31.12.10
30.12.10
29.12.10
28.12.10
27.12.10
I bought pre-pressed wood since I don't yet have a skateboard press, but I did all the cutting, shaping, smoothing, curving, finishing and designing of this board.
Check out the video I threw together of the process.
A [joel.witwer] original.
A little more about the process of painting on the graphic.
I first coat the board in three layers of poly urethane to seal off the wood and prevent paint from seeping down into it. I design the graphic itself on my computer, then print it out and trace it onto the board. All the paints I use are simple acrylics. Once the graphic is on the deck, I apply three more layers of poly urethane to seal in the graphic and keep the deck tight.
25.12.10
24.12.10
"Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like are but various fruits which succeed it."
23.12.10
22.12.10
21.12.10
Also, I check out the Bill O'Reilly references that Colbert referenced in the above clip, just to see if they were being taken out of context. Nope, it's as bad as it sound. Check it out for yourself
Keep Christ in Unemployment by Bill O'Reilly
20.12.10
17.12.10
16.12.10
15.12.10
14.12.10
13.12.10
10.12.10
9.12.10
An energy burst forth from unknown sources. I was up, bowling through my house, using my feet as sleds on the cold, hard hill of my kitchen floor.
Back and forth I went.
To and fro I shuttled.
A grin dominated my face as I chuckled, thinking about how I must look to someone else. But there was no one else, just me, alone with my momentary insanity.
Maynard Roof was playing.
The admiralty surveys, the remnants of the fleet
The ground beneath their feet is a nautically mapped sheet
It's thin as paper while it slips away from view
8.12.10
7.12.10
God showed me that I was made to love on Him through the arts and music. When I got saved I began to create art and as I created art I have noticed that it brings me closer to Him and it allows God to minister to other people. It wasn't until I came to know God that I was able to tap into the artistic gifts that he had placed inside of me. God has given me the ability and the creativity to create art and enjoy Him through it. It has also given me the ability to show God to people in a unique way. I believe that God will encounter people through my art on the streets and in the galleries."
6.12.10
3.12.10
2.12.10
1.12.10
30.11.10
29.11.10
27.11.10
My constant connection to technology and the continual stream of information it brings has created a fear in me. A fear that someone may want to tell me something and won't be able to if I'm not always connected.
It's a stupid fear, I know.
It's also stupid that I'm sharing this fear with you through more technology.
the end.
26.11.10
25.11.10
24.11.10
- Romans 1:20 (Amplified Bible)
23.11.10
Let me indulge myself for a minute and pretend that there are some of you that eagerly await my video posts each and every weekday. If this is you, I apologize for the last of posts last Friday and this past Monday. I was on a backpacking trip in the snowy adirondacks (more on this later) and then a brief trip to NYC.
In NYC, Davey and I had to go check out every photographer/videographer's mecca, B&H Photo Video where we sent money we probably shouldn't have, but definitely don't regret! I bought myself a beautiful lil' canon 50mm f/1.8 lens, which Davey calls the 'nifty fifty' while he got a sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 wide angle.
Now check out the picture below (click to see a slightly larger version):
Now the picture on the left was taken with my stock lens, take note of the the field of view. The picture on the right was taken with my camera body in the exact position, but Davey's new lens. Check out that ginormous field of view compared to regular! We played around with it a little more as the day went on and, as you would expect, we found some linear distortion in the images, but very minimal amounts. That is one rad lens!
18.11.10
16.11.10
15.11.10
12.11.10
11.11.10
9.11.10
8.11.10
5.11.10
4.11.10
3.11.10
2.11.10
On a drive home last week I was thinking over the relationship between art and science and what the balance between them is. Some are wired to capture absolutely gorgeous images with little thought or understanding to the millions of processes going on inside their tools they use. Others can understand every little process inside the tool, but are completely incapable of composing an image that the world would fawn over. It was while on this train of thought that I came to the conclusion that art is not only creation, but also the discovery of beauty in monotony. Along the same lines, science is not merely discovery, but also the creation of order in chaos. In a world where everything has already been created, both art and science are catalysts for the discovery of new combinations which create beauty.
Both are expressions of beauty.
1.11.10
29.10.10
28.10.10
Come to the city. Live here and when a kid around the corner gets shot and dies because another kid likes his shoes, try and tell me more guns would've solved the problem.
While I do think easy accessibility to guns is a huge problem, increasing restrictions may help but definitely will not solve the problem. What we need are widespread conflict management skills. Physical force and violence should not be the first resort, but this is often the only thing kids see modeled. Parents, community leaders, role models, politicians, police and even the government need to look at how they deal with situations that arise and find non violent ways to respond.
Young eyes are watching everything. Let's find a way to influence a generation and change the future.
26.10.10
25.10.10
21.10.10
20.10.10
18.10.10
Sirens wailing
Bike spokes tinkling
-
The tires screech long
The bike tinkles on
-
Silence
-
A man drops his head
A child lies dead.
I was half a block away when it happened.
Father, what is your plan in all of this?
15.10.10
14.10.10
13.10.10
12.10.10
11.10.10
"I don't want the bread. Bread makes me have to pee"
"I'm Jesus Christ"
"I was a gangster. I ran with Al Capone and all those cats"
"You're my friend"
"He hates black people! He's a racist!"
"The A-rab beat me!"
Father, give me patience and more love than I know what to do with.
10.10.10
9.10.10
Becuase I don't know what to do,
I do nothing at all which may,
in fact,
be worse than trying and failing.
A week ago, I was in Minneapolis, MN for the Desiring God conference which was an absolutely great time. Some of the speakers were Rick Warren, R.C. Sproul, Fracis Chan and John Piper. Yeah, those are some big names in the US Christian world right there. Oddly enough, the thing that seems to be sticking with me the most from the weekend was an incident I observed last Sunday morning. I was walking into the convention center for the last session when I saw a homeless man being escorted out by convention center security. As I walked by them I thought, "Something doesn't seem right about this." A homeless man being escorted out of a CHRISTIAN conference about becoming better Christians and coming to desire a deeper and more loving relationship with God. Take a look at Matthew 25:31 - 46. I think that's pretty clear on what God desires from us ...
Now that thought gave me a weird something-isn't-quite-right-here feeling, but as I was thinking more about it later I was floored. Yeah, something wasn't right there. We're supposed to love and provide for those with less material wealth than us and I was thinking that this shouldn't be happening especially at a Christian conference, but what did I do? Nothing ... I saw it happening, I acknowledged that it wasn't right and yet I did nothing. While I was busy thinking that someone should do something, it never occurred to me that I could be that someone to do something.
Father, give me wisdom and courage in situations where I am uncomfortable and don't know what to do. Help me show even a small portion of the overwhelming love that You've shown me.
8.10.10
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6.10.10
5.10.10
4.10.10
30.9.10
29.9.10
22.9.10
21.9.10
20.9.10
19.9.10
16.9.10
Not only do I update this blog far too often, I also follow a slightly ridiculous number of blogs. One of them is Jon Acuff's "Stuff Christians Like." It's just a funny look at American Christianity. Here's a post from today that just plain made me smile a tad:
To read the whole thing go here.
15.9.10
14.9.10
13.9.10
"(With a full understanding that our identity is in Christ and not in self) much of the emotional suffering caused by our addictive desires is healed. We can begin to drop all of our manipulative games - the money game, the security game, the male-female game, the power game, the knowledge game, the expert game, and so on. We can present ourselves simply to others: 'Here I am. It's all I've got.' In humble self awareness and sovereign freedom we can truly be for others without fear of rejection or concern for their usefulness to us."
9.9.10
8.9.10
7.9.10
6.9.10
1922 Colour Videos
5.9.10
3.9.10
2.9.10
31.8.10
30.8.10
27.8.10
From a Lifeway research study.
27%: "I simply wanted a break from church."
26%: "Church members seemed judgmental and hypocritical."
25%: "I moved to college and stopped attending church."
23%: "Work responsibilities prevented me from attending."
22%: "I moved too far away from the church to continue attending."
20%: "I didn't feel connected to the people in my church."
18%: "I disagreed with the church's stance on political or social issues."
17%: "I was only going to church to please others."
" Now I am not saying that these sorts of things have no merit or do not contribute to the spiritual enrichment of Christians. Certainly the church should be engaging with the creative use of technology. To abandon technology altogether would be just as foolish as leveraging it in an extreme or reckless way. Technology itself doesn't make anything cooler, and increasingly the younger generations are looking for a tech-free space wherein they can quiet themselves and focus on the transcendent truths of the gospel, apart from the media and digital overload of the rest of their lives."
25.8.10
"The consensus seems to be this: we should be deeply Christian artists. But that doesn't mean we should be something called Christian artists or that whatever we produce should be called Christian art. We should simply focus on our craft, on making the best art we can. We should understand that people will and should resonate with out work not because it is Christian but because it is good. Above all, Christians should make good art, true art; art unafraid of exploring mystery, portraying evil, and looking for truth wherever it appears. Which is exactly what the best secular artists are doing."
Indeed, the point that many artistic Christians are trying to make is that art has so much more to offer us when we engage with it beyond our simplistic moral rubrics. Think about the Bible, they say. It's full of offensive content: sex, beheadings, prostitutes, torture, infidelity, you name it. The Bible is R-rated; it's dangerous. But that's only because life is that way, and every story has to have conflict and resolution, darkness and light.
Something doesn't have to be safe in order to be good. Christian hipsters are desperately trying to communicate this about art. It should not be constricted by a prudish commitment to 'safe,' but rather it should be allowed to do what it is meant to do: unveil reality and expose truth in all of its messy, mysterious glory."
Absolutely Gorgeous
Beautiful in so many ways.
It was also made from ~4500still images, which just makes it cooler!
24.8.10
" If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody. And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display. To do this, the church must stop thinking of everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever."
The Look of Film
HD is the big thing. People love the clarity, sharpness, etc. But I can't stop falling in love with the look of film; the grain, the colours, the sketchiness. Maybe one of these days I'll actually have enough time and money to try my own film. Until then, I'll just appreciate other people's work and work on creating film effects with my own videos.
23.8.10
19.8.10
18.8.10
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars ..."
A Video Poem
Talk through each scene in your head and you'll begin to understand.
Astounding.
17.8.10
Punk Rock Statements
I should also add, that I do actually like this song ... The video is more punk rock than the music. In my book, punk rock is pretty much defined by bands like The Casualties and The Dead Kennedys with which I don't vibe with as much.
16.8.10
13.8.10
12.8.10
Just A Short Post
11.8.10
Question Mark.
I honestly think they just tried to think of things that don't go together and then put them in the same frame, but, somehow, it works.
How Can You Not Love This Man?
Post a link in the comments and my favourite one will get a cookie!
10.8.10
Unofficially Official!
9.8.10
A Lil' Late
The way I work this blog is that when I find a video I like, I put it on a list that is about 20videos long. Then each day I put one or two of those links up here. So there is a wait list. This wait list ensures that I always have something to put up here, but it also makes me run the risk of finding a sweet video before everyone else and, by the time I post it, the video has already gone viral. Then I just look like I took it from everyone else ... In some cases I did take the link from someone else, BUT in this case I really did find this link before it appeared all over popular blogs! I promise!
Really, it doesn't matter whether you believe me or not. Just check out this messed up interaction!
6.8.10
5.8.10
4.8.10
This One Is For All My Grills
3.8.10
2.8.10
30.7.10
One Shot Goodness
29.7.10
Gnarcade
Now I'm a fan of neither snowboarding nor video games. So it follows logic that I don't enjoy video games about snowboarding, but snowboarding in video games is something I can get behind.
.
28.7.10
A Precious Heart
An amazing attitude in a tough situation.
Not "why is this happening to us?" but "Why should this not happen to us? What makes us so special? We're just two ordinary people just like everyone else"
27.7.10
Hand Drawn Wonderfulness
Normally, I'm not a big fan on animation, but I just love the style of this one.
and even the thoughest of you have to agree that this is at least a tad cute.
Check yes please!
26.7.10
22.7.10
21.7.10
20.7.10
I Couldn't Hold Out With This One!!!
When I find a video I like, I save the URL into a big long list of URLs I have going. That means that the videos you see here, I found about a week ago! I run the risk of it being "old news" by the time I post it here, but ah well.
Today, I found these three videos and there is no possible way that I can keep them to myself for any period of time so you're getting a second post today (on top of the double this morning, lucky you!)
So these guys are applying animal behaviours to technology. WHAT?! Yeah.
A radio that "sneezes" to clear dust from it's slots, disk drive that "jumps up" when it detects a liquid is being spilled near it and a lamp that "sways" out of the way when it detects that someone is getting too close to it and may be burned.
Another Double
Now this second video was supposed to be posted yesterday, but I got distracted and forgot ...
oh well, here it is now.
16.7.10
A Song Written for Preschoolers Sung by Adults in a Driveway
I went to a wonderful show last night. It was in a kid's driveway and it was small and it was passionate and it was wonderful. It opened up with this guy, Jason Anderson. He's a music teacher in NYC and this is a song he wrote for his preschoolers. So, yes, of course we sung it.
15.7.10
Naturally Wonderful.
You have to love the seeming simpleness of this all. They plant the food, they tend to the plants, the plants grow, they harvest it and sell it. All in the family and local community.
beautiful.
14.7.10
A Bunch of Crap called Gospel
check out my wordy blog for my take on it
An Attempt at Insights: The "Prosperity" Gospel
13.7.10
One Area in Need of Change
This is one area that needs to be transformed.
12.7.10
iPhone 4 Music Video
A video shot entirely on the iPhone 4.
This just goes to show that, while your camera does have some influence on the final product, the majority of filmmaking is in the production (shots, supports, motion, lighting) and post production (colouring, editing, special effects, flow).
9.7.10
A Subtle Sidetrip
The world of video allows us to take subtle sidetrips from the real world which is contrary to the world of animation where a new world is created.
I love when filmmakers take advantage of this.
8.7.10
A Brief, but Lovely, Moment
This was filmed on my camera and is posted on my vimeo account, but
this is a dave.kelbe original
7.7.10
6.7.10
2.7.10
Sorry abou that kiddos
Yesterday, I failed you.
In an attempt at reconciliation, I am uploading 2 for you today!