Total Art Soul - For Artists

My preview pic ability, that is. ^^ this morning I took all my jewelry pieces outside, placed my favorite white eyelet lace background cloth on the hood of my car in direct sunlight, and snapped away--retook another pic of every one of  my pieces (probably the 4th or 5th time they've each been photographed^^) The pics still seemed to be a bit dark, but lightening them up in one of my photo-editing programs seemed to help considerably.

One thing I do understand is that I need to get over my  feeling of inadequacy. When I look at my work side by side with someone elses, I get an overwhelming  sense that my work looks as though it was done by a kindergartner, and theirs is quite professional, and looks done by someone with obvious talent.  What I have to realize is, though my level of skill in some areas may be below someone elses, our imaginations are all different--therefore all our work is gloriously diverse, and I shouldn't feel my work is so under par with everyone elses, its just...different, individual.  

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Today was a good day.  I woke up to two large bead sales in my Etsy shop, I packed up some hand dyed fabric that I'm selling on eBay and finally got to torch for a bit.  It's been so cold here in the south that I just couldn't face sitting down there in the cold.  But I finally braved it today, it was 50 in the basement so I decided it was time.  It's funny, I use to be able to sit there for four hours at a time but I find that I'm going to have to work up to that now that I've had some time off of the torch.  Much like runners work up to the long race it takes a bit of stamina to sit there and made beads.  The arms, shoulders and hands get tired really quickly and I find myself aching and the hands starting to shake, there's nothing like trying to put dots on a bead when your hands are shaking, they don't go where there suppose to. 

And then I got a phone call, one of my good friends' husband is ill and has been given only six months to live.  What a shock, I feel so bad for them and don't even know what to do or say.  Life is so short, and fragile.  We take so much or granted.  I try to stop and just look up at the sky and enjoy a warm sunny day, for some there won't be many left.  How sad and strange is that.  And so, it's a good day and a bad day, mixed with the warmth of the sun and the reminder that it can be gone so quickly.  

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one of the new features on my website is the ability to offer

PRINTS ON DEMAND

This is new to me, although it has been available for about 6 months from my site host.

I am slowly adding work, some of my oil paintings from my own collection that will never be offered for sale and some of oils that I have sold.

The prices are afordable and reasonable and as with all my work, anything sold will generate a donation to help homeless animals.

The painting shown above is entitled Sleep of the Innocent. My own Lizzie was the model.

Included in the selection is a variety of subject matter. I will add a few more as I go through my image files.

thanks for looking!

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After messing with Windows & Pc's . This past September I got my IMac. Right out the box... I thought this is so cool.  I took my time trying to setup everything perfectly. I started looking at some of the softwares , to see what they could do. Anyway being a photographer , it was Iphoto & Imovies , that I started playing with first.

 As part of the Iphoto process, it asked me if Iphoto could make a cataloge  of  my important images. Of course I said yes not knowing that simple question would have such an impact on my life.

 Fast forward  to the beginning of February 2010. One of my portable external drives starts to play up. I ran the repair program.. it solved the problem. Two days later that drive quit no notice what so ever.

Now what brought tears to my eyes was the fact that the drive in question , contained most of my family pictures ... you the shots where your kids are acting goofy. MY daughter pouring pink koolaide on her grand dad's head while  he was sleeping . If your a parent you can relate to the types of images I'm talking about.  They are utmost...priceless

  They in question had 10,0000 or more images on it. When it quit it brought me to tears. 

Funny enough though last night, as I sat at my Imac, I'm still curiosly looking around and finding things.

Well somehow I found that catalog of images that Iphoto had made for me when I did my initial setup. The majority of pics that I had lost on that failing drive. Where there all neatly organized. Talking about a man screaming for joy like a little kid. My wife thought I had lost my mind. and for a moment I certainly did.

The whole point to this little story.. If your Pc keeps frustrating you  it may be time to cross over to the Mac side...

 As a friend of mine told me recently... What  Macs say they do ...They just work !!!

 If you can relate to this and have a similar situation ,please share it !!

Have a great Friday    

William

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Last year I discovered many great things that people are creating using the selvage edges of fabric! I immediately became intrigued, and then quickly addicted to working with them.

My first project was to recover a chair cushion for my sewing studio. As you can see it was in bad need of some TLC!!!

It ended up turning into my favorite chair now!

After this, now fabric comes in my door and keeps its selvages intact. They are immediately cut off and saved in a basket. It takes quite a few to sew together and make a new fabric out of it.

This week I was inspired to create a new selvage project, and I wanted it to be one I haven't seen anyone try yet.

 The most fun, unique headband was the result!

Even the ties are selvages.

This is what I designed for fun this week! Now I plan to try and knit with some selvages! I will blog the process of this as I can inbetween working on things that I have to get finished. For now, have a great day!

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