26/8/11

DIY Ukulele Felt Picks

For some fast picking on a ukulele you might need a pick. Felt picks are pretty common, but not all music stores have them. You can make your own felt picks with only two ingredients: Self-adhering felt and some plastic. I used felt meant to protect furniture and the plastic of a drain cleaner bottle (thoroughly washing it with water). Later I tried also the plastic of a transparent printer foil and a water bottle, giving the picks different stiffness. the water bottle one was the best form me. I like the picks soft, so the strumming sounds soft, but still stiff enough to do some picking.

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First sketch the profile of the pick paper. It doesn’t matter if the outline is not symmetrical.
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By folding the sketch in the middle and cutting it out, you get a nice symmetrical form.
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Now cut the plastic by using your template.
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Adhere the felt on both sides one by one and cut the felt to size.
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You can do different designs and forms, depending on your preferences. I liked the Reuleaux-triangle shape best.
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Happy strumming!

17/8/11

Watercolor Wednesday: Artichoke Step-by-Step

Today I am going to show you the steps of making a watercolor painting. First of all I start off deciding what to paint. Here I will paint an artichoke. I decided to use yellow, different shades of green, green-blue, violet and grey-blue.

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Taking my favorite artichoke, I do a rough pencil sketch.

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The basic color is going to be yellow.

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Adding light green I start to define a bit more the structure.

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Adding darker tones of green I define the plasticity of the leaves.

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Additionally I added violet at the bottom leaves of the artichokes and a red background.

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Using a mix of black and blue I add the shadows to the artichoke.

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Done!

10/8/11

Watercolor Wednesday: A Seashell

This one is for framing and putting on a wall. A seashell painted after a real-life seashell found at the beach of Peñiscula.

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24x17cm watercolor on paper

7/8/11

The Ukulele Gigbag

I got myself a Spongebob pineapple style Ukulele, which is not a high quality instrument (putting some good strings on it helped somewhat), but it is a cheap instrument you wont be afraid to hand it to someone else or lug it around.
The gigbag that came with the Spongebob Ukulele was very flimsy, so I decided to make a padded gigbag for it. This is the result:
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The bag has a front pouch and a shoulder strap on its back. It also fits well for my “real” ukulele, a Lanikai soprano.

3/8/11

Watercolor Wednesday: The Ukulele Cat

Due to temporal summer heat induced insanity I present you the Ukulele playing cat.

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17x12cm Watercolor on Paper