25 Tuesday Oct 2011
Posted in Music
Tags
Accoustic, bulletproof weeks, Cover, Guitar, matt nathanson, Music, singing
Sorry it has been such a long time since my last post. I clearly haven’t done anything creative in the last month. I did have a party with a stand up bass; that was cool. I am none of the people in this picture – don’t try to find me.
A dedication to fall and to an artist I like -
A cover of Bulletproof Weeks by Matt Nathanson. Hopefully I’ll make a video to follow.
much love,
smq
02 Sunday Oct 2011
Posted in Clothes
02 Sunday Oct 2011
Posted in Functional Art, Visual Art
Tags
art, decorating, diy, frames, framing, functional art, interior decorating, photo framing, visual, Wall Art
Today I had the sudden urge to “create” so I hopped in my car and headed to the craft store. On the way there a sale sign at a framing store caught my eye, and I decided to stop in. Despite the fact that I could not immediately think of anything I needed to frame, I knew I could put a few of these to use. I eventually decided to frame my diploma, which I have been meaning to do for some time (do people do this?).
Framing the diploma required cutting down a leftover mat from a frame that I broke during my move – rather than take the time to do this right (with a razor or something relatively sharp) I used the scissors I found on my roommate’s desk. The cut lines are hidden by the frame so this doesn’t matter so much.
I tried a few different layouts that you can see below – I think the final product looks pretty good. I may eventually try to create some art to fill these frames, but this will do in the meantime. I must say that the “empty frames” look was inspired by a neighbor of a friend of a friend – I mean, we all know its been done before. Shout outs to all you “empty framers” out there.
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Making art where there was (and really STILL is) none.
SMQ
18 Sunday Sep 2011
Posted in Functional Art, Visual Art
Tags
functional art, Furniture, home, house, interior, record, record player, Visual Art
Sorry, friends, that I have been so careless with posting lately. I just moved into a “gem” of an apartment in Lakeview and have been spending all of my time setting it up…
In our living room we have a record player that I bought from a garage sale in high school. The records (quite a collection taken from my mother) are currently housed in a wooden crate that I ripped the sides off of (the records didn’t fit otherwise). Today I had an idea for the leftover sides of the wooden crate.
Never again will anyone need to ask what we are listening to 
When we put a record in, the sleeve goes into this display.
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28 Sunday Aug 2011
Posted in Graphic Design
Tags
I saw someone else doing this on stumble upon…its even funnier with people you know. Thanks for the request.
Inspired by: Boozecats
28 Sunday Aug 2011
Posted in Graphic Design, Visual Art
Tags
For any of you folks who have needed to quickly Photoshop anything out of a picture, here is a useful shotcut! Using a Content Aware Fill in Photoshop, you can quickly and easily remove a section of a photo and replace that section with a computer generated image made to MATCH what surrounds it.
Sorry for the stretch/blur on the comp. footage – still figuring out file format on these.
21 Sunday Aug 2011
Posted in Graphic Design, Visual Art
Hey folks,
I spent some of yesterday working on a new banner for this page. To try and get at something close to what this blog is, I did a mix of digital and pastels. I think the look is classic but young – I’m hoping to integrate it into a few of the websites I am working on coming up.
First, I drew out a draft of what I wanted the SMQ logo to look like – this is the part that I wanted to digitalize; I drafted this in pencil, then scanned it into Illustrator and used the pen tool to trace the text into a vector image – the audio was randomly selected by Youtube. Youtube must think Illustrator is pretty bad-ass. Of course, so do I.
I then filled in the colors I wanted with oil pastels; I pushed down pretty hard on this to get the gritty look.
I scanned the image into my computer, changing some of the import settings and color levels (I liked the red on red look).
I pasted the font on top, added a border, and there we have it! My blog header.
19 Friday Aug 2011
Posted in Music
Tags
This is one of my favorite songs in the world – in fact the ONLY song I know by the artist, Caedmon’s Call; I hate to admit it, but the Northwestern Undertones are the only reason I KNOW and the main reason I LOVE this song. You all are amazing.
I recorded this on my mac camera with a USB mic I scored for Christmas a few years back. As you can tell, it took me so long to start putting this together that I have a beard by the time I do the vocals… Some of it might not line up because recordings got lost, deleted, or screwy throughout the process.
Take a listen and don’t hate, just love – I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
18 Thursday Aug 2011
Tags
Despite my attempts to begin several projects tonight I am sad to say I have nothing new to present to you, my friends. Instead let’s take a walk down memory lane to see what the real SMQ thought about in ’04 and ’05 – the things that made me who I am today.
A month (x2) in the life of SMQ: February & March 2004
“I bout 64 valentines today…scooby doo and spongebob…ahh to be 8 again.”
“ooo oo i want a valentine!! pick me! lol valentines day is going to be sad unless of course, U want to be my valentine ?”
“I found a silver dollar today from 1979, shined it up, and put it in my pocket. I now consider myself quite the buisnessman.”
“Tomorrow is officially(according to carrie) sexual inuenda day…so get ready…”
“i got home around 2:15ish…which is prob about the latest ive ever been out…stupid curfews.” Current Mood: 
flirty
“i ate a whole pack of those little dot on paper candy things today and it gave me a really bad headache…ive been hyper ever since.”
…more to come.
07 Sunday Aug 2011
Posted in Visual Art
Tags
Today after various activities I found myself downtown, alone, and excited to be in the city. Rather than make my way back to Evanston I bummed around a bit until I found an art supply store – I have already spent plenty of money on the pile of art supplies I have sitting in Evanston so I knew I needed to get something new – how about oil pastels?!
This Van Gogh set was perfect because it was a)not too expensive and b)not too shitty.
I found an AWESOME location right near Grant Park and the Yacht Club. I could hear Lolla, see yachts, AND sit in this hammock which happened to be in my backpack.
I sat until the sun set and emerged from my cocoon with this in hand. Enjoy.
