"Life Distilled"

    This was obviously more an exercize than a project.  I put it online because I kind of enjoyed making it.  I've had more mixed reviews on this than Lucas had on Episode 1.  If anybody dispensing grades has ever liked one of my projects, they have liked one tiny little portion of the project, and thought the rest was crap.  I am here to tell you that they were inaccurate.  I happen to think the whole thing is crap, but I enjoyed making it.  We needed three common objects:  something semi-transparent, something shiny, and something natural.  Or something like that.  Now what the hell am I going to use for objects in a pinch?  I ripped up a used soda can to reveal the inside, borrowed a petri dish with some yellow crap in the bottom of it from the teacher's "Random Stuff" pile, and went outside to grab a small stick.  Voila.
    The assignment was in Fractal Designs' Painter 4 for Macintosh.  We had to use different features for each of the eight panels, after drawing outlines of the objects of course.  From the upper-left to the lower-right:  complimentary colors, erasers, split compliment colors, colored pencils, water effects, airbrushes with differing paper textures, art in the style of a particular artist (mine was Van Gogh), and ummm... I think ink pens or something.  Anyhow, they liked Van Gogh and the texture on the ink pen thing.  Everything else was crap.  I should have unified the objects better.  I should have pushed the tools farther (what, and break the button on the mouse??).  I should have been more popular in high school.  The usual gripes.