Here, Have an Apple!

For the TwobyTwo this week, I took the concept of Eve and that darn apple and gave it a modern twist. In our house, if the man thinks he's been wrongly accused of something, he responds with, "It wasn't me. I wasn't there. It's. Not. My. Fault."
If blame is being dumped on me for something that isn't (entirely) my responsibility, I hold out my hand and say, "Here. Have an apple." Therefore, I give you this photocomposition from public domain, royalty-free, non-attributable images.

A Thoroughly Modern Eve

As a photographer, I am asked occasionally if someone can use a photo I've taken. I am thrilled that anyone would be interested in my work, so I thank them.
Then, it's time for an education. Here, a brief copyright tutorial.

A photograph is copyrighted material, almost right out of the box anymore. That's because of the digital data that is stored with the image that describes what equipment was used, when (and sometimes where) a photo was taken down to the second, and if set up, who owns all that. It's called metadata, a bunch of binary info hidden in the background. (But, should you want to uphold your rights, you need to make application with your country's copyright office. That part is not automatic).
If you wish, you can pass photos and images into the public domain. That means anybody can use it in any way, shape or form. I call these Gifts to Humanity; others, quite properly, identify them as "freebies," as they are being given away, without compensation. You may find that this is the default mode for your cellie or other "camera." If that's not your intention, make sure to copyright your work. In Photoshop, you can add that to your metadata, a valuable course of action should you post your work on Pinterest, Instagram, Blogger or even eBay.
Watermarks, a digital signature on an image, are another choice, but can be visually distracting.
So, someone wants to use your photograph, say to make a painting. (Anything other than the original is called a "derivative" work). You can ask for a fee-for-use (a license) up-front and/or a royalty payment if and when that painting sells. The license could be under $100, the royalty fee, ten percent. All negotiable.
And, most definitely not "free."
It used to be okay to use another's picture if you changed it at least ten percent, such as taking a color photo and turning it into a black and white. This no longer holds up; just ask the folks at Cycling Magazine that used someone's photograph for a cover (the cyclist was filled in with all black...this was a while back). In that case, permission would have been a LOT cheaper than begging forgiveness in the court of law.
Definitely NOT free.
Then there's proper attribution, letting the public know where the image came from in the first place. If you were to paint Vincent Van Gogh's sunflowers, you would say you painted, "After Van Gogh." In the digital era, you identify who owns the copyright.

Okay, class, that's enough for today. I could bore you silly with this stuff. Yeah, I'm the kind of geek that reads the US Tax Code for kicks. So, let's get back to something more fun!

For the EIM, a koala I found on pixabay, a photo sharing site that requires none of that stuff I just prattled on about. Looks like Einstein, doesn't he? Love the "hair!"

For the Diva, sixteen square-inches of diabolical insomnia-inducing NOT ZEN. The past three nights I've pondered what to do with the striped string thing going on. I am sooooo glad to be finally DONE with this!

That's Squido, I think (straighten me out if that's not right) weaving in and out of the stripes, with Nipa in graphite.
Oh, the Diva can be evil.
Yeah, have an apple!

Pink Flamingo

I've had many a visit to different parts of Florida and have seen flamingoes. I gather they get their bright coral color from the shrimp they like to eat. I have some photos from those trips, but do I know where they are? Of course not. So I borrowed one from pixabay.com, a photo sharing site that lets you use other people's photos. For free. Without attribution or compensation. How that works, I don't know, but I'm giving it a whirl for the EIM.

We shall see!

For the Diva, it's a look at Molygon, an official Zentangle tangle from HQ. I started and realized I liked it right here. So I stopped right here.

I'll probably fidget with it and color it. I'm thinking flowers for Mother's Day here, I guess. And I'm offering it up to you for you to do with it what you want. I'd like to see what you do with it and would appreciate attribution and linkies back to me.
Hope you have a brilliant day!

Repurposed

It's been freaky busy around here, and only partially in a good way. I have some freelance work to take care of and that's good!
The washing machine quitting in the midst of rinsing spa towels, not so much. It's sitting in the middle of the kitchen, with the lid and back cover off. My handy dandy plumber diagnosed the problem and should have it all swell. Some time next week after the parts arrive.
He also is the proud new owner of a boat that doesn't go. But he knew that when he bought it. He thought he had the problem figured out, installed new parts. We took it to the nearest lake and still no go.
There better not be a third thing that decides not to work right this week. What is it about things in "threes?"

So I can get back to my normally scheduled craziness, I decided to repurpose some artwork so I can (kind of) keep up with what I've been trying to do.

For the TwobyTwo, I offer up this image of the ocean. It's a large needlepoint painting that I did in college. The signature reads 1978. I must've had a lot of free time on my hands and had the patience for such things then.

For the EIM, photographs of my favorite subject matter:

Numero Uno
New River
2005
Copyright, Gustavsen-Stapleton Studios

That's a close-up from the first digital image I ever took in 2005, so it's named, "Numero Uno." I was pretty reluctant to embrace the technology, but don't you dare take away my camera now!

And my fave:

Dressed in Red
Anthem
2009
Copyright, Gustavsen-Stapleton Studios

This is a honey bee collecting pollen from a cholla--a nasty, prickly cactus. I call her, "Dressed in Red."
I hope you like what I have to offer this week and don't mind that I borrowed things from around the house. The photographs are for sale, inquire.

(And as always, be mindful of copyright laws and attribution. Forgiveness gets pricey when lawyers are involved!).

Thanks for stopping by! Have a brilliant day!

Seeing Spots

This is one of my favorite times of year. The skies are (mostly) clear, the trees have leafed out creating dense shade and/or are working hard on creating next year's harvest of fruit. The pool is almost ready for the first swim of the season.
Pollen is flying everywhere. Everything is some shade of yellow.
And just when I started working on my most creative project of the whole calendar, I caught the flu bug. I thought I was in the clear, but noooooo! So, I sent off the appropriate forms to get extensions on filing all those tax papers. Yes, I waited until the last possible moment, as always.
[Dear Mr. IRS, Please note: I take it as my responsibility to pay my fair share of the tax burden and as such, do not get "creative," if that's what you're thinking. But do tell, what, exactly, does the Paperwork Reduction Act actually "do?" because I'm not seeing it!].
Thus, I'm glad I started working on some of these challenges--am I alone in disliking the word "challenges" to describe the art prompts? There must be a better word--last week or maybe two ago.
Over at EIM, the word is ladybug. I like seeing ladybugs as they are known to consume aphids, which attack my roses and some other plants. I can count how many I see each year; I'm up to "one."
My take on the theme:

I didn't follow the Diva to the letter of the law, but rather loosely painted watercolours with some splatter and splotches. Done with Sakura Koi paints and after that dried, my trusty Sharpie:

Then we get to the TwobyTwo. The keyword is..."key." I didn't take it too literally. If you've stopped by over the past couple months, you may have read about my son and his autism. He is a very fortunate and high functioning young man. What we're trying to do is help him negotiate this new part of his identity (his reaction to the official diagnosis was, "But I don't FEEL different!") as well as put together the pieces of his puzzle that will help him achieve his definition of success in this world.
It's also happens to be Autism Awareness Month and the logo for the biggest organization working on autism is a blue puzzle piece.
What that means to me is that I'm doing a LOT of reading, everything from biographies of autistics, scientific and medical treatises (is that the plural of the word?) and cookbooks.
And playing with puzzle pieces.

So there you have my contributions this week. Only fair, the IRS has theirs.
Thanks for visiting, have a brilliant day! Be sure to check out the creativity to be found at the other artist blogs and how they interpret these "challenges."

Proud as a Peacock

Continuing through the phyla of avian creatures, the EIM word last week was "peacock." I found a box of Derwent Inktense I bought and stored away a few years ago. I knew I had them and I was amused to find the metal box is decorated with a peacock illustration. (I was also amused that Freebird took a similar approach, but with beads! Coincidence? I think not.)

It was fun to finally crack open and use those pencils! I'll be trying them out again, soon.

Mostly, I've been getting up to speed on Autism Spectrum Disorder. My son officially received a diagnosis of HFA, or high-functioning, at 26. It also happens to be World Autism Awareness month and April second was the official day to Light it up Blue to promote awareness. (Depending on who is looking at the numbers, one person in 68 is autistic. We ALL know someone.).

White House lit up for April 2nd, 2017
Photo copyright: Lincoln Photography
From autismspeaks.org

I am grateful for the people at SARRC in Phoenix who helped us find out what's going on with TJ and have offered a variety of resources to help us help him. He's highly intelligent, especially in matters of mechanical objects (planes, trains and automobiles!) He's working full-time for Walmart and has a temporary assignment at a new location, so meeting new people. I couldn't be happier for him, or more proud.

One of TJ's favorite games is SIMON. And I chose this for this EIM, parrot, as the game requires you to repeat back, or parrot, a sequence of colored lights. Made with my trusty Photoshop program:

The TwobyTwo this week is "coin." I went by way of "coin a phrase", one attributed to Horace (Odes 1.11, 23BC) and the other to Clint Eastwood (Sudden Impact, 1983AD). These are photos I took of brittlebush, a terribly toxic plant that just looks so pretty in bloom.

I've been following the Diva for the last few weeks and put them all together this week. The challenge this week was to use circles and squares for strings. Well, they're in there, really they are. The other things going on are "Frunky," and "Noom." At first I couldn't find the step-outs for that thing and found a weight management app, instead (huh?). So, I call this, "What's in a Name?"

That's what I have to offer this week. Thanks for stopping by, have a brilliant (and BLUE!) day!

For the Birds

The EIM for the week is "woodpecker." I tried to get a photograph of one that was poking around in a mesquite tree, but even though he's quite colorful, he was very hard to get a good picture of. So I kind of borrowed an image from someone else and made a watercolor out of it.
I recall our home on Cape Cod where we had a very industrious woodpecker. He'd knock out knots in the cedar shakes and leave gooey sweet goodness for ants to find there. The ants would find the sweets, then the woodpecker would have lunch of sap and sugar-coated ants. The bird knew enough to set up shop right under the second-story eaves where we couldn't bother him because we couldn't get close!

To get caught up, I've included the last few birds--a rooster, who happens to be the mascot for a local egg company (huh?!), a green heron and a bunch of rubber duckies.

Which means the only thing missing for the inchies is a horse, of course. Just HAD to go in this direction:

I have to thank my lucky stars that the Diva this week chose a simple theme for Zentangle, to stick with tried-and-true tangles rather than fancy or complicated drawing. Headquarters calls it going with the MacnCheese, Ms. Diva Kraft Dinner; we call it, Blue Box, Please! (It might be just the thing for dinner tonight! Every once in a while, it is just right).

Simple:

And simpler:

If you've been wondering what we've been up to, the previous post spells it out pretty well. Other than that, it's been a LOT of yardwork! After all the rain (15 inches so far this year!), the sun came out and warmed things up considerably (90s, 32+ Celsius). Everything is growing green and fast; faster than I can weed or trim. At one point, the grass was three feet high! I read in a desert gardening book that March is supposed to be a month of leisure and enjoying the fruits of my labours.
Ha. Ha. Hahahaha!
Thanks for stopping by! Have a brilliant day!

Life...Happens

I'm sorry I haven't been very communicative lately. It's been very...interesting in our sphere lately.

I really don't wish "interesting" on anybody. 

The year started off with Gil's mom passing and without much further ado, his father quickly followed. They had lived to be 90, but sickness and frailty had become their common visitors. We didn't see them often as they were 2300 miles away, but we were able to see his dad before he died. 

I think they had been married for almost 70 years. 

The task now is to clear out not one, but two homes stocked to the rafters with the accumulation of all that togetherness. Be still my hoarder heart!

There will be fewer "work" days and more travel in our future. 

Closer to home, my son is being examined for being autistic, or more correctly where on the spectrum of Autistic Spectrum Disorder does he place? He's highly-functioning; he's articulate, he's friendly, he holds a job, he's 26 years-old. We're working with individuals to see if there are state-funded programs that can help TJ. We'll find out later today if he's eligible. (Even if he isn't, there has been the offer to steer us toward other resources, so it's all good). It's been hours of interviews, evaluations and enough paperwork to fell a forest, not to mention the literature I've been consuming on the matter. 

It's been hard to focus. 

But, perhaps, just maybe...

This little bitty came about from the TwobyTwo prompt of "peppermint." Just the word conjures little candies with red stripes (my favorites are pink with cinnamon, too) or refreshing mojitos (it's been perfect weather for frosty recreational beverages, or FRBs in our house). 

This is not what I call refreshing nor perfect, but you know how the sub-conscience sneaks in and around, right? It's supposed to be swirly with red stripes. And why is the only word that can be read say, "purple?" Made with an encyclopedia entry for peppermint and torn paper painted with nail polish:

Even though it's nothing like I expected, I like it. I liked the process and the result even if it's nothing like "peppermint!"

Moo!

On our first trip West with the kiddos (age 3 and 6, they're now 23 and 26), the youngest saw cattle grazing alongside the road and yelled, "Look! COWS!".
It goes down as one of those crazy road trip tales as the driver took that to mean, "Look out!" and proceeded to do some crazy road trip driving.
We can laugh about that now.

Now our homestead is nestled in the foothills of the Bradshaw Mountains and our little hamlet is entirely "open range."

THAT is FUNNY!

That means ranchers can let their animals roam anywhere. That means we can wake to the sound of cows mooing as they graze on the prickly pear cactus just the other side of our fence. It means we often get dangerously close to very large hamburgers with feet while night driving.

I don't know if you can see that; I tried to approximate what it might look like driving head first into a steer on a country road.

What does any of this have to do with art? It's the EIM this week, "cow."

That's from a child's search and find puzzle book that I found in my stash of piles of magazines. (Yeah, yeah, I need to do the dishes!).

Elsewhere, the objective is a lot of hearts for Saint Valentine's Day. For IAST 182:

For the Diva 303, my Valentine to you (I followed Laura's lead and went with the Hefty Hack method:

And I revisited 302 as I realized that I didn't have the hang of that tangle. At. All.

(The central tangle reminds me of Mummenschanz, which I saw at the Wang Theater, once upon a time. Have you ever been? They're still performing!)

I think that's about it, for now. Thanks for dropping by. Be sure to check out all the other artists' blogs, there is so much creativity in the weird wide web.
Hope you have a brilliant day! And watch out for cows!

Proof Positive

I just finished reading a book by Dana White titled, "How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind." It's a hilarious take on real-world cleaning strategies. (Spoiler alert: Do the dishes).
I'm sure you're thinking why would anyone as organized as I need to read about home management?
HA!
In reality I'm just a crazy old cat lady hoarder-in-training. I mean, I don't even have one cat yet! I'm not so old! But if there were need of any proof that I have the hoarder thing going on, here is my entry to the Every Inchie Monday this week:

This is a clipping of a child's sweater from the Fall 1999 issue of Family Circle Easy Knitting magazine. I'm not sure why I still have the periodical, my knitting skills are not very, well, skillful. One of these days I'll actually knit a sweater. Maybe. It won't be that one.

For the Diva challenge this week:

The objective, to use Hamadox in a sentence (Ah ha!). Here, I put a few tried and true tangles to work. I'm really enjoying drawing with Prismacolor colored pencils and I'm trying to keep notes of which colors I'm using for future reference. (Yeah, like keeping a knitting magazine that is soooo last century. But, you have to admit, it came in handy this week!).

My last entry is for the TwobyTwo, where the word is "news." I like reading and am grateful that I can access whatever it is I need to know on the Internet. Otherwise, the papers might pile up ad infinitum. It could get out of hand.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a brilliant day.
I have to go do the dishes now.

Grand State of Mind

Everyday brings news. Some of it good, some of it not so much and a lot of it just needs to....be ignored. The last several holiday seasons has brought big, massive and decidedly in the not-so-much category sort of news.
Still, we carry on, don't we?
I, of the optimistic, glass half-full mentality, persevere.
When life hands you a bar coaster, you know just what you're going to do with it. First, you're going to squeeze fresh citrus and blenderize a margarita. Then, you're going to draw. This is what happened when I tackled the Diva's weekly challenge, number 301, a Diva Dance/Paradox duotangle:

This is an improved version, a tackle-it-after-coffee-infusion. An I'm not too worried about what I accomplish today version. It wanted to be a butterfly and butterflies are free.

At the EIM, the word is donkey. Doing some research on donkey made my head hurt and I'm not quite sure why I got too carried away with that as I knew right off what I was going to do. South of here, surrounding Lake Pleasant is a very strong population of wild burros (small grey Mexican donkeys). They are cute, but they are a hearty bunch that is overwhelming the environment and native species. You can adopt one through the BLM.
And hopefully NOT meet one by accident on the freeway. These signs were installed last year to try to prevent such incidents. (I tilted the sign 45 degrees to make it square instead of diamond-shaped).

Other than that, there's the TwobyTwo for next week. The word is "news." Hopefully, it's of the good news variety. I'm working on that, won't you join the fun? Anything can happen there, as long as it fits into a two-inch square.

Thank you all for visiting and your words of kindness and encouragement. It all makes my heart sing. I can't carry a tune, but my heart seems to know the words.
Have a brilliant day!

Out of Practice

It's not really that I haven't been creating, just not as actively as I'd like. Feeling guilty about that isn't going to help or change the world, but it did lead to not chatting about it. I have a stack of little artworks laying around, mostly tossed into a corner or three when guests came to visit through the holidays.
Then the calendar flipped and things really got out of hand. Let's just say that there is a little order that has come of the chaos. Life can be....interesting, and it helps to embrace that instead of trying to fight it, right?
I was going to start a botanical drawing class, but the instructor wanted a list of art supplies of which I have NONE. Hard to believe that's even possible! But I have the book and am digesting the ideas before I commit to a totally new set of (Faber-Castell) colored pencils. I'm already invested in Prismacolor and Spectrum Noir, isn't that good enough??
I say all that as an introduction to Diva 299 with the latest official Zentangle tangle, Drawings (think: draw wings). Working on light direction, foliage coloration and subtle shading.

Then there's the EIM that I'm working on. Here we go with the first four of 2017. Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself, but I didn't want to lose that fabric swatch, as I'm bound to do.

The first one is rabbit (and you never have just one!), the hampster dance, a cat who looks as happy about the weather as I do (the cold, the rain! just stay inside!) and the dog (which, for whatever reason, one repeat along the selvage had all green shading. weird).

The objective at last week's TwobyTwo was happy. Too many ideas were trying to work their way through to the cerebral surface. One of my other goals this year is to tackle Illustrator. Again.
While this was created in Photoshop, some of the methods to make it were borrowed from what I know about Illustrator (slim-to-none). This simple thing took me an hour! UGH.

With many an apology to all of the artists who have gone before me in this, along with a special nod to Robert Herrick, who may have been the first to use the smiley in text as :) in 1648!
And we think we're so clever!

If the hamster dance music is driving you as crazy as I: Don't worry, be happy!
I bid you a happy and brilliant day! Thanks for dropping by!