anyway. HelloRewind does something pretty interesting with their cases, you send in an old tshirt then they use that for the outer fabric of the case. They also only employ sex trafficking survivors who may be stuck in NYC without work, money and little knowledge of the English language. It’s a good cause and a cool case. I sent them a shirt I liked but it didn’t quite fit right. Here’s some pics of mine. (thanks for the bike button, Jess!)

I took my iPad and the HelloRewind case with me to Cancun and both are perfect for traveling. I just crammed my headphones in the case and carried that on my lap every time I flew. The only problem with the iPad is how bright the screen is when you’re flying at night and the cabin light are low. I felt bad for the guy next to me every time I wanted to change the song.

OK I lied earlier, the week vacation wasn’t perfect. I lost one of my favorite earrings while jumping around the ocean It was made of solid wood and it was the pair I wore 90% of the time. Instead of spending $40 to buy a new pair, I decided to make my own for $100 (ok, that included the price of the dremel, which I always wanted anyway). It’s not made out of the same wood so I’ll need to stain it to match. The first round of stain didn’t stick once I added the oil. The stain probably isn’t good for your ears so I might just make a new set in a natural wood color. Here’s what I’ve got so far. The black one is the original and the white one is what I made today.

That was pretty good for a first try! If I can get a little more efficient I might try to make a couple sets. The Dremel tool is going to be amazing, plan on seeing more projects with it. Also plan on seeing some new bike decals. I got a couple requests to do decals for other forks.