The topic this time is for techies. I used to be a techie. Then things got too busy and I kinda lost track of things techie. Soon I found it all but impawsible to catch up. So from a non-techie who used to be a techie here's my two bytes.
My favourite widget of all has to be the one at the bottom of this page. It is the widget from ArtWanted.com which features a slideshow of my gallery of art. The art is shown clearly and the slideshow runs clean. (Watch now - I've jinxed it!)
I'm also fond of the widget on author Katie Mac's Bepo page. It is a carousel of images of the books she has written.
I also love almost all the widgets on blogspot. They make it so easy to put together a beautiful, professional blog. I think the one I use most often is the one to add html/java to your blog. I only wish blogspot had a template for a three column blog.
That's it for me this week. Bloggers - Widgets away!
Friday, July 4, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Pastels - luminosity or blending Part II
I wrote a little while ago about learning two new techniques with pastels. One instructor argued for the luminous approach. What this means is to make the object your are painting appear to be lit from behind. Basically you let some of the background peak through. The other instuctor argued for the blended approach. Take your finger and blend the colours onto the paper.
In that post I stated that I felt I was more of a blender, always have been and always will be.
I'd like to show you my first finished piece. I think I have successfully combined both techniques. I really like the more luminous approach for the hair and the more blended techique for the face.
Take a look and tell me what you think.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Etsy Blog Carnival - June 23rd Success
Define success. It's all relative isn't it? Success can be defined in so many different ways. The topic this time is how do I define success with regard to my Etsy shop. What does it mean to me? When will I sit back, put my feet up and quaff a diet root beer, sign and say "here I am.", "I made it.", "I've climbed that mountain."
Success is survival.
The day may come when I'll need to rely on the earnings from my little shop to help pay the rent, buy the groceries, pay my health bills. When that day comes defining what success means to me will be real easy. Success will mean I can pay the rent, buy the groceries and my prescriptions and have maybe a little over.
Success is warm fuzzies.
When someone buys something I've made and tells me how much they love it, no contest, I know I'm there. I made it. I'm on top of the mountain. To think that someone who was a stranger, really liked something made with my hands, took it and made it a part of their home - WOW!!!
Success means popularity.
When someone mentions my name and someone else says, "oh yes, I know them. I love their stuff!". That makes my day twirl!
Summary
Success is about winning but it is also about sharing. Sharing knowledge, crafts, advice. Success is not only about gaining dollars but also gaining friends all over the world with people who share a love of art and crafting. It's about helping someone find something useful or needful or desirable to give or decorate their home. It is about money and survival but it's also about bringing a little light into an often very dark old world.
Perhaps that last one is what keeps me going on right up until tha last lifelight fades from both my eyes.
Success is survival.
The day may come when I'll need to rely on the earnings from my little shop to help pay the rent, buy the groceries, pay my health bills. When that day comes defining what success means to me will be real easy. Success will mean I can pay the rent, buy the groceries and my prescriptions and have maybe a little over.
Success is warm fuzzies.
When someone buys something I've made and tells me how much they love it, no contest, I know I'm there. I made it. I'm on top of the mountain. To think that someone who was a stranger, really liked something made with my hands, took it and made it a part of their home - WOW!!!
Success means popularity.
When someone mentions my name and someone else says, "oh yes, I know them. I love their stuff!". That makes my day twirl!
Summary
Success is about winning but it is also about sharing. Sharing knowledge, crafts, advice. Success is not only about gaining dollars but also gaining friends all over the world with people who share a love of art and crafting. It's about helping someone find something useful or needful or desirable to give or decorate their home. It is about money and survival but it's also about bringing a little light into an often very dark old world.
Perhaps that last one is what keeps me going on right up until tha last lifelight fades from both my eyes.
Etsy Bloggers - Featured Blogger of the Month Alicia Mae
June is just flipping by way too fast! It's been a crazy one for me. I've had pain management issues too which does not help. So with appologies to my fellow bloggers and to Alicia Mae especially, here is my feature for the Etsy Blogger of the Month.
Please familiarize yourself with our featured Etsy Blogger of the Month. Alicia Mae's Blog can be found here: http://AliciaMae.com . Alicia Mae is also on MySpace http://myspace.com/aliciamaeetsy.
She is planning a move in July and would like to clear out her inventory and stash prior to her move. If you're a crafter or know crafters you know how deep a stash can get and how many truckloads needed to haul all that stuff to a new location. So if you can please visit her Etsy shop or her web site and take advantage of her moving day sales. Hurry!
She says,
Woodburning was passed down to me from my Mom and I have always had an affinity for paint. Cross stitching was a hobby when I was a teenager and bracelet weaving was a summer camp hobby that brings back nostalgic memories. I used to play with polymer clay and always enjoyed the miniatures my aunt made for herself. Given that information, I have about 20 years experience in making these items, but am constantly expanding my horizons. :)
Visit her at http://AliciaMaePrints.etsy.com and http://randomsupplies.etsy.com too!
Please familiarize yourself with our featured Etsy Blogger of the Month. Alicia Mae's Blog can be found here: http://AliciaMae.com . Alicia Mae is also on MySpace http://myspace.com/aliciamaeetsy.
She is planning a move in July and would like to clear out her inventory and stash prior to her move. If you're a crafter or know crafters you know how deep a stash can get and how many truckloads needed to haul all that stuff to a new location. So if you can please visit her Etsy shop or her web site and take advantage of her moving day sales. Hurry!
She says,
Woodburning was passed down to me from my Mom and I have always had an affinity for paint. Cross stitching was a hobby when I was a teenager and bracelet weaving was a summer camp hobby that brings back nostalgic memories. I used to play with polymer clay and always enjoyed the miniatures my aunt made for herself. Given that information, I have about 20 years experience in making these items, but am constantly expanding my horizons. :)
Visit her at http://AliciaMaePrints.etsy.com and http://randomsupplies.etsy.com too!
| Etsy Buy Handmade Aliciamae |
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Etsy Bloggers Carnival for June 9/08 - My Studio
Oh, I dream of it every day. My own studio space dedicated only to my studio with custom built storage cupboards and room to set up my easel(s) and leave my stuff out while I complete a project. Then I wake up. I take a look around and shudder.
My studio is currently squished into my bed/sitting room. I have a wooden tv table and one of those 'seen on tv trays'. I have a couple of boxes to hold my paper and a couple of plastic bins with drawers to hold my supplies.
I designed a neat little tray for my coloured pencils and markers. I took one of the cardboard trays that softdrink cans come in. Next I took the tubes from toilet paper and paper towels. The paper towel tubes I cut in thirds and the t.p. ones I cut in half. Next, I used tacky glue to glue the first row of tubes to the cardboard tray and to each other. Repeated this row after row until tray was full.
This neat little invention holds my pencils and markers all divided up into colors making a perfect palette from which to select the one I need.
One day maybe I'll have a space with lots of bright clear sunshine, lots of room ... one day
My studio is currently squished into my bed/sitting room. I have a wooden tv table and one of those 'seen on tv trays'. I have a couple of boxes to hold my paper and a couple of plastic bins with drawers to hold my supplies.
I designed a neat little tray for my coloured pencils and markers. I took one of the cardboard trays that softdrink cans come in. Next I took the tubes from toilet paper and paper towels. The paper towel tubes I cut in thirds and the t.p. ones I cut in half. Next, I used tacky glue to glue the first row of tubes to the cardboard tray and to each other. Repeated this row after row until tray was full.
This neat little invention holds my pencils and markers all divided up into colors making a perfect palette from which to select the one I need.
One day maybe I'll have a space with lots of bright clear sunshine, lots of room ... one day
Monday, May 26, 2008
Managing Your Pain
I came across an article which may prove to offer some helpful advice to those of us suffering from chronic unrelenting pain.
Pain can be devasting. It can interrupt and disrupt your entire life. One of the suggested ways to help with managing your pain was diet. The suggestion was that by including foods in your diet which have a chemical composition that is anti-inflammatory, they should help to reduce any pain cause by inflammation such as arthritis.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
Diet. The impact of diet on pain rests on the fact that inflammation is a major cause of pain. So, the theory goes, if you can reduce the production of inflammatory chemicals in the body, you can reduce the pain.
For instance, studies find that certain antioxidants such as glutathione can help tissue recover from inflammation. One study found that supplementing with the nutrient n-acetyl-cystine, a precursor to glutathione, can reduce pain from nerve damage.
Other dietary-related evidence:
he nutritional supplements glucosamine and chondrotin sulfate can benefit patients with osteoarthritis.
Dietary soy and tart cherries contain antioxidants that may reduce neuropathic pain. In fact, cherries, which are high in anti-inflammatory anthocyanins, plant-based chemicals that give the fruit its dark red color, have been linked anecdotally to reduction of pain in arthritis and gout, with animals studies showing it can reduce swelling and inflammation in rats.
Sweet foods (think chocolate) can stimulate the release of pain-relieving endorphins in the brain
Oh, puhleeze, bring on the chocolate!
To read the article in full plcease go to the link below:
http://www.painfoundation.org/page.asp?file=documents/doc_014.htm
Pain can be devasting. It can interrupt and disrupt your entire life. One of the suggested ways to help with managing your pain was diet. The suggestion was that by including foods in your diet which have a chemical composition that is anti-inflammatory, they should help to reduce any pain cause by inflammation such as arthritis.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
Diet. The impact of diet on pain rests on the fact that inflammation is a major cause of pain. So, the theory goes, if you can reduce the production of inflammatory chemicals in the body, you can reduce the pain.
For instance, studies find that certain antioxidants such as glutathione can help tissue recover from inflammation. One study found that supplementing with the nutrient n-acetyl-cystine, a precursor to glutathione, can reduce pain from nerve damage.
Other dietary-related evidence:
he nutritional supplements glucosamine and chondrotin sulfate can benefit patients with osteoarthritis.
Dietary soy and tart cherries contain antioxidants that may reduce neuropathic pain. In fact, cherries, which are high in anti-inflammatory anthocyanins, plant-based chemicals that give the fruit its dark red color, have been linked anecdotally to reduction of pain in arthritis and gout, with animals studies showing it can reduce swelling and inflammation in rats.
Sweet foods (think chocolate) can stimulate the release of pain-relieving endorphins in the brain
Oh, puhleeze, bring on the chocolate!
To read the article in full plcease go to the link below:
http://www.painfoundation.org/page.asp?file=documents/doc_014.htm
Friday, May 23, 2008
Entertaining Angels Unawares
My grandmother had an old 78 recording of her friend, Sir Harry Lauder, singing a song called "The End of the Road" that she played as often as she could. Gramma loved that song. It was in many ways, the theme song for her life, the lives of her children and her grandchildren.
With a good stout strong heart and an end in view, We can cut short many a mile… (The End of the Road)
Fill your heart with unconditional love and share it with your neighbours, your friends and family. Share it with strangers too.
My mother often told the story that during the depression they had very little of anything including food. One day while she was sitting on the front steps to eat her lunch – a peanut butter sandwich - a man came along, out of work, out of money, out of dignity and out of hope. He asked Gramma for some money.
My grandfather had died leaving Gramma to raise 4 girls on her own empty-handed and therefore Gramma had no money to give the stranger. She couldn't give him any work. But Gramma could and did give him a good stout dose of `heart' along with my mother's peanut butter sandwich!
Mom missed one meal but the stranger received nourishment to give him the physical strength to keep on going, and because no one ever left Gramma's without it, he also received a big slice of dignity and hope to help make his road seem a little shorter.
Gramma's road through life was neither easy nor short and there were never any shortcuts but she never once gave up. She kept a good strong heart, continuing to give and share with others, a song in her soul and laughter ever close to the edge of her lips until she came to the end of her road.
Mom never forgot giving up her lunch that day. It's easy to give when your pockets and tummies are full, but it is not so easy when they empty. Gifting should come from the heart and be wrapped in the twin blessings of hope and dignity.
My mother and grandmother were both masters of giving in this way. No, Mom never forgot her lost lunch and she never once regretted it.
Many years later, when Mom was too ill and weak to help herself and her children's physical strengths were failing too, Mom needed help to get down the stepped walkway and into the car to go to one of her medical appointments. It began to look as if we weren't going to be able to get her there. It had taken every last ounce of our combined strength to get to the bottom of the stairs descending from the front door. There was still a long walk downhill to get to the car.
As Mom sat and rested on the steps, a stranger, seeming to appear from nowhere was taking a walk past our house. He came up and offered Mom his help. He then effortlessly picked her up and carried her down the hilly path to the car and gently placed her inside the car on the seat without causing her any additional pain at all.
This stranger gifted Mom that day from his heart and liberally wrapped it in blessings of hope and dignity.
Although we had lived in that neighbourhood for ten years, and knew most of our neighbours by sight, we had never seen this gentle man before. Nor have we ever seen this him since.
Whoever he was, whatever his name, to us, just then, he was an angel whose presence was most gratefully received.
How about you? Have you, too, encountered angels unawares?
With a good stout strong heart and an end in view, We can cut short many a mile… (The End of the Road)
Fill your heart with unconditional love and share it with your neighbours, your friends and family. Share it with strangers too.
My mother often told the story that during the depression they had very little of anything including food. One day while she was sitting on the front steps to eat her lunch – a peanut butter sandwich - a man came along, out of work, out of money, out of dignity and out of hope. He asked Gramma for some money.
My grandfather had died leaving Gramma to raise 4 girls on her own empty-handed and therefore Gramma had no money to give the stranger. She couldn't give him any work. But Gramma could and did give him a good stout dose of `heart' along with my mother's peanut butter sandwich!
Mom missed one meal but the stranger received nourishment to give him the physical strength to keep on going, and because no one ever left Gramma's without it, he also received a big slice of dignity and hope to help make his road seem a little shorter.
Gramma's road through life was neither easy nor short and there were never any shortcuts but she never once gave up. She kept a good strong heart, continuing to give and share with others, a song in her soul and laughter ever close to the edge of her lips until she came to the end of her road.
Mom never forgot giving up her lunch that day. It's easy to give when your pockets and tummies are full, but it is not so easy when they empty. Gifting should come from the heart and be wrapped in the twin blessings of hope and dignity.
My mother and grandmother were both masters of giving in this way. No, Mom never forgot her lost lunch and she never once regretted it.
Many years later, when Mom was too ill and weak to help herself and her children's physical strengths were failing too, Mom needed help to get down the stepped walkway and into the car to go to one of her medical appointments. It began to look as if we weren't going to be able to get her there. It had taken every last ounce of our combined strength to get to the bottom of the stairs descending from the front door. There was still a long walk downhill to get to the car.
As Mom sat and rested on the steps, a stranger, seeming to appear from nowhere was taking a walk past our house. He came up and offered Mom his help. He then effortlessly picked her up and carried her down the hilly path to the car and gently placed her inside the car on the seat without causing her any additional pain at all.
This stranger gifted Mom that day from his heart and liberally wrapped it in blessings of hope and dignity.
Although we had lived in that neighbourhood for ten years, and knew most of our neighbours by sight, we had never seen this gentle man before. Nor have we ever seen this him since.
Whoever he was, whatever his name, to us, just then, he was an angel whose presence was most gratefully received.
How about you? Have you, too, encountered angels unawares?
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Make a Child Smile
I want to tell you all about a wonderful project. Make a child smile was founded in May of 1998, by Alexandra Bakker.
The Make A Child Smile Organization, also known as MACS, has been a source of support to children with chronic or life-threatening illnesses and their families. Emotional support is provided by creating the opportunity for people to visit the MACS website and learn about the children and their illnesses.
Each month, new children are featured. A picture and biography describing the child and information about their family is published on the website. Hundreds of 'net surfers, schools, service organizations, girls/boys scouts and church groups use the MACS website as a philanthropic project where they can send cards, letters and small gifts to the featured children and their siblings through postal mail.
In December of 2000, MACS was granted tax-exempt status so that it could expand its mission to include fundraising efforts in order to provide financial assistance to qualifying families for help with medical, funeral expenses or other costs associated with the child's illness.
Their Mission
To provide emotional and financial support to families whose children suffer from chronic or life-threatening illnesses and also give those who visit the MACS website the opportunity to participate by sending mail to the children.
From the MACS website:
Each month 3 children are featured. You are always free to decide each month whethor or not you will participate, and whether or not you will send mail to 1, 2 or all 3 featured children. Last month I chose to send an ATC to each of the featured children (an ATC is an artist trading card - think the cards we used to get in bubble gum packaages; their size 2.5 x 3.5 inches and can be hand drawn or collage with stickers, etc.).
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During the last few months of my mother's life, I remember fondly, how thrilled and happy she was to receive 'angels of hope' each day in the mail. Even though she was in excessive amounts of pain, each package raised her spirits and brought joy to her soul. I know first hand just how precious and delightful a gift how much light the simple gift of a card can bring to a family struggling through the darkness.
If you are able, I welcome you to join with me in supporting these children and their families through this project. Just follow the link below.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
A work in progress - A tutorial - Etsy Bloggers Team Carnival
I like to begin by scanning a photo(s) of my chosen subject into the computer and uploading into a software program called Paint-It. If I am making a composite drawing I will most likely try different combinations in the Paint-It program as it is both easier and faster than making several different sketches.
If I am working from a live model, then I will make several quick sketches and then scan those into Paint-It. It is fairly simple to move things about.
If I am working from a live model, then I will make several quick sketches and then scan those into Paint-It. It is fairly simple to move things about.
Once I have decided on the composition I will then begin the drawing. At this stage I concentrate on making an outline of the main elements of the drawing. The details will come later. It is important to get the outline drawing as exact as possible. This is the foundation for everything else to come.
I like to rough in the eyes and nose first. If these features are not 'right' the whole drawing is 'bin' material. It also makes me feel not so alone!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Keep on to the end of the road ...
Regional Contact, a tv program serving Ottawa, Ontario and its environs, televised a review of a retired high school teacher and artist, Ozborn Muma. Oz lives in Winchester. He has been an artist all of his life and credits art as the reason he has lived so long. He is in his 90's (at the time of airing).
He visits a local nursing home three times a week and often brings drawing puzzles for the residents to solve. The elements in the drawings are clues to solving the mystery. Needless to say, the residents look forward to his visits.
He likes to work in many different media. His portraits are magnificent. His art pieces fill the walls and surfaces (tables, etc.) of his home.
He said he would keep on creating art as long as he could keep on creating. During the interview he did just that, kept on working on a portrait. His work is full of lively details.
So far as I could discover, Oz does not have an internet presence.
In summing up his philosophy about art, Oz stated simply, "Art is truth".
May we all keep on creating as long as we can.
You go Oz!!!
He visits a local nursing home three times a week and often brings drawing puzzles for the residents to solve. The elements in the drawings are clues to solving the mystery. Needless to say, the residents look forward to his visits.
He likes to work in many different media. His portraits are magnificent. His art pieces fill the walls and surfaces (tables, etc.) of his home.
He said he would keep on creating art as long as he could keep on creating. During the interview he did just that, kept on working on a portrait. His work is full of lively details.
So far as I could discover, Oz does not have an internet presence.
In summing up his philosophy about art, Oz stated simply, "Art is truth".
May we all keep on creating as long as we can.
You go Oz!!!
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