Tuesday, March 29, 2011

"Singletrack Sisters"

A friend of mine recently called me up to inform me about a new group of women only riders in the Grand Valley. I had heard about them before in the Daily Sentinel's Biking Guide special section (http://www.gjsentinel.com/special_sections/articles/all_that_glitters_is_gold). My friend (a Bike Shop mechanic), is very into the biking community mentioned that this group of ladies, the Singletrack and Skinny Tire Sisters of Western Colorado (check out the group's Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=338465622420&ref=ts#!/group.php?gid=338465622420&v=wall), were looking to move from just a Facebook group to become more of an actual group in the community. They want to get an identity, make brochures to leave in the local bike shops, hold clinics and do so much more. He gave the leader of the group my information and away we went!

Before they decided to have me do their logo, I was inspired by just the idea. I had a sudden urge to sketch up a mountain biker chick pulling a wheelie and fooled around with ways to abbreviate the name of the group. Ended up scrapping the abbreviation idea, but loved the chick!
©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist
Still, without officially deciding to have me do their logo, I continued on. I cleaned up my sketch a bit in Photoshop and threw it into Illustrator where I turned it into a vector image. ©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist
 I kept going. I played with the thought of adding a bike track element. ©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist
And played around with various fonts to create additional logo type and maneuvered the letters around for fun and added a girlie hibiscus element. ©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist
I had a thought to throw all of these elements into a shape that would bring them together. I ended up choosing an oval. ©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist
I found another font I really liked and used it for the rest of the name. I chose to exclude "Skinny Tire" for the time being because I wasn't sure they would want it anyway. ©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist
After this point, I decided to stop because I created an image I really liked. I sent it to the head of the group just to see what she thought. She loved it and decided at that point to have me move ahead with designing their logo! Through various changes and rounds of proofs, we eventually came up with an image that we both liked and thought would be a good representation of their group! She chose the colors of red and blue to be added to the logo. I had a thought while dreaming about it one night that if there is going to be red and blue, I should use yellow and make it representative of the Colorado flag. I chose an iron red for the rocks, a bright cyan for the sky and a golden yellow for the circle. I didn't want the logo to be exactly Colorado's colors, but more representative of the colors seen in Colorado's scenery. I also worked up a black and white logo for any of their black and white printing needs and a rectangle shaped logo for stickers or anything that would need to be cut to shape.
©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist
©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist
©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist
©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist

Thursday, March 24, 2011

"Experiments with a GoPro"

This month of March has been a fun month. The weather has been off and on...off and not so nice on the weekends when I'm off and on and wonderfully beautiful during the week when I'm working. That hasn't stopped me from getting out on the two wheeled peddler! Coinciding with that is a new devise that is in constant need of experimenting with! The GoPro HD Helmet Hero POV (point of view) camera. This thing films in high definition and can film in every resolution up to 1080p and 60 frames per second. For most sports and activities they suggest staying in 960p, which is where I've just been leaving it.

My goal with this camera is not to capture the same ol shots as everyone else in the world. But to shoot the things I do and get creative with angles and hopefully capture anything and everything funny! Here is one of my most recent experiments...
Check out the rest of my experiments at my YouTube Channel...http://www.youtube.com/user/AccidentalArtist84?feature=mhum

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

"Venture People, Venture!"

I recently started up a new Facebook page for people who like to do stuff outside and like to find others to do stuff with. It is a place where people can connect by creating adventures and get in on others adventures! This isn't going to be one of those groups that is left up to the "Admins" to figure out what to do. It's up to anybody and everybody to get out!

I also created an event within the group where every week I will post known activities for the upcoming weekend, and anybody can write any events they know about that will be happening. These events will be constantly updated every week and when events have past, they will be deleted.

And...well, its always better to include an image for the profile and the event. I decided to create logos for them!
Here is the logo for the page: Venture Western Colorado ©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist
Visit the page here: Venture Out Western Colorado
Here is the logo for the weekend events page ©nolasvoboda•accidentalartist
Visit the events for the weekend here: Weekend Shenanigans

"The High Desert Plateau Plain Mountain"

Early Spring is my most favorite time of year in Grand Junction. It is the one time of year where I can do almost everything I love to do...minus the camping hiking and fishing that is done in the summer time in the mountains. I most of all live this season because I can get out in the desert and play in the dirt AND get up on the mountain and play in the snow in the same weekend...and if I'm feeling really gun hoe, the same day! The weather on the last few weekends hasn't been love prettiest, gloomy clouds, maybe a sprinkle and snow up in the mountains. Normally one would look outside and declare that kind of day to be a jammies/movie inside kind of day. Not I! I had things to go do! Adventures to seek out!

A friend and I had rented a couple pairs of snowshoes in our quest to try out as many different kinds that we could. So we needed to get out in the snow and give those babies a whirl. We have also been cooped up all winter doing only winter type activities, and the dirt was screaming our names. We needed to get out on our bikes as well!

Last weekend, we accomplished everything we set out to do. Here was our new revised schedule for the weekend (as of Saturday morning).
1. Drink Coffee
2. Watch a Little Saturday Morning T.V.
3. Eat Breakfast
4. Make a Decision...go skiing or go snowshoeing and biking
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5. Decision Made! Today we go snowshoeing up above Glade Park on the Pinon Mesa, then we will drive back down through the Colorado National Monument and pull over and ride the Lunch Loops and the Tabeguache Trailhead and tomorrow we will go up to Powderhorn Resort to ski/board!
6. Get Dressed. Throw on the snow clothes, load up the pups, bikes and snowshoes and go!

Went snowshoeing in feet of snow in a blizzard, then mountain biking in the dirt and dusty trails in the desert and went skiing and snowboarding on the mountain the next day...best weekend of my life...this year!
We like to drive up to Mud Springs Campground to snowshoe. It only takes about 20 minutes to get there!
Snow poops the hyper pup out quick!
Rad indeed!
  
  
This video was actually taken this past Sunday (a week later) but like I could tell the difference, it was the exact same kind of day out.
Warning: Due to the nature of this video and the placement of the Go Pro Camera, content contains a lot of my ass. Feel free to chuckle and laugh!
Up at Powderhorn on Sunday!
Testing out the splitboard on the slopes. It most definitely likes the deep powder the best!