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Harvesting tomatoes :) harvesting a palette !!!!!!!!!

An open palm from above holding five cherry tomatoes at five stages of ripe: deep red, orange-red, amber, yellow-green, and one still pale. A blue sleeve at the wrist, and below it a dark mat over a wooden deck.

The same five tomatoes as flat circles on near-black, keeping the arrangement they sat in, each joined by a hairline to its hex code: #C5C969, #E4CF01, #DF8F00, #EB2300, #F90000.

I was at an art fest the other day and got to thinking about the way each booth presented its information. How their use of color, product placements, fonts, visual weights, and more came together to secure someone’s attention. I was kind of obsessed with signage out of everything. Some took advantage of free-swinging bracket signs, protruding at 90°, and they definitely caught my eye faster considering the linear layout of the fest.

Two hand-lettered wooden shingles hung at right angles from a tent frame, with a QR card on a clothing rack.

When doing sound design for Sphere, my partner was streaming Boccherini on the tv. We don't really listen to classical music, but it was a cloudy day and it fit the mood. I found myself daydreaming about our recent trip to Yosemite.

El Capitan's granite face, almost black against a deep blue sky, with the valley's pines below it.

The valley from above: granite slopes falling into pine forest under a sky of scattered cloud.

Liberty Cap and Half Dome in full sun, with Nevada Fall dropping down the right of the frame.

A single tall pine in silhouette against a sunlit granite dome.

High wispy cirrus over ridge after ridge of hills, the light going out of the day.

Near dark. Two people stand on bare granite under a sky graded from blue to brown, one point of light above them.

A granite cliff seen through trees from a moving car, the foreground pulled into streaks.

The valley and its far cliffs from a moving car, blue sky above, the near trees blurred.

A hand held out of a car window, forest rushing past behind it.

The visual depth of the mountains, the sky. It all felt so grand and made us feel small. But notably, I kept coming back to atmospheric perspective; the dust, moisture, and matter in the air, scattering light and giving the recessed mountains depth. It was inspirational in a multitude of ways. I thought to myself that if I had to pick a sound to describe it, it would be a deep piano chord. That started my thinking for Sphere.

I got to finding samples and deepened the pitch. It took a few tries to get the sounds in the right placements, but eventually it felt right.

Each chord elicited an emotion. The menu button plays an A chord. To me it feels like, 'here it is, here we are,' which I thought was good for picking different options. The center button, B major, is a curious chord. To me it says, 'I wonder what your next step will be'. The calendar picker, C# minor (the only minor chord), gives me a feeling of searching, perfect for finding a specific date. And finally, the now button, an E chord, feels like a resolution, like returning home.

The four chords on the editor’s timeline, in the order they were cut: A, C♯ minor, B major, then E.

My partner played with it and felt like it was a beautifully perfect way to round out the atmosphere.

A green blob turned into a figure in a tall top hat, shaggy-coated, one arm flung out.

An orange blob turned into an animal, its head at the top right and its long body falling away in ruled strokes.

A green blob turned into two long arms rising from a bearded face at the bottom, both hands pointing up.

A purple blob turned into a long-necked bird, with the neck of a guitar laid across the top of the frame.

A yellow blob turned into a figure with drooping ears holding a guitar, the strings running off the top edge.

A pink blob turned into a rabbit standing upright, ears back.

Pareidolia (look it up) exercise: draw a random shape. Scribble. Then let your imagination reinterpret the randomness. Do a 20-second drawing on top of the shape. Don't even care. It doesn't matter. Enable your own novelty.

I was trying to find an upscale table to fit my space but they were either (A) too expensive or (B) not the right size or shape. So we do what we do. CRAFT. Eventually though - after moving out I had to repurpose the table because the new place didn't have a dining room. I gave it new life as an accent piece for the kitchen wall, adding a lovely warmth to the space.

A handwritten page headed “Dimensions for 48″ × 36″”: a cut list of boards and pipe segments, screws and T-joints, with lengths worked out down the left and running costs added in green.

A handwritten page headed “Materials to build a table” and dated April 18, 2021, listing lumber, screws, glue, sandpaper, a pocket hole jig and the stain, with a sketch of the leg frame in red naming each T-joint and its length.

The boards laid out across a wood floor over spread newspaper, mid-job: five already stained, one still pale raw pine, with the tin, a roll of paper towel and used rags beside them.

Six stained boards drying on the floor, seen from above: three short cross-braces in a row at the top and three long boards below them, with used rags, newspaper and the tin pushed to one side.

The tabletop face down, its three boards held together by three shorter boards screwed across the back. A cordless drill and a small pile of screws sit on the work.

Three stained pine boards joined edge to edge, standing upright against a doorframe. The stain is a deep walnut and the grain, knots and one long split read dark against it.

The finished table in the kitchen corner, dressed with a woven runner, a lantern of cotton bolls and a candle, a black moulded chair on one side and a white bench on the other.

The same table from the other end, bare, standing on a blue shag rug on black hairpin legs, with a radiator and a window behind it.

The tabletop years later, mounted upright on a wall as a backdrop and lit warm by a lamp, standing behind a wooden cabinet topped with wine bottles, a speaker, a glass jar, a round stone disc on a stand and dried grasses.

A tablet held in one hand, stylus resting on the screen, showing a soft charcoal portrait of a woman with a heavy fringe.

The portrait again, cropped close, with flat black-outlined shapes laid over it: a coral form across the top of the head, a teal bar on one cheek, a blue circle on the other, a yellow triangle at the right edge, and an orange loop above the shoulder.

Pencil + raster

Facial angles