Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! Below is a wallpaper created especially for the occasion.

Today's Gratitude Item: That this is post number 1000! Reaching this milestone on Old Year's Eve is a bonus.

Rising Cog

Its like a rising sun, only the "sun" in question is now a spiral cog.

Today's Gratitude Item: That I no longer itch all the time. About a week ago, something decided I was lunch. And dinner. And breakfast. By the end of the "bug" feast, was left with 68 itchy red spots. Happily they are healing nicely and whatever it was that bit me has either died or moved on. The culprit remains a mystery. The bites look like flea bites but I don't have any dogs / cats in my life and the hunt for beg bugs came up empty. The worst part of the experience was not knowing what was eating me / how to get rid of it.

Blue Spiral Cog

Made with the same params as "rising cog". Thanks to John over at the fracfan forum for the inspiration.

Today's Gratitude Item: A new Sudoku book. It cost $2 for 126 puzzles and has relatively good quality paper - important for when you need to erase errors.

Textured Blue Moon

This one gives new meaning to the word "text-ured" :)

Today's Gratitude Item: That the reference photos I took a few days ago on my work were not a waste of time :) I've managed to generate some vectors from them in illustrator. Its easy (but time consuming) when you know how.

Fire Wing

Its either a close up of a butterfly or a tiger. You get to decide.

Today's Gratitude Item: An afternoon nap! Holidays are good for that sort of thing.

Event Horizon

Was inspired to play with that "3D Hack" a while ago. Playing is good :)

Today's Gratitude Item: Solving my very first, *very hard* Sudoku puzzle. Turns out that once you have the strategies, its quite doable. Sometimes takes a while to "see" the solution thought.

Sun Path

Dedicated to all those of you who simply love scorching hot weather!

Today's Gratitude Item: That the "Silly Season" is officially over in this part of the world and we can all start getting back to normal again!

Christmas Eve

If the festive season has not yet reached as far as your desktop, its not too late! This image is ironic for two reasons, first I don't celebrate Christmas and second, its the middle of summer over here in New Zealand.

Today's Gratitude Item: That making digital snowflakes is actually a very simple affair.

Drunken Peacock

The colours reminded me of peacock feathers, hence the name.

Today's Gratitude Item: Insecticide and "bite" cream. The back of my left leg was "lunch" for something - happily the "bite" cream does wonders for the itching. Hopefully the insecticide will take care of whatever was using me as a tasty snack.

Windmill Wallpaper

This one is for my friend who was born in Holland! Hope you like it.

Today's Gratitude Item: Having plenty to do during my holidays. Between books to read, graphics to create and puzzles to do, there's no time to be bored.

Melancholy Blooms

The purple flowers were made in Illustrator. It was surprisingly easy to create them.

Today's Gratitude Item: A great day on Shutterstock. I love seeing a high number of downloads in the stats area.

Ocean Rush

If you can't take your computer to the beach, why not take the beach to your computer :)

Today's Gratitude Item: Holidays! It means not having to get up too early to go walking. And doing puzzles :) I love puzzles.

Shadow Play

Took forever to get his one to this stage. Its been one of "those" sessions.

Today's Gratitude Item: A brilliant "last dance" session, and the fact that we will be restarting earlier rather than later next year.

Which Way is Up?

This is my latest "3D Hack" experiment. The horizon is all thanks to playing with that nifty "perspective" feature.

Today's Gratitude Item: Finding a penny! Last week I found a dime. This would be nothing special except for the fact that this money was found in Auckland, New Zealand. I think there's an American on the loose over here, and he's leaking small change. Finding foreign currency is always good for a laugh.

Hooked on Apo

I wonder what Dante would have thought of this image.

Today's Gratitude Item: Scorched almonds, covered with minty stuff and smothered in dark chocolate. These are a "special edition" offering and they are very, very good.

Pink Crescent

Made with the same params as "Hooked on Apo". Its amazing what a gradient change and a bit of tweaking can do.

Today's Gratitude Item: My latest batch of vector images got accepted at Shutterstock :) Now lets hope they get downloaded.

Star Lace

Too pink for me, but not ugly enough to "bin".

Today's Gratitude Item: The gift I needed to organise for later in the week is ready to go and it looks great!

Dew Weave

Another "3D Hack" wallpaper. The "bubbles" on this one turned out quite well.

Today's Gratitude Item: Gift exchange certificates. Basically you buy someone a gift and ask for an exchange certificate. This acts as proof of purchase without giving away how much the gift cost. Then if the gift is not quite "right", the person who receives it can switch it for something they prefer. In short, it means not having to worry that the recipient won't like the gift you got them, because they can exchange it if its not quite right.

Blocky Road

Everyone has heard of "Rocky Road" ice cream. This is the fractal / cube variety.

Today's Gratitude Item: Getting a part time contract for work next year. Its at my favorite school and will allow me to do some University papers (in Statistics) at the same time.

Bee Line

OK, so its closer to a curve than a line but I thought some artistic license was in order.

Today's Gratitude Item: That my mom prays for me every night. I love you Mom :)

Gold Mosaic

This one started off as an image in Apophysis. Then it got post processed *a lot* in Paint shop Pro. The trick here is to stop when it looks good.

Today's Gratitude Item: Being able to do "hard" Sudoku puzzles. I don't think the "hard" ones are all that difficult but its nice to able to do them. Weird thing is that the "hard" ones in my book, are not nearly as tough as the ones in the newspaper, which bear the same description (can't do those - yet).

Blocky Ball

This one reminds me a bit of that huge silver monstrosity over at EPCOT centre - except this version is prettier :)

Today's Gratitude Item: Video tutorials! Especially the ones for Illustrator (CS3). They are really easy to follow.

Pink Bubble Weave

This one seemed like a good idea at the time. Now I'm not so sure.

Today's Gratitude Item: Pita, falafel and donuts at the library today! I was really well behaved and abstained from the donuts - even though they looked fantastic. Turns out that donuts are part and parcel of celebrating Chanukah.

Star Fantasy

Don't quite know what to make of this one! Its falls into that "interesting" category.

Today's Gratitude Item: Finally finishing the book I was reading. It was called "Jewish Stories", but unlike previous collections, this one did not really hold my attention. Many of the stories were just too weird / strange. I stuck with it in the hope that the stories would improve, sadly they did not.

Dreidel Play

File this one under "fun things to do on your own". Of course its more fun to play the game in a group, especially when you're winning!

Today's Gratitude Item: A new web design client. It might be nothing, but it might be something. Ironically, I have time now to create new sites. Most people are "flat out", but with school finished for the year, I'm looking for stuff to do.

Chanuka - 3 Candles

If you're wondering what the four Hebrew letters on these Dreidels stand for, take a look at this Wikipedia article.

Today's Gratitude Item: Learning how to create scalable abstract designs using Illustrator which look quite good. Said designs will, of course feature here in due course.

Two Dreidels

Tonight is second night Chanukah. Below is the image that featured on the cover of "Kesher" this past quarter. The graphic was made using Blender.

Today's Gratitude Item: Salt water. Its wonderful for getting rid of snails. Simply make quite a concentrated solution of salt water and then add live snails. The snails do not remain alive for very long! Before you all tell me how terrible it is to do this, let me just say that the snails wreak havoc on the garden if they are not controlled and salt water is a lot more environmentally friendly than some other methods out there.

Chanuka Sameach

Presenting my officialChanukah graphic for this year.

You can access the large version of this graphic by clicking on the image above. Images that are related to Jewish Holidays live at the preceding link where you can browse by holiday and download the image in high resolution (for printing etc).

Today's Gratitude Item: My artwork made it onto the front cover of our community magazine (Kesher) for the second time in a row. The image which "made it" will be posted here in due course.

Floral Optimist

This is the ultimate wallpaper for the optimistic female geek! Enjoy.

Today's Gratitude Item: Spring cleaning! Had a "clean out" today and was amazed at the amount of stuff that I'd managed to accumulate. It felt really good to get rid of all my clutter. Did not take too long either.

Package Deal

You get the spheres, box and ribbon all for the price of one wallpaper.

Today's Gratitude Item: Lame "knock knock" jokes. These only make you laugh if you have an eight year old child to share them with. Happily, our youngest volunteer at the library is at that perfect age :)

Golden Heart Wallpaper

Its very different from my usual offering, but I liked the background design. Having said that, its too strong to be a wallpaper on its own. The idea behind the "To Do" area is that one can stick electronic "post its" there, or place files which need to be worked on in that area. What do you think?

Today's Gratitude Item: Sticky buns :) I don't really have to explain this one!

Ocean Volcano

A "classic" abstract work. Hopefully the vibrant colours appeal.

Today's Gratitude Item: Managing to walk with my dad before being called into work today! Was not expecting to work and we had just finished walking when the job came in.

Star Cubes

The basic unit for this wallpaper was created in Apophysis. It does not look much like a fractal, but that's OK. 3D aspect is best seen in larger sizes.

Today's Gratitude Item: One of my students gave me chocolate :) It was our last tutoring session for the year, hence the present. Getting an unexpected gift is always fun. I know that its theoretically better to give than receive, but receiving is pretty great!

Modern Star

Design generated with Apo. Turns out one can make cubes / stars - cfqd93, over at the Fracfan Forum was kind enough to share the method.

Today's Gratitude Item: My new software arrived this morning! I'm now the proud owner of both Illustrator and InDesign and whilst these two programs are not cheap, they are fantastic. Learning them is not too hard, but it will take time. Luckily, I was not called in to work today, so I had time to play.

Geometric Wonder

The symmetry of this one "works". Not too sure about the colours though :)

Today's Gratitude Item: Fixing the weird thing that was happening with one of my "maps". Not exactly sure what I did, but its co-operating now.

Hands Dancing

Dedicated to all those Sign Language Interpreters out there!

Today's Gratitude Item: Getting new pillows for my bed! My old ones were rather "dead" and the new ones are brilliant. I'm looking forward to an amazing nights sleep.

Wave Sun

Its meant to be the sun sinking slowly beneath the waves.

Today's Gratitude Item: Lots of little things. Like finding a script to make Indesign display Hebrew text correctly (long story).

Moonight Decoration

This one is meant to be a bauble dangling off a Christmas tree with a foggy full moon in the background. Its filed under "list of things you can do with marbles".

Today's Gratitude Item: Side streets. Perfect for finding free parking, provided one is early and prepared to walk to the designated meeting place.

Ocean Vortex

This style may well be familiar to many of you. The gradient worked well though, and as we all know, I'm hopelessly addicted to making these sort of designs.

Today's Gratitude Item: Progress! I'm slowly "getting there" on the various projects that I'm working on.

Moon River

Perhaps based on the song which has the same name? I can hear the lyrics in my head :)

Today's Gratitude Item: Making lists. Its the only way I manage to get stuff done without feeling overwhelmed. Once its on the list, it will get done and then I don't need to keep worrying that it will be forgotten.

Diaspora Dreaming

This image is evocative of roots - which made it an appropriate place for the poem. Some of you may have seen this image before, it got posted on idreamincolor a while ago. There's something a bit "special" about this piece. Most people don't notice that the poem is a rhyming acrostic.

Today's Gratitude Item: Having the time to learn new skills. With things getting quiet on the teaching front, its a perfect time to improve my graphic design skills and get to grips with various bits of software.

Luxury Quilt

Pity this one is not real. If it was, it would be cozy and warm - the perfect antidote for those winter blues.

Today's Gratitude Item: Indesign! After downloading a 30 day trial version of this software, I now understand why it is the industry standard for laying out graphic designs. Its on my "to have" list.

Liquid Passion

If you're passionate about pink, then you might enjoy this. Of course if you loathe pink, you may wish to look away from your computer screen!

Today's Gratitude Item: Late calls. I did not think that I'd get work today, but the phone rang at 7.50am - so it was all good.

Rough Seas

Dedicated to all those sailors out there. May the only rough seas you experience be the ones on your desktop.

Today's Gratitude Item: That my computer can play DVD's. Today was the first time that I needed to use that feature and its most convenient.

Crinkle Cube

The texture of this one reminded me of crinkle paper, only this was a lot cheaper and less messy to construct.

Today's Gratitude Item: Having a very effective remedy for the hiccups. Turns out that a spoonful of vinegar (with a dash of salt) works wonders - at least for me.

Synchronised Splash

Here' s another literal interpretation of the "wallpaper" idea. Space on the bricks is, of course, for those important icons.

Today's Gratitude Item: Finally having the time to finish a major part of one of the projects that I'm currently working on. I still have a fair bit to do, but the most time consuming part is done.

Eye Mural

Decided to take the "wall" part of "wallpaper" a bit more literally than usual.

Today's Gratitude Item: That times really does go fast when you are having fun! My tutoring sessions simply flew past today. Had good sessions with both students.

Gold Leaf

Classic Apo with "ribbons" down the side.

Today's Gratitude Item: Getting home on time to tutor, despite some really horrible traffic. For some reason, the route that I usually take was clogged up. It was so bad, that I ended up turning my car around and finding a different way home - not fun, but it worked out OK in the end.

Galactic Bubble Wrap

I wonder what sound these bubbles make when you pop them :)

Today's Gratitude Item: A quiet day at school. Turns out that a lot of the senior students decided to take some time off to study at home rather than come in to class. This made for smaller than usual class sizes. I'm not sure that staying at home to study is a wise move though, especially as a lot of the teachers are still dispensing study resources, revision exercises and useful tips to those who do make the effort to turn up.

Grate Stones

The design reminded me of stones falling down some kind of grate, hence the name.

Today's Gratitude Item: That my technical guy (aka: my brother) fixes "issues" which arrive from time to time really quickly! Thanks Bro.