Crush The Castle 2

This is a pretty fun FREE game

http://armorgames.com/play/6137/crush-the-castle-2

Santas has e-mail

Now that everything has gone digital, e-mails and phone cameras are everywhere. Interestingly enough, UFO sightings have gone way down but sightings of Santa have only gone up. 

Check out the photos below. Take that you non-believers!

Send Santa a letter now...

DearOldSanta@Hotmail.com

E-mail! | Validate E-mail!
Manual Search : Google!
Facebook | LinkedIn
Intelius! | Spokeo!

Searching Hi5...

Searching MySpace...

 

Making A Natural Snowflake

One of the greatest phenomenons in nature is the snowflake!

 

This was a family Christmas night project that reflected my love of the science of water. H20 is a vastly deep subject and one could devote their entire life to learning its mysteries. Or they could just take an evening and cut out some paper snowflakes.

Wilson Alwyn Bentley, was the first person to successfully produce a photograph of snow crystals in 1885. He began when he was only 19 and still images were on the forefront of technology.

http://drawnassociation.net/2009/09/snowflakes-wilson-alwyn-bentley-1865-1931/snowflakeswilsonbentley/

Creating "realistic" paper snowflakes takes observation
and a basic understanding of the science behind the magic. 

If snowflake science doesn't interest you, 
skip this next part to the "How To" section below...

AHEM! OK, each pure snowflake is six sided. This is because two hydrogens in the H20 molecule move to a 120 degree angle against the oxygen molecule when frozen forcing them to align (unlike the usual 115 degree angle of the warm water molecule). This is what happens when all water freezes. This also explains why water expands when it freezes. The H20 molecules must spread out farther in order to be able to lock together.

 Add these molecules ,however, into lattices Molecule upon molecule in the air and “voila”… you get a growing 3D crystal with six sides that build into very large and complex works of art (still tiny to the eye).
The shape of a snowflake can vary greatly depending on temperatures, humidity, air pressure, foreign particles, ions, frequencies etc.

Observation would hint that these six molecules are somehow distinguished in groups of three which would explain the shape of many snowflakes. (360 / 120 = 3). Perhaps a particle in the air was embedded in the crystal early on causing a mutation in one of the two groups causing it to become symmetrically deformed.
No two snowflakes are alike however there are several categories into which snowflakes can be categorized. Not all snow flakes are not even six sided. However, these exceptions are attained through certain conditions that allow them to develop off the same concept of a 120 degree H20 molecule.

So how is it that all lattices of a single snow flake can grow nearly identical to each other? First off let me say they are never perfectly identical. However they usually follow the same growth pattern. Wouldn't some sort of mutual communication be required? Some believe there is no communication at all but that the six branches grow entirely on their own and end up the same because the conditions in which they each form were uniform.

Either way at least two principles are at play...

1: water in all forms will follow the path of least resistance

2: New molecules that become attracted to growing crystals will align themselves towards the most attractive forces along the crystals edges which has to do with the the presence of charged ions and other factors. These forces can be influenced by many variables.

More detailed information is available at www.Snowcrystals.com
An online guide to snowflakes, snow crystals, and other ice phenomena


Some believe these designs are "predetermined" by existing frequencies and energy patterns.
I am a firm believer in this idea.

William G. Finnegan and Richard L. Pitter of the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev., suggest that growing ice crystals can incorporate certain ions, leaving their oppositely charged partners behind in a thin liquid layer surrounding the ice core. In effect, a growing ice crystal acts like a battery, separating positive from negative ions to generate a potential difference across an ice-water interface amounting to 30 volts or more.

This charge-separation mechanism, which operates only while the ice crystal is growing, may not only determine a crystal's shape but also initiate important electrochemical reactions within ice crystals, leading to the production of chlorine and the reduction of carbon dioxide to formate ions.

In other words, snowflakes are not just sculptures
but actual functioning machines complete with circulating cores and even a simple bio chemistry.
Sort of like a living organism!



The only other hint I can offer on the phenomenon
of snowflakes at this time is one phrase
"Fractal Geometry"
a most fascinating subject on the mathematical construct of random patterns found in nature.

THE 
"HOW TO"


Ok so how do you make paper snowflakes that pattern real snowflakes?

 My boys wanted to make some of the snowflakes we observed so we set up a table with a few pieces of paper, and scissors. Nothing else is required except for a little know-how. However, an x-acto knife can aid in providing some very intricate details. 
I will be using one.

First fold an 8x11 paper in half long wise.

 This in turn is folded in half again; easy enough for my boys to follow.

OK kids, undo this last fold and use the middle crease to guide the next move. Fold both sides upwards and over each other. This just so happen to be a 60 degree triangle. Use a protractor if you feel the need to be exact

Both folds should come to a sharp point at the bottom and You should end up with an object that looks like a fighter plane.

This in turn is  folded over once more either way

 With scissors, cut the top off along the paper line.

If you were to unfold it, you would see a hexagon with twelve sections.

The next step involves the difficult decision of what your snow flake must look like. 
Don't think too hard you can always make another.

There are many choices. 

I chose this one

This next step is about interpreting the profile of a snowflake. After some practice, you can determine how to cut your paper just by a single glance at snowflakes on your glove. (if you are able to see them). 

Think of a snowflake as 12 sections, each one a mirrored half of a single arm. Just one displays the needed pattern

This part you are observing is just one of the twelve repeated sections from the crystal I picked. Its shaped just like my paper.

Here is how I interpreted the ice. The shaded sections are going to be cut out. It is simplified a bit and is only a best interpretation of the many intricate angles that exist on the real snowflake.

Scissors can easily cut off edge sections.

For the middle sections, an x-acto knife was employed.

The finished product convey a striking similarity.

Here is Enochs. He did a great job!

Here is Joels', some mutations have occurred ;)

These make great Holiday decorations that we like to keep up all season long.

 Happy Holidays 2010

"Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; you put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend". ~ Bruce Lee

Pumpkin Contest- Carving Neytiri

  I wasn't going to carve a pumpkin this year but Carrie wanted me to so she brought me one because she is the bomb!

So I guess I will give it a GO. 

This year will be my first to enter a pumpkin carving contest. The Gardens contest is due Thursday, Oct 28. Over 1,500 people will come to the activities on that evening the pumpkins are displayed.

It is rather exciting to enter a competition and I recommend everyone do it in one form or another. It builds character. Not sure what kind though.

I am keen on traditional carving methods but I prefer to attempt a shadow scraping which is really where unlimited sculpting potential exists.

First a subject had to be decided upon. I know Avatar is big this year so after a quick Google search I decided that it had to be Neytiri

It wasn’t long before I found an image that I liked.

Pretty much anything can be turned into a shadow carving but there are a few “Tricks” that can help ease the work

First you will want to copy then convert your image to gray-scale in Photo-shop. I used Gimp, a free down-loadable photo editing program with a lot of great features. Print two of these out as big as possible on a sheet of paper. 

For further light referencing, I also printed an inverted image. 

Here are my tools. The only mandatory tools in this project are the X-acto knife and scraper ( bottom left) though the citrus peel scraper was a must. Can’t remember what the dental floss was supposed to be for. I forgot to include my push pin in this Photo.

A few chemicals to use are white vinegar and petroleum jelly. These prevent the pumpkin from oxidizing and dehydrating thus increasing the life of your work. I would like to find a better chemical for preservation purposes.

A good smooth pumpkin with thick even skin will work best. 1” thick shells are ideal. Tape the paper to the pumpkin and see to it that it stretches smoothly. No matter where the paper folds are, be sure NOT to let the paper fold over the eyes as these are the most important feature. I was also careful not to place the eyes over any pumpkin ridges.

Trace the image with a push pin making sure to focus on outlining the “black” sections. Avoid poking pin holes into any black. It is best to err slightly on the side of white. It can be easy to miss detail so this part was worth the extra time.

Once done remove the paper to reveal the results. It is easy to see if you missed any detail from the back of the paper.

With the pin holes as guides, fill in all areas that will NOT be cut out. These are the solid black areas from the picture.

Avoid shading. only high contrast here!

My next task was to cut all the skin off where there was no marker. An x-acto knife was crucial for doing this effectively along edges. Cut shallow but evenly.

A citrus peel scraper made light work of the middle parts

Throughout the project, spraying and brushing with vinegar keeps everything fresh and clean.

Whew! I got threw with only minor mistakes which I keep to myself.

Patience will pay off in the long run though your audience might not last.

Cut out your lid. I made mine go down the back to make it easier to work with the insides.

Your canvas is both the inside and outside of the pumpkin. You want even lighting tones so make the insides as smooth as possible I used the pastry cutter for this.

Since light is your medium, insert a bulb from a cheap lamp into the back end. You will be carving the rest of the pumpkin in the dark.

.

A hint of glow should be visible through the pumpkin. By this time the prep work is done, however, the art work has only begun.

The eyes are the soul of any portrait so I do nothing else until I perfect them; it is just my preference. Dig and scrape on both sides until the eyes are enhanced to their full brightness.

 Everything else is scraped to compliment the eyes. Spray and clean as you go. This is more of a how-to and not an art lesson so from here on out depends on your patience. When the light gets turned back on, it should look like a creepy ghoulish monster from the lagoon!

That’s good because it saves the “AHHH” moment for when the lights go out. 

 I kept the lights out the entire time until I was finished because it really breaks concentration.

wash everything. then before you add any petroleum jelly be sure the surface is very dry. It is a pain to work with.

 The Freckles and other major highlights where cutting goes all the way through were the last details which is where my inverted image came in handy. I ended up just poking holes with my big pointy dentist looking tool thingy.

Yep, I was surprised too!

$100 Grand Prize Winner.

 Next year I will be held to carving another pumpkin for sure. I have seen better pumpkins than mine so if they up the prize I might have to pull out the big guns. Its Ironic because the panel man at the Gardens said I might have sold Neytiri had I placed a price tag on it. Now I really should have thought of that. Oh well there's always next year. HA HA 

The Gardens had some other nice pumpkins

The image does no justice for this runner up Jack Sparrow.

Another Jack

Oh I get it! Their all Jack-O-Lanterns

 Caries temple pumpkin

 Grand Prize Winner In Younger Age Group