22/04/2013

Ocean Life

ocean life 1
ocean life 2
Sometimes I got easily drowned in any project, not a long-term one, but I can get really intense. Like my latest ocean life project here, I promised myself if I could draw 5 or more (a bit ambitious, am I?) underwater biotas from the book "All Colour Book of Ocean Life" by Martin & Heather Angel, I should give myself a sweet reward.

Thank you to Mr. Painsugar and his magnifico Cygnus Lab Project for all jaw-dropping moments each time I take a look at their works. Mostly done with ballpoint pen on paper.

03/04/2013

Rosemary's Baby (and Lavender too)

herbs pots
lavender buds
germinating inside
germinate on cotton pads
rosemary-lemon-vanilla

Working from home means more time to procrastinate and change your main focus into something interesting, like planting herbs indoor or dreaming of natural home fragrances.

I started to plant rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) and lavender (Lavandula) in pots on March 13. Using pre-mixed coco peat and seeds from Paris Garden (available at Ace Hardware, Jakarta with extremely cheap per pack and contains sufficient seeds for more than 10 pots). Entering the third week, seeds mostly from lavender pots had germinated, leaving only three seeds on rosemary pots. Most gardeners said, Rosemary is rather difficult to grow from seeds. Hence propagating from full-grown Rosemary is highly recommended for novice.

Curiosity kills, as I always said to myself. Not enough with coco peat, I tried cotton pads method. Just like growing mung beans (kacang hijau in Bahasa Indonesia) and still it works ;)

Main key to grow herbs is less water, full sun and mal-treatment. Seriously, they will die if you're paying too much attention.

02/04/2013

Arne Jacobsen's Swan Chair

Arne Jacobsen's Swan Chair
Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971), a Danish architect and designer, who developed this legendary "no straight lines - only curves" Swan Chair in 1958. Formerly used for the lobby and lounge areas at the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. The chair allowed guests to spin on its swivel base, thus becoming active participants in the busy hotel atmosphere. His first design used Styropor (an expandable polystyrene, invented by BASF in 1951, commonly used today for cost-effective, yet reliable construction for packaging. e.g. salmon packaging) to create its continuous shape and the upholsterer hand-sewn the fabric directly to Swan's frame.

Along with the Swan, he created the Egg chair, which had been acclaimed as one of the triumphs of his total design. Jacobsen introduced a new technique, using a strong foam inner shell underneath the upholstery, that guarantees a bit of privacy in public spaces. Just like an egg shell.