My Minds Eye!

With my trip upcoming and a new project that will keep me busy until I take off for the desert my mind is already there--so my artwork reflects what is in my Mind's Eye!

 

 

 I hope to see some interesting Adobe homes! 

 And I know I'm going to see some wonderful buttes and mesas...  And Red Stone formations...

   I learned last evening I have been tossed a 5 design freelance project and it has to be completed before I go so this will probably be my last visit to the blog for a few days... I will check in when time allows for sure! Hope all of you have a wonderful week!! I will catch up with your posts as soon as I can, until then I will miss all your wonderful photos and words!

Countdown-

 

This fellow was checking out the yard today so I got a few pretty good shots of him...while he took a quick rest. Amazing face and Wings--dont ya think? I do not have a dragonfly field guide Maybe I can pick one up soon! As you see Ive posted my Vacation Countdown clock and Im getting very excited! Everything is coming together nicely so far so good! The planes are booked and Ive accepted the changes to my schedule by India Man--(LOL) and 

I used Priceline to Name My Own Price on a rental car and got an exceptional deal with Enterprise Car Rental at the Denver Airport so I wont have to ride the BUS or take the Shuttle for the over 3 hr drive to get over the mountains where my Sis lives about 20 miles from Aspen Colorado! We will use same rental to drive south to Arizona and if time allows New Mexico to explore and enjoy the desert! I have offered -and offer accepted- to paint her bungalow while Im there...there will be several days she will be working at her job and I will have time to do some chores for her...Last yr we installed a new storm door on the front, and we have plans to change the bathroom sink faucet as well.. Im the handy-woman in our family and so she can use some help with these chores! Now the battle of what to pack? Sis says bring some of everything...oh my I dont really have some of everything...lol but I'll try, so Im thinking my camera gear a good sturdy pair of hiking boots and two weeks worth of undies should do it!

                                       One bag is all I need 

WHY ARE THESE CORPORATIONS SUPPORTING MICHAEL VICK??

DUMP MICHAEL VICK-

Those of you who have read here know Im an animal activist! I cant stand by and see an injustice and say nothing...I was so happy to know Vick got time for his crime but its not enough---now he is back in the limelight with Corporate sponsors and a new deal in the NFL???
Michael Vick is a convicted felon. HE got off so easy-- his punishment did NOT fit the crime.....He did some time over his infarction of running a dog fighting ring...but what about the morality of what he did? He is a cruel and evil man in my book...there is no amount of remorse ever going to be enough--and from what Ive heard its all rehearsed and practiced and probably written my some fancy ad manager! AND the companies who have given sponsorship to him, big companies that Americans support--wth! Well I certainly wont be supporting the NFL, ESPN, MILLER/COORS, JC PENNY, PEPSI, JJ Snacks...the list goes on and on ( a complete list with contact info is on the link above as well as petitions to get Vick off the payroll)....its unbelievable to me that these corporations have the nerve to think that we will sit back and say nothing about this man they have embraced! What about the dogs he is responsible for killing simply for gamble and sport? Those poor animals had NO choice and no Corporate sponsors...wth are they thinking..

Today Im seeing RED.
I hope all of you will visit this link...and send emails to his sponsors, to the Philadelphia Eagles
and let them know WE dont support animal abusers and we dont buy the products of corporations that do!

We have to be the voice of the creatures we share this world with, we have to be held accountable for our actions or non actions! Vick dished out pain and suffering to these poor animals--the least we can do is send an email! OK back to the list...so far Ive sent out emails to each sponsor and to the Eagles Corporate Staff..and now Im off to sign petitions!

--If we judge impartially, we shall acknowledge that there are the RIGHTS of a BEAST, as well as the RIGHTS of a MAN. And because man is considered as the Lord of this lower creation, he is not thereby licensed to infringe on the rights of those below him, any more than a King, or Magistrate, is licensed to infringe on the rights of his subjects. (Herman Daggett 1791)--

This week

We have rain, no complaints here 'cause we can never get enough rain...The dogs are sleeping on the screen porch since they cant run and play and I think they need to spend more time outside!
I'm working on a new line I hope to be able to sell...Gotta make money for the "kitty"
Ive been all morning trying to get images on my design website of my latest work a new line.

I sell my designs to fabric manufactures...if they license the work Im credited as the designer...I saw on Studio E they didnt have my bio up so I wrote to them and they said..HMMM where is it--so Ive been told they are working to get that rectified. So if I sell a design rights with no license it becomes the property of that manufacturer and my name will never be associated with it..So thats the 2 ways I can earn income as a fabric designer. The other hard part is getting the design to repeat properly! Fabric is created in repeats--every so many inches the design repeats. Many times my designs are sent back to be reworked because the repeat is off by as much as a hair and that wont work!! It has to be perfect! Thank goodness for Photoshop. I use 7.0 to do my work.

The rights buyout gives me money immediately but is not always the way to earn the MOST money...a license gives me 5% of the wholesale price so if you have a real good seller I can earn more. Either way I still have not earned enough to call this my main source of income--I know people think if you are getting royalties you are getting rich..WRONG! Now if you sell millions yes--but most of the time it doesnt work that way. Anyone who has ever published a book will tell you that too. My first royalty check from the proceeds from the sell of my book was $3.85 LOL...

Anyways thats what Ive been up to this week...WORKING-- In a design like this one that has many elements scattered around --they like to say tossed--I have to create many small designs and those become stand alone images linked by layers of color. Each Color has to be on a separate layer. So in the image above its made of about 9 layers and 9 colors! The max I can use is 16! There are a lot of parameters I have to keep in mind when creating a design. Some simple designs will have only 1 color used in various %Opacity.

So thats the image I created as Main character up there-- Cleopatra!
Here is link to Cleopatra's Court for those with curosity--

I may be adding some solids later to the collection if I get any interest from a buyer!

I have started my Vacation Countdown...20 days!

SImple Things Big Rewards

Alone again Naturally-- Remember that song? I played it over and over on our little 45 rmp record player the one my big sister got with Greenback Stamps. It was portable---meaning it closed up like a suitcase with little white plastic handles so you could carry it around with you...although it was quite heavy..lol NOT like the Ipods of today that you can carry in your shirt pocket and probably lose it in there...its so small! The greenbacks worked much like "reward points" of today. Greenback stamps were given at the grocery store and once you collected entire booklets full (About 30 pages with 30 stamps on a page) that meant a trip to a neighboring town 30 miles away (wow so many 30's there) to the redemption store. We packed the filled greenback books into a paper grocery bag and turned them in for items, like toasters, hair dryers, roller skates, and the list was endless! Christmas time found lines of people dragging bag after bag filled with crumpled and well worn booklets filled with stamps...each had to be licked and placed in a neat row up and down the pages of the booklet. The patrons lined up to redeem their collection for gifts! All you had to do was pay sales tax. It was and still is a great program--these days I use my accumulated points towards my total bill at the checkout, its usually a couple of dollars deducted..which helps! Today its all electronically kept by using your "Pig Card" they swipe it each time you shop. The points are tallied up and it also tracks your spending habits quite well. This magic greenbax (now with a 21st century spelling) all happens at the Piggly Wiggly. Its a southern grocery store chain, and yes they have this huge-headed Pig-Man mascot wearing a butcher's apron---awful thing that used to scare me as a barefooted child running up and down the isles following my daddy while he pushed the "buggy" around the store-(a southern term for shopping cart...I had to relearn that one when I moved back here from NYC, I would ask for a shopping cart and get a blank stare in return) My father was- when he could be- the center of my universe...but he passed away when I was 12- So this entire week my Mom -who is normally my roommate and best friend- is out of town staying with my sister about 150 miles away in the foothills of SC. She will be 85 on her birthday and although she has had many things to try and knock her down -most recently a broken hip that took almost a year to recover from- she is as spry as many half her age. While she is gone it will be my job to keep the bird feeders filled and the birdbath clean and the plants watered...all those are her daily chores. My chores are -everything else-...well not quite..but it took forever to get the mower working again..I replaced one of the spindles on the mower deck, and plugged up a large hole that had worn thru and after trying 6 sizes of V-belt I finally got the correct size a 5/8" X 72" whew... Boy finally got that job done, worked on it for what seems like a month! Now the hard work is done I can get back to my favorite activities like drawing, writing and taking photos with my handy camera! (Ive got it hard right?) Trust me Ive earned this small reprieve from the work a day life Ive been caught up in for over 40 years!

   

I've been trying to work on learning the proper settings to produce dof or depth of field when I desire too-- I made numerous attempts and liked this one, I especially liked it in Sepia so I stuck with that, Then wanted to look even closer and found it very interesting.. The texture that came out of the leaf-really cool.


   Flickr ate my Photo



 Simple pleasures of a simple life what could be better? Now if only I could get a Canon DSLR with my greenbax Wouldnt that be sweet?

Around the Yard

Look at these interesting curlicues on top of this zinnia flower! Cute huh?
 

Hope your world is blooming...

The Last SunSet

OF JULY 2009--that is! Time is zooming past at a faster rate than normal? It sure seems that way--August already. Sometimes when I begin to think about time and how it relates to us, humans, then you have to think about the planets and the Galaxy we are a part of! Its hard to imagine that we are a part of something so complex that the greatest minds in the world have not been able to decipher much about it! What we know about it could be placed on the tip of a pin, compared to what there is to know I would gamble to say! So in celebration of the last sunset in July of 2009--I took photos! After all that moment in time will never pass this way again, not unless somebody actually invents a time machine! Ya know I didn't stay up the night Halley's Comet came zooming past in 1986 it was cloudy here and I figured I needed to sleep--at that time I had a 5 yr old son and a was running my own business and so much has changed since that day...and when it comes again in 2061...I can only venture a thought of what our World may be like then...I did see Hale Bop in 1997--took my Binoculars out and had a very good look at it!..That one wont be back until the year 4530...I wonder what our World will be like then...now that blows my mind!.. So here is a photo I took of the Sunset July 31, 2009 at 20:30 hrs! That moment was more rare than Halley's or Hale Bops! It will never come around again! Event Horizon 

Want more thought provoking discussion on TIME, visit my blog Writtn's!

A Picture of Life A picture paints a thousand words, or so the lyrics say, 

But the one that I hold dearest, in a most peculiar way, 

Is a photograph of sunset that I took last year, 

And the message that it sent to me that brought a mournful fear. 

It warned me that a great day must always pass on by, 

A week, a month and even years are times that somehow fly. 

And if we waste one moment, of this most precious gift,

The years unfold, we’ll soon be old, and never notice it. 

So greet tomorrow’s sunrise and praise the breaking day, 

Then bow your head, a prayer said, no need to kneel to pray. 

And thank your God, for the gift of life, and never waste such time, 

Then you’ll know why, the years they fly, for you and yours and mine
Unknown author- --This poem was shared by a blogger on my Multiply Blog--