Kismet Arts Tangent

Art Collective

recent posts

Mother’s Day Card and Painting Video

May 16, 2014
ASMR: drawing a greeting card http://only – YouTube.

For Mother’s Day last Sunday, I painted a picture of a lily. My mother likes Calla lilies, so I got one and painted it.

My new painting station

ASMR: calla lily painting video 1 – YouTube.

I’ve been gearing up for my latest project, funding my Kickstarter (which is a project in itself!). I’ve been recording more videos, hoping that it will get people interested in my work. I’m exploring how to set up my camera and microphone to capture things while I draw and paint. At my old house, I hung my camera from the chandelier which seemed to work for painting videos. Now, I don’t have a chandelier, so I tried to use this metal bin on some soda cans. I occassionally hit the metal bars with my paint brush, so it is not ideal. I will keep an eye out at thrift stores for better solutions.
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Recent Published Works of Science

May 15, 2014
It has been exciting to see my art/image making love and science interest come together.

“eJournal USA is a global conversation moderated by the United States Department of State.” -from their website. A graphic designer for this publication contacted me after finding this work on my blog. File that under reasons to share your work online. Here’s the post where they found the work: Life. Here’s the online version of the article: DNA, Like You’ve Never Heard It | IIP Digital. They sent me two copies of the issue, in French! My work always looks better with French text near it/in it. I love the French language. So, I’m very happy about that.

Biosensors: Selective Detection of Target Proteins by Peptide-Enabled Graphene Biosensor (Small 8/2014) – Khatayevich – 2014 – Small – Wiley Online Library. I worked with the first author to create this image. We needed to show bionanosensor functionalized with two engineered chimeric peptides. We used Chemistry Software, HyperChem, Molecular Modeling. molecular graphics visualisation tool. We scored the inside cover (Not really a cover, but still a great full page graphic) in this publication. We submitted the square graphic to the magazine and their team formatted it.
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A Seattle Graphic Design Guild Meeting

April 15, 2014
Presentationforgraphicdesignguildmeeting from Katarina Countiss

I organized an event at Ada’s Technical Books where I work part-time as a graphic designer. It was a valuable lesson in building community, marketing and confidence. I’m looking forward to developing a design community events program around graphic design and working with Ada’s to accomplish that, but it takes a lot more work, experience, dedication that I’m only half-way ready to give at this point.

I’d like to give a big thanks to Paul Nissen who encouraged the attendees. It was an education in putting yourself out there, recruiters, portfolio styles and some suggestions for the event.
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Get Well Soon Card with Yoks

April 6, 2014
I was visiting with my sick friend, Dan. (He’s the creator of an upcoming comic, Welcome, inspired by Mr. Yoks, comic I worked on, which was inspired by his baby horse, Yoks.) And I made for him (on the spot, I had my materials with me) a Get Well Soon Card with Yoks!

I used a Strathmore Greener Options Blank Cards using Pigma® Micron® 05 Black pen and a new purchase: Chartpak Ad Markers cool gray 2. If you thought Sharpies were strong, you have no idea what you’re in for when you purchase one of these. It reads on the label: “WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer.”
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Portfolio Update: Games are the Goal, Part 2

April 6, 2014
In my second session of coding, I smoothed out the mobile layout. I was wondering where the nav bar would go (it’s placed with absolute positioning, so earlier in the iteration process, it was blocking some text in the mobile div. So, I created a secret class that only shows up on mobile and I put a little bio in it.

view of website on my iPhone

Because the lack of screen space and the way websites are broken up to fit mobile, the website needs to sum itself up early on in the mobile version.

I also put in the gif I mentioned in the last post. It is a hover activated image and looks like this (see below) when hovered upon. I think it’s fun.

I worked on my resume page and found that I wanted to expand on the composition of the home page. (Think similar but different.) I played around with a few different backgrounds…

This is how the resume page looks.

I liked this composition the best. My education, skills and work experience feel like they’ve been building on each other and I wanted to reflect that visually.

Next tasks: I want to make the project images more convincing. I love the process and I want to high light more of the process in some cool collage/overlay texture on the homepage.

Katarina Countiss (visit it and tell me what you think!)
(Earlier Post Relating to This Project)
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Portfolio Update: Games are the Goal

April 3, 2014
I took this picture of my loose wireframe last night. Little signs that I should have a game industry job.

I’m gonna try use these projects for bait. (Early stage of change to the portfolio.)

Today, I worked on my portfolio. I really want to get into the game industry I realized. I was watching one of my friends play God of Light – Android Apps on Google Play and I thought to myself: that’s the coolest thing.

I thought I’d add fun backgrounds, but they were a little distracting.

Here’s where I got a little crazy and thought it would be fun and playful to have my logo “tile” in the background… (And there’s me trying to remember how a CSS sprite is made.)

Wes Anderson Palettes. I might have chosen the least joyous of these color palettes for this website. I’m pondering changing it in the next session.

I gathered my senses and decided to use the tiles I originally made to pattern (I didn’t really apply myself with those patterns, anyways) as icons. For the background, I wanted to tie in the colors without being too distracting. I thought color blocking might be fun. I started with this “German flag” svg in the background and it did something really cool. It made it look like they were woven together, so I kept it!

CSS transitions for the images (they turn to colors when you hover over it). I’m thinking I want to put an easter egg somewhere. A fun glowing gem gif behind one of the divs so that when you hover over it, it pops out. I’ll think about it some more.

I’d say I’m about half way through. I still have to further style the text and change all the other pages to match.

Katarina Countiss (visit it and tell me what you think!)
(Earlier Post Relating to This Project)
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Yoks Scratchboard and Memo Jar

April 2, 2014
It was my friend Dan’s birthday. He’s the creator of an upcoming comic, Welcome, inspired by Mr. Yoks (comic I worked on, which was inspired by his baby horse, Yoks). For his birthday, I gave him a memo jar. You glue a piece of paper and a clothespin to a jar and you have a one of a kind, interactive desktop/shelf ornament. It took me a few tries to draw it without tracing. I think that drawing directly pen on paper gives it an organic and immediate feel. Pencil lines make it seem too premeditated. I’ve been working with scratchboard lately and find it very easy to start and finish. The materials are fairly inexpensive and very portable. I highly recommend it.

Yoks loves it!
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One of a Kind Collector’s Edition Merch for Shelby

March 27, 2014
toy Shelby product clip version 1, certificate of authenticity, and instructions

Toy Shelby product clip version 1: hand-drawn penguin, my favorite cartoon character (Shelby), using a Prismacolor Premier Brush Tip and some glue to affix it to the Modern Cube card clip. A Certificate of Authenticity: an Illustrator file with a complex-ish line then copied and rotated 15 degrees until a circle design is completed With some red diagonals for accent. Printed and then stamped with my self-inking logo stamp (I love that). An InDesign instructional document with easy-to-follow diagrams made in Illustrator including a logo that was colored in Photoshop. Jokey small print. I made this for a friend’s birthday and I think she loved it. Hard to tell with Stoics. Fun project. I like trinket design.

Here’s Toy Shelby product clip version 1 in action in her new home on a bookshelf in South Seattle next to a unicorn.

Shelby Logo
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