Seasonal Activities and Some Recipes

The garden is being very productive this summer —we have had a decent amount of rain— so this week’s post is a celebration of food and flowers. Here’s the current kitchen bouquet. (Once they start blooming we have sunflowers in the kitchen until the autumn.)

Friday Night Flicks: Shanth Enjeti

Friday Night Flicks for August will focus on artist/illustrators. The series starts with this short flick featuring the work of Shanth Enjeti. Produced as a promo for a special event/open studio, the video gives viewers a look at a number of pieces by the artist.

 

 

If you would like to see more of Enjeti’s work this weekend, there are videos here and images of works in progress here.

The Language of Flowers

As promised a while ago, this week’s post includes the instructions for making a little book called The Language of Flowers. The text is based on a digitized copy of this book:

Friday Night Flicks: Aveline Stoquart & David Duvieusart

This lovely little flick by Stoquart and Duvieusart closes the astronomy-themed flicks for July. The animation was completed while they were still students at the Haute École Albert Jacquard in Namur, Belgium.

 

 

I found no more work by Stoquart on the internet, but discovered that Duvieusart is currently employed animating the Smurfs. If you have a few idle minutes this weekend, you might want to watch Pigmaleón, a stop-motion animation Duvieusart made eleven years ago while working with Atelier Collectif.

 

Marginalia

For several days this past week I worked on my project Marginalia for this month’s Instagram areyoubookenough challenge.

Friday Night Flicks: Rick McMahan

Tonight’s flick depicts the scale of The Universe.

(Warning: Do not watch if you already feel insignificant.)

 

 

McMahan has produced a number of illustrated/animated videos for NASA. If you have some astronomy questions, you might get them answered this weekend by checking out the videos on this page.

Experimenting with Cordage

I mentioned last week that, inspired by @alicefoxartist, I had collected dandelion stems for making cordage. This week I thought it might be a good idea to practice making cordage before I started using the dandelion stems which are in short supply. I had some old corn husks —saved for making paper— so I dampened them and tried it out.

Here’s my first cord. (The ends have not been trimmed where I added new husks.)

Friday Night Flicks: puppydust AKA Kim Taylor

Tonight’s flick continues the month’s astronomy theme. Here is a bit of background from animator Kim Taylor:

A journey across the stars and heavens through antiquated astronomical diagrams.

I unearthed some dusty old scientific textbooks in my father’s attic, and immediately became inspired by the delicately rendered diagrams, plots and schemata. These purely scientific visual aids became unwitting artworks on their own, which is something I really loved.

The short animation explores pathways through astronomy’s roots, dating back to antiquity with its origins in scientific, mythological and astrological practices.

The soundtrack is ‘Frosti’ by Bjork, from the incredible album ‘Vespertine’.

 

 

If you wish to watch more of Taylor’s videos this weekend, you can find them here.

This, That, and The Other

It’s been one of those mixed weeks. I finished seven more Dreams from The 99 Dreams of Euclid’s Wife. (You can see all the completed ones here.) This is last Monday’s.

Friday Night Flicks: Annie Amaya

Tonight’s flick is a stop-motion animation by Annie Amaya. It was originally posted here in 2017 for Tanabata and the July 7 anniversary of this blog and my website — officially eight years old yesterday.  In this version of the Tanabata legend, a flock of magpies build a living bridge so that the lovers may meet.

 

 

You might want to check out this page to see what will be happening in the sky this weekend and the rest of the month.