Tuesday, February 09, 2010
ACEO and ATC digital Collage Downloads on Etsy
I've been very lax with posting during the last six months. Life has been spinning out of control and I don't like posting anything negative. My 30 yro daughter is moving back in and at the moment I am plagued with a bad case of hives. Don't think the two are related but who knows...LOL
I have FINALLY started doing what I absolutely love and that is offering a unique selection of printable ACEO and ATC backgrounds in PDF format for ease of printing. I'll be adding a jpeg alternative as well in the next 48 hours. If you're a collage artist and would like some unique, ready made backgrounds to spark your creativity, be sure to visit my shop. Just click on the title above and it will magically send you into ACEO background heaven!!
I have FINALLY started doing what I absolutely love and that is offering a unique selection of printable ACEO and ATC backgrounds in PDF format for ease of printing. I'll be adding a jpeg alternative as well in the next 48 hours. If you're a collage artist and would like some unique, ready made backgrounds to spark your creativity, be sure to visit my shop. Just click on the title above and it will magically send you into ACEO background heaven!!
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
It's been a long time between posts but...
I've been re-thinking my artistic direction and when I do that I hunker down or 'turtle' as I tell my friends. I need to think about what I doing and where I am going. I find that this discourse with myself happens every 9 months or so. Kinda like a pregnancy and birthing or re-birthing as it were.
One of the things that has been much on my mind is copyright infringement. As I've moved further away from my painting and collaging and more into the digital world I find that each time I scan a Vintage photo or even right-click on the work of a grandmaster I ask myself if what I am doing is 'legal'. In today's age of right click & save, it seems that more and more people think it's OK to use the work of others in their own creations.
Needing to take a break from my ruminations I took a look at Twitter to see what some of my cyber friends were up to this New Year. One Tweet in particular caught my eye. Margot "Madge" Potter is someone who always has something to say that needs saying. I've followed her tweets for a long time and today I saw a link to her blog that put into words what I've been thinking about for weeks. Copyright infringement in all its derivations. Click on the title of this post to read what she has to say. I can't say it any better so I won't infringe on her post by saying more!
I've almost birthed what I think will be my new and hopefully lasting direction in 'art'. I was doing this work six months before my diagnosis of breast cancer and left it behind to physically feel the art in my hands. Art is healing and during the last six years it's what I've needed to do almost daily. Now I think I need to return to my photography and my digital collage. I'll post more when the labor pains have subsided and my Wild Gypsy Art shop on Etsy is fully stocked once again.
One of the things that has been much on my mind is copyright infringement. As I've moved further away from my painting and collaging and more into the digital world I find that each time I scan a Vintage photo or even right-click on the work of a grandmaster I ask myself if what I am doing is 'legal'. In today's age of right click & save, it seems that more and more people think it's OK to use the work of others in their own creations.
Needing to take a break from my ruminations I took a look at Twitter to see what some of my cyber friends were up to this New Year. One Tweet in particular caught my eye. Margot "Madge" Potter is someone who always has something to say that needs saying. I've followed her tweets for a long time and today I saw a link to her blog that put into words what I've been thinking about for weeks. Copyright infringement in all its derivations. Click on the title of this post to read what she has to say. I can't say it any better so I won't infringe on her post by saying more!
I've almost birthed what I think will be my new and hopefully lasting direction in 'art'. I was doing this work six months before my diagnosis of breast cancer and left it behind to physically feel the art in my hands. Art is healing and during the last six years it's what I've needed to do almost daily. Now I think I need to return to my photography and my digital collage. I'll post more when the labor pains have subsided and my Wild Gypsy Art shop on Etsy is fully stocked once again.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Profoundly simple words for the Holidays
You've probably received something like this via e-mail but I thought it was profound enough to bear repeating. During this Holiday season don't forget about the most important one on your list...YOU.
Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.
I got to thinking one day about all those people on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.
How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word 'refrigeration' mean nothing to you?
How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?
I cannot count the times I called my sister and said , 'How about going to lunch in a half hour?' She would gas up and stammer, 'I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain' And my personal favorite: 'It's Monday.' She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together.
Because people cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches.. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!
We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet. We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.
Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of 'I'm going to,' 'I plan on,' and 'Someday, when things are settled down a bit.'
When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.
My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.
Now...go on and have a nice day. Do something YOU WANT to do...not something on your SHOULD DO list.
Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.
I got to thinking one day about all those people on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.
How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word 'refrigeration' mean nothing to you?
How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?
I cannot count the times I called my sister and said , 'How about going to lunch in a half hour?' She would gas up and stammer, 'I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain' And my personal favorite: 'It's Monday.' She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together.
Because people cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches.. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!
We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet. We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.
Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of 'I'm going to,' 'I plan on,' and 'Someday, when things are settled down a bit.'
When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.
My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.
Now...go on and have a nice day. Do something YOU WANT to do...not something on your SHOULD DO list.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
ADOBE
At the end of August this year my trusty but old computer crashed. It took with it every photo I'd ever taken digitally plus every word I'd written since 1995. It basically took away my life because I use my camera and Adobe Photoshop to make my art. My son, who is now a certifiable genius, loaned me his notebook and took on the arduous and sometimes seemingly impossible task of resurrecting my old computer from the dead.
Things went along well for 3 months while he sporadically probed the depths of my computer. I continued to take photos and use photoshop daily. I started listing my photos on Etsy...a long time dream of mine. So imagine my surprise when two weeks ago I went to one of my picture sites to retrieve some photos and when clicking on what looked like my gallery link initiated a tsunami of malware and trojans onto his notebook.
It seems that the innocent looking Adobe Acrobat Reader that popped up and then closed on my screen was hiding some nasty stuff that followed my keystrokes and wouldn't let me out of its stranglehold unless I BOUGHT the software needed to erase the viruses it had downloaded to me. Cyber blackmail at its best. Needless to say that notebook crashed and along with it three months of photos, notes, emails, etc. I was back to where I'd started...unable to connect in cyberspace with anyone.
Long story short. This latest cyber attack on my computer put my son into hyperdrive and he worked one solid week to restore my old computer and protect it from every and all nasty and malicious software that tried to worm its way in. He succeeded so well that I have my restored computer working better, faster and safer than ever before. And I can once again blog, post and list to my heart's content.
The moral of this story is simple. TRUST NO ONE. Even if a friend sends you a letter and there is a link, jpg or doc file in it don't click on it unless you computer tells you it's been checked for incoming viruses. As far as clicking links on websites...that's a crap shoot, I guess. I thought that this picture site was safe but they had obviously been hacked by professionals. This has happened on Twitter and even Facebook so the best advice is to be sure your security software is up to date.
BTW...the link you will be taken to if you click the title of this post is BusinessWeek. There you can read the full story about Adobe and their Hacker battle.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my tweets and facebook friends!
Things went along well for 3 months while he sporadically probed the depths of my computer. I continued to take photos and use photoshop daily. I started listing my photos on Etsy...a long time dream of mine. So imagine my surprise when two weeks ago I went to one of my picture sites to retrieve some photos and when clicking on what looked like my gallery link initiated a tsunami of malware and trojans onto his notebook.
It seems that the innocent looking Adobe Acrobat Reader that popped up and then closed on my screen was hiding some nasty stuff that followed my keystrokes and wouldn't let me out of its stranglehold unless I BOUGHT the software needed to erase the viruses it had downloaded to me. Cyber blackmail at its best. Needless to say that notebook crashed and along with it three months of photos, notes, emails, etc. I was back to where I'd started...unable to connect in cyberspace with anyone.
Long story short. This latest cyber attack on my computer put my son into hyperdrive and he worked one solid week to restore my old computer and protect it from every and all nasty and malicious software that tried to worm its way in. He succeeded so well that I have my restored computer working better, faster and safer than ever before. And I can once again blog, post and list to my heart's content.
The moral of this story is simple. TRUST NO ONE. Even if a friend sends you a letter and there is a link, jpg or doc file in it don't click on it unless you computer tells you it's been checked for incoming viruses. As far as clicking links on websites...that's a crap shoot, I guess. I thought that this picture site was safe but they had obviously been hacked by professionals. This has happened on Twitter and even Facebook so the best advice is to be sure your security software is up to date.
BTW...the link you will be taken to if you click the title of this post is BusinessWeek. There you can read the full story about Adobe and their Hacker battle.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my tweets and facebook friends!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Sugar Cookies - 140 year old English recipe
I wanted to share a favorite family recipe. I've been making these for almost 35 years. Before you say ewww, icky...bacon grease...I want to tell you that I've tried making this several different ways without the grease and the flavor is NOT the same. Of course if you hate bacon, leave it out! These are amazingly delicious sugar cookies and since they're now discovering that not all saturated fats are harmful I'm willing to give into my yearly craving at the holidays.
Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. white sugar
1 c. shortening combine: 1/2 c. bacon grease & 1/2 c. Crisco
2 eggs
1 scant tsp. baking soda, mixed with milk
3 T. milk
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
dash of salt
Cream together the sugar and the shortening. Gradually add the well beaten eggs, vanilla and milk. Beat in remaining ingredients and add flour until cookies are of a consistency for rolling. Roll out, cut with round cutter and sprinkle with white sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for approx. 14 minutes.
This recipe from the Angola Episcopal Women's Cookbook, 1970; Mary Hankins, Albion, Indiana
Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. white sugar
1 c. shortening combine: 1/2 c. bacon grease & 1/2 c. Crisco
2 eggs
1 scant tsp. baking soda, mixed with milk
3 T. milk
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
dash of salt
Cream together the sugar and the shortening. Gradually add the well beaten eggs, vanilla and milk. Beat in remaining ingredients and add flour until cookies are of a consistency for rolling. Roll out, cut with round cutter and sprinkle with white sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for approx. 14 minutes.
This recipe from the Angola Episcopal Women's Cookbook, 1970; Mary Hankins, Albion, Indiana
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