HOORAY!
Sorry for shouting, but I got to play tonight and finished up the picture that Usyaka inspired. It’s not exact from the photo, I managed to use my imagination a bit. My favorite part of the original photo was the sheer power in her hind legs – the beauty of muscle in motion and the line of her leg and tail. Hope you like it!
Art inspired by Stephen King’s latest book, 11/22/63.
Hey there hi there ho there! I’m going to share my first attempt at something I’ve been thinking about for a while.
First, I have to apologise for the quality of the background photo: I used the iPad. The iPad camera, as we know, is terrible. The color is all wrong, and the page is curved at the top from holding the book open to take the picture. This is, without a doubt, an experiment in progress. But the hubby loves it, so I think I can eventually get where I want to go with this…
Now, I’ll tell you just what the hell this is! It is the first page of Stephen King’s latest book, ’11/22/63′, with John F Kennedy’s head (from the US fifty-cent coin) drawn between the text.
I got the idea from how occasionally on a typed page I will see a pattern in the white space between words. My desire and intent is to do a drawing relevant to the book (say, a whale on page one of Moby Dick) but in one continuous line, not broken like this one.
’11/22/63′ is about someone getting the chance to go back in time and stop the Kennedy assassination so I found a good, and easy, picture of Kennedy. I really wanted to use a horribly gory one of his autopsy – it seemed to fit with King so much better! However, the pics I found could be of anyone’s black and white brains and hair on an autopsy table. Anyway, with this picture from the coin as a first attempt the subject is indeed recognisable but still not what I wanted. As always, a learning process!
Ps: I’ve not finished the novel yet, so no spoilers please!
I’ve not put up any drawings in a bit. Here’s a cartoonish take on a border collie, then – he was the inspiration for Red Dog, which I like a lot more!
Digital pet portraits, any animal! All I need is a digital photo and in a few days, your portrait will be emailed to you in a high quality jpeg or tiff, suitable for printing at any photo shop or even to be put on canvas. Can also be used as your computer’s desktop wallpaper or your social media ‘avatar.’
Very reasonable prices! At today’s exchange rate £20/€23/$31. I do accept PayPal.
Examples of my work are throughout this blog, but here are two recent portraits.
I started this last night, just playing with settings and creating some plants that don’t exist. I put the ‘grass’ in and called it a night.
Today I had another look, and decided to fill the empty space. But with what? I found a photo we took at the Poulnabrone dolmen in Co Claire a few years ago, and made it teeny tiny and sketched it in. Then added a wonky sky. This is a down n dirty, super-fast drawing. I enjoyed creating it.
It’s a strange feeling out there, in the Burren. Nothing for miles, rock and lichen and silence. If you believe in ley lines there is likely one running through the area. Digital cameras don’t really like to work next to the tomb.
I know I’ll be using this photo again, or another from one of our several visits, because I feel such a connection to this place.
I’m home! And I have one rum and Pepsi Max in me, and I’ve caught up with all the internets stuff I missed from being gone all day.
The venue was packed full of exhibitors. I had half of an 8 foot table, and a hard wall behind me. It was tiiiight. There was a painter to my right, and a wood-crafts couple on my left. I had to ask painter lady to move a huge painting so I had some wall space. All of us had to squeeze between my end and painter-lady’s table to get out on to the floor. Here’s a couple of really bad iPad camera shots of the room, from my view point.
First pic shows the length of the room. There were back-to-back tables in two rows down the centre like that pic, two more in the middle, and then all three outside walls were filled. Lots of people! Bakers, jewellery makers, knitters, photographers, painters, pasties (not usually an Irish thing, and not what strippers wear), woodworkers, a salsa dancing couple that offered lessons, bog oak art, people doing something that had something to do with angels… loads! I was the only one doing digital art, and the only one doing inexpensive portraits.
Here’s my wall…lots of familiar faces here!
A hurried slap-dash stick it up there quick effort! We were running late.
And, because I see no reason not to put my face on here as long as I don’t use my name (until I decide otherwise)… Here’s me posing in front of my wee ‘booth.’
So… I didn’t sell anything, at all. Neither did painter-lady, and the wood furniture guy sold two candleholders and one little wood framed mirror – and he drove two hours to be there! I did have two people (that I know from town) show real interest in having a portrait done; one for herself and one as a gift. One little girl asked her daddy to buy her a picture of Fergus, but daddy said no, the meanie.
That was really it! But I am NOT disheartened or disappointed. I had the guts to do this, first of all. My hubby, my sister, and my best friend are proud of me. And you know what? I’m proud of me, too.
I know what needs to be done differently, now. I know how to talk to browsing strangers, and I know how to get their interest, sort of. But mainly I learned that when asked if I have a product or a service the answer is service! The shoppers didn’t want something later, they wanted it now, and since I didn’t have my service in my head as what I was actually selling, I didn’t convince anyone that I had a product. Does that make sense? It does to me… It wasn’t the right forum for what I was selling, the way I was selling it. Next time will be different!
One last pic, of me with my precious iPad now showing my markdown on prints; and me, showing by my smile that I am not defeated!
I did Red Dog just for me a few days ago. I wasn’t going to post him, not yet, but I really, really like him and need cheering up. I used a picture of a stalking dog as reference, but didn’t use the original pic like I normally do. I also put his tail up, instead of down like the working dog would be, so he looks playful.
Oh – he was ‘for me’ in that I felt the need to have a bit of fun, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! But he’s also for my sister – she inspired me to try a few new ideas 🙂
I am so angry and sickened I could spit, bite someone, and spit again.
Last week we went to Harvey Norman and had 3 prints made on photo paper, to test their quality. It was perfect, and each 8×10 was €2. Good deal, we were happy with that.
We went back today to print another 15 for sale at the show tomorrow. We did our thing at the kiosk and ordered the prints, I took the receipt to Bottled Shite (she was as-thick-as), waited 10 mins, got our prints. I took a look before we left to go pay… and they were all gloss, not matte. Looked like utter shit. They looked like cheap cartoons.
Me: Why are these gloss? We ordered matte.
Her: Oh they didn’t bring us matte paper this week, we only have gloss.
Thanks for fuckin telling me when I ordered them, and thanks for telling me again when you handed me the closed envelope with my prints, you useless twit.
We spent another 10 minutes ringing people for advice, trying find another place, and/or deciding to keep the horrible pics. We ended up giving them back, which pissed me off – who’s to say that dimbulb doesn’t steal my work, even if it did look crappy? We went to another place, and the kiosk there read at least two of my drawings completely wrong – the color was off, and there were lines that must have come from my drawing’s several layers, but they didn’t show anywhere else! Not on my iPad, not the Mac, not in Photoshop even at best resolution and the maximum Dpi…So those two were unprintable. Then they wanted €6.50 EACH (remember, they were €2 in HN?!?) and four flipping hours to print. And we live over 30 mins away.
Well, when I heard €6.50 I started to almost-cry. Too much frustration and running around and now the money we do not have to spend is being more than tripled? I went outside the shop to cool off.
Hubby got them to lower the price to €4 each. Still; double the budget, and I am so disappointed. We put a lot of time and organisation into this part. Now my plan has to change, my day has been wasted, and one of my favorite drawings now cannot be shown on good photo paper.
Screw you, Harvey Norman, and your stupid, useless worker who doesn’t have the sense god gave a rock. I couldn’t even tell her how upset I was: she clearly didn’t understand the problem or didn’t care, and what was she going to do about it at that point anyway? I didn’t want prints that look terrible, even at half price for screwing them up…not that she offered.
A sorry would have been nice, an offer of some sort of solution would have been nicer, but best of all would have been to tell me that what I needed was not available.
These are the two I did quickly, for kids. I Googled ‘kids favourite animal’ and these, along with tigers, are pretty high up there. I’ve not gotten around to trying a tiger yet!
Still getting ready for Sunday and the Open Fair. I still don’t have any information to speak of from the organisers, but apparently they are being annoyed with queries. I got this email today:
“Could I just ask everyone to please be patient? I DON’T have a floor plan yet as applications are still streaming in by the dozen and we’re trying to deal with those, as well as trying to find time to answer everyone’s individual inquiries about their table numbers etc. I DON’T have table numbers yet. As soon as I do, I will send them to you. As I understand it, you will be able to set up from 9am.”
A few hours later, they sent an Exhibitor Information PDF. It didn’t really say much new, other than they are having issues with giving everyone wall space that asked for it. So I emailed them and said my work was very light, and I could use string and clothespins to display it just as easily (and probably quite interestingly), and I didn’t need a wall if they were running short. They sent me a short ‘thanks for that’ reply. Always pays to be nice, I think.
Speaking of which, thank you to the lady on the till at Tesco last week. We weren’t planning to try to use those coupons, we knew we weren’t buying those products. But she said to hand em over, there’s a glitch in the system and we’d get the discount anyway. Nice one; she saved us €1.50 and didn’t have to do that at all, we would never have known. Again, pays to be nice – I’m sure if we were rude she’d have never said a word.
Anyway, back to the Open Fair. Open apparently stands for One Person ENterprise. There’s novelty cakes, lightweight travel bags invented locally, and jewellery makers, bakers, graphic artists, photographers, fashion designers and furniture makers are all mentioned in the newspaper. It sounds like it will be busy! I’ve been telling people about it, and a few folks want to come just to shop – that’s what I like to hear.
I’ve been telling people because iDJ printed my flyer for me. Three hundred of them! I took a batch out with me today. I put them in the hardware shop, the grocery, the post office, the paper shop and the music shop. I know all these folks – I’m too shy to go ask a stranger to allow me to advertise for free in their business. Even though everyone else does it.
I also bought some poster board and visited my Canadian friend at work, to borrow her scalpel and cutting mat. I got 18 8×10 backing boards for €3 and I didn’t cut myself once. iDJ would have cut a finger off, dropped the scalpel, impaled his toe, and bled all over the paper making me have to go buy more.
We had ordered cellophane bags on Monday, so I could put an 8×10 print and the tacky backing board into the bags for sale at the show. They came today. Instead of 8 x 10, they are about 5×10. Fuck. Some quick thinking on iDJ’s part (he’s clumsy, not stupid) got me a pile of clear bags from his uncle’s bakery. They are too big, but I can cut and fold and tape. Fun fun! We’ll go and have a few pics printed on photo paper Saturday and spend the evening making little parcels.
You guys have seen all my work – which ones should I print for sale? I know Fergus the Jack Russell will be popular, and I like Grey Horse and the Seahorse original drawings. Do you think any of the others would sell? How about Mr Penguin, for kids? Oh, I’ve not put him up here, or my dinosaur. Let me fix that next post. It’s going to cost me €2 each to print them, and I don’t want to be stuck with a pile of my own work!
heretherebespiders 