Author: Danielle

Vidal Sassoon: The Movie

Recommended Reading

One of my favorite things to do is watch documentaries about creative persons–not like, the ones where they dig up all the person’s dirty laundry, but documentaries that focus on the creative contributions and background of a given creative.

The first one I ever caught–by accident–was the “Iconoclasts” episode with Tony Hawk and John Favreau.

Today at the library I walked by Vidal Sassoon the Movie and couldn’t resist grabbing it. 

It was supergood–upbeat without being fawning, informative, and non-tabloidsy.  Recommended.

 

 

Shapey Animals

Art

Things I like to do: make random shapes, then fill them into make animals/faces. 

Feline-themed:

Kitty and Frenchie edition:

A graphic gryphon (not a random shape)

Shapey Werewolves made while watching Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge, one of television’s finest programs:

Bob Ross Lion is uncharacteristically grouchy.

Hula Kitties and a Bodyguard

Art

Every week I write out my work schedule and put it up so my folks can look at it when they need to.  I drew these kitties to fill in the empty space on a couple of ’em:

Leikitty wears a lei!  My mom’s favorite kitties are the Exotic Shorthairs (you know, like SnoopyBabe!), so my recent kitties have that flava to them.

Shake dat thang, Hula Cat!

And last but not least, I got around to doing a color mockup of Agent Grenera Pālau, a bodyguard from my novel:

 

I thought vitiligo would look good on her.  Don’t think I’ll keep it for her comb though. This also marks the premiere of Genera’s new redesign, based off the American Pit Bull Terrier…yes, I tried to make a parrot alien look like a pit bull. 

 

Yet another set of stupid Word tricks

Writing

First, if you enjoy tabs, you’ll love this free add-on that lets you have tabs in Word, Excel and PowerPoint (works up until Office 2013):

http://www.office-tabs.com/download.htm

Second, if you’re like me and occasionally have multiple drafts of the same story running around, here’s an easy trick to differentiate them (in Office 2010 anyway):

On the Ribbon, hit Page Layout, then Page Color.

There!  Won’t affect your printing unless you change things around in Options.

Now you can tell at a glance which version you’re working on!  And perhaps prevent eyestrain!

Finally, Control+Click selects a whole sentence at once.

The things you learn before 8AM on a Thursday!

More Stupid Word Tricks

Writing

I’m always marking up text in red in Microsoft Word (to let me know I wanna change it later).  This following link gives an easy way to assign a keyboard shortcut so you can instantly turn text whatever color you want!

http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?p=698577