Getting into trouble...

Ok, not really. In fact, the exact opposite.

Kevin (or Canadian Attack Beaver as he likes to be called on the internet) is out of town for work, so I am on my own.

It turns out that I really need him to tell me to stop being anti-social and hang out with him in the evenings - otherwise, I get completely absorbed in random things like math and forget to do practical things like eat.

I have been playing with my compass pattern. I am no longer sure if I want to make it for my future niece/nephew - Kevin has suggested that maybe we should meet this new family member before we start making him/her gifts. As it allows procrastination (and I have a new, totally different idea anyway), I am going to bow to Kevin's superior understanding of his own family.

Anyway, I started by adding some flying geese around the edge of the compass. Not that hard to do... and I really like them, especially when they are pulling the compass against the border. I also tripled the layers the border, so that I can have more fun with the colours later.

From there I thought I would try making the geese go outward. This, of course, ended up being outward and inward. The first attempt came out really "flat"... I really didn't like it. And then the endless math came in.

I spent an entire evening trying to fit a sphere to the inner and outer ring. I finally got it working... and it looked pretty much the same as the flat / cone version.

The next day I realized I should be fitting a torus to the ring (I have never, ever claimed to be cool). This way, depending on which part of the torus I align on, I can get the ring flaring inward or outward. It took an entire evening of calculations, but I'm really happy that I got it working!


I'm still not sure which edge I will use - I still like the regular geese as well... and then there is the background colour. I am imagining things in blues and purples right now. I am not sure if it will fade to black, indigo or purple on the outside. First, though, I have to decide how I will get the colours to "swirl". I think I can handle 8 shades before I drive myself crazy, although I was surprised by how much I like the 4-colour variation. I have had fun with trying to draw the eye to various sections of the edge.

Ok, enough fooling around. I really, really have to get ready for work!

Kirsten