Archive for the ‘blogs’ Category

Even though I haven’t been blogging much lately, and not reading my usual blogs, I have still managed to accumulate some really interesting websites. When I go back through all the bookmarks, I am reminded about what an awesome thing the internet is. You can find just about anything, and then some. While I so enjoy the eye candy from fiber sites, there are still so many things that interest me. Here’s a mere ten for this week. I’m going to try and get back in the habit of doing this once a week.

Cabinet magazine cover

Cabinet Magazine – (from the website) Cabinet is an award-winning quarterly magazine of art and culture that confounds expectations of what is typically meant by the words “art,” “culture,” and sometimes even “magazine.” Like the 17th-century cabinet of curiosities to which its name alludes, Cabinet is as interested in the margins of culture as its center. Presenting wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary content in each issue through the varied formats of regular columns, essays, interviews, and special artist projects, Cabinet‘s hybrid sensibility merges the popular appeal of an arts periodical, the visually engaging style of a design magazine, and the in-depth exploration of a scholarly journal.

Sounds like a potentially great look into today’s art and culture!

Homework shelters

Homework – Hand-Built Shelters – (from the website) features: homes, cabins, cottages, bungalows, homesteads,   sheds, shacks, huts, treehouses, bottle houses, yurts, hogans, tipis, tents, beach shacks, stilt houses, greenhouses, small houses designs, and MORE!

The sheer scope of different types of homes boggles the mind.

A Moment in Time – from the Lens project to document one moment of one day on the earth. As the site says, “make no plans for the rest of the day.” You get to look at photos from around the world, all taken at the same time on the same day – a great look at “us.”

When Graphic Artists Get Bored – a great selection of graphic art. Take a good close look – you won’t be disappointed!

Real World Math – Using Google Earth in the Math Curriculum. Oh, to use this in the classroom – and if this had only been available when I was in school! My ideal job would be a curriculum coordinator for Google Earth. I would never be off the computer!

While I have had my own blog about teaching, I occasionally read others, like this one – A Teacher’s Education. I can so relate, and if you are a teacher and any good in the classroom, you will relate, too.

Urban Homestead

Urban Homestead – since I have become very interested in sustainability and locally grown food, I found this interesting. Path to Freedom – the Original Modern Urban Homestead.

The Scribbler – be prepared to waste lots of time, because after all, you have to get good at this – scribbling, that is…who knew it could be so much fun to just doodle – no, make that scribble, and in color – and you can save them! Here’s info about how it got started. You have been warned…..

Quantum Learning – Visiting Auschwitz –  interesting blog. “Help build a world where everyone is valued irrespective of wealth, origin, colour or beliefs and conflicts are solved peacefully. Here you’ll learn how to do this in day to day life.”

Gray Eagles

And finally, Gray Eagles , a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the stories of World War II pilots. “The Gray Eagles Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to keeping aviation history alive through dynamic audio-visual media created to educate and inspire those from all generations. Specifically, it is our hope that our films will encourage others to share their stories, and by doing so, build family connections, foster community, and nurture a culture of multi-generational understanding and respect.” After all, the past is prologue.

Other Top Ten Website articles:

Thoughts for a Thursday

Sunday Sampler

Top Ten Tuesday – Cool Stuff

Visual Delights

Visual Delights 2

Top Ten Tuesday – July

Top Ten Tuesday – San Diego

Top Ten Tuesday – Getting Here

Slower week, but I am still being productive. I love getting caught up with the blogs I follow, as I don’t always have time for my morning ritual before leaving for school. So I thought I would share some of the great stuff I have been viewing.

If you are not following El Milagro Studio, you need to pop over there. Anne does the most amazing collage. I know I never understood the appeal of collage until I started following Anne’s art work. Collage to me was very poorly done school projects. So NOT the case with Anne – the textures and colors are pretty spectacular! By the way, Anne, I have a few more textured items – and do you want an old pure wool sweater for felting? I have finally decided to give up my high school sweater – after I take off my letter for band.

I’ve started following Seth Apter and The Altered Page. More amazing collage, but today’s post had a review of a Maya Lin exhibit, she of Vietnam Memorial fame. The texture and movement in her architectural pieces is phenomenal. Here’s a sample:

I have been following Jane Dunnewold of Complex Cloth fame on her daily journal to photograph her surroundings. I have become very attuned to the juxtaposition of red and green around us from her work this year. The photography is both provocative and evocative. Here’s a sample:
I LOVE Purple Missus. What she is doing with and to fabric constantly blows my mind. Rusting, dyeing, paints, glue – you name it and nothing is safe. I HAVE to buy her book – Stitching the Textured Surface – it is on my MUST-HAVE list. This is one of my absolute favorite pics:

I’m hooked on Twitter, even though I’ve been absent for the last month. I try to always check the daily Historical Tweets – way too much fun!

Hopefully the school year will continue to be a great one. Two more weeks in this first quarter marking period – hard to believe this is week 8 of the school year. Stay healthy and busy – that’s my motto!

I wrote in an earlier post about the struggle to balance the need to make art and be creative, along with the need to build a business. If I am going to create, then I have to ensure I don’t get bogged down on the computer – which as we all know is extremely easy to do! So – here’s a list of what I read regularly – for inspiration, humor, and just plain fun:

El Milagro Studio – Anne Lockard, she of the Fiber Pirates, does some pretty amazing church banners. Plus she’s an incredible lady, and I just love hearing about her adventures.

TED – ideas worth spreading. Not really a blog, but this is an outstanding place to see videos on creativity and “ideas worth spreading.” Everything is inspirational.

Enchanted Revelry – I first “met” Tristan on the QuiltArt list, and he’s a theater geek from way back – as am I – but Tristan actually still does theater – and I gave up directing middle schoolers years ago (something about age…). Tristan is into all kinds of arts – and his vintage pictures are fabulous.

The Future Buzz is great to subscribe to – lots of ideas on marketing, plus some great photos. This link is specific to creativity: how to be more creative – it’s one I reread regularly.

The Summer Tomato – upgrading your healthy style. I stumbled on this blog as a result of a blogging class I am taking, and I loved Darya’s crisp, clean photos and healthy eating ideas. This isn’t your “diet” page, but a lifestyle change.

Penelope’s Trunk – this is a link to another specific article: how to build a career as an artist.

Dr. Matt Lyon is a former student, and I was delighted to find he is in alternative medicine. His posts are always thoughtful and thought-provoking.

Learn Me Good is a great way for me to appreciate the humor in our lives as teachers, to celebrate what doesn’t work in the classroom, and to generally keep up-to-date with education and teaching in the blogosphere.

Fiber Arts/Mixed Media – my second social media group, outside of Facebook. Already picked up lots of ideas, as well as some potential art shows to enter this year.

The time has come to seriously work at marketing. I already have a few events set up for these next 12 months, which is more than I have ever done. Now I need to find a way to balance marketing and blogging with actually creating art – so far blogging is winning….

I also need to think deeply about the relationship between the blog and creativity, with marketing the website and actually selling some art. While we are slowly solving our marbling problems, in reality I have plenty of large fabrics left for probably 15 new art pieces – as well as 1 or 2 just needing a few “extra” touches.

Part of the last few days has been exploring Google Analytics and Delicious, as well as a few others. I do read some blogs, but evidently I will need to do more commenting in order to build up my own following. So lots of thinking ahead in a totally different kind of creativity. Speaking of which, time to mark some papers….

I would love to hear from others as to how they balance marketing, thinking about marketing, 9-5 job, and making art….and why isn’t AdSense working???

As I mentioned yesterday, I sent in a request in response to an offer of a free web critique, as a way of jump-startng more marbling and marketing efforts. I still have a huge business map taped to the back of the studio door, with lots of ideas on it, some of which will never happen, and some of which just need a push. We need to prepare for a demo we are giving in September, and this time we will not make the mistake of not bringing product with us to sell. And we will take pictures, have sign-up sheets, and all the other marketing pieces that need to be there to increase sales.

Part of each of the next three marbling sessions is to get materials ready to take to the demo – like scarves in preparation for holiday buying. But once again, we don’t want to just be making fabric – tough on us and lacks the creativity. When we were doing all those fat quarters for the fabric rep and the kaleidoscope guy, it was the same old routine and patterns, and we did not enjoy that. I have several pieces already backed and waiting for quilting that would make great art pieces. Just have to get to it.

And the whole idea behind the Photoshop classes is to get to a point where I am ready to create t-shirt designs. I did go online yesterday to search about creating a CD portfolio – and the site with the most amount of helpful info was the Apple site on a tutorial for iLife – which I have on my laptop. So I just need to sketch out what needs to be done and get it created. At least I know how to do a slideshow, as that seems to be the main feature. I updated the website, so all our credits and shows are current.

I have also been reading some stuff about publicizing blogs – since the two comments I have gotten on here have been spam. Have to find out about RSS feeds, and how to get other people to read this blog. Minor details…..at least I have a record of my work this year.

The other thing I was thinking about was my sketching – but more on that later.

Just so you know – we can marble on cross-stitch Aida cloth – didn’t want too many entries going by without pictures. This was for a special order over a year ago.

I am so hooked on abstract pieces from my Photoshop class. If you are at all interested in learning Photoshop, check out myJanee.com. She is wonderful!!

So this next piece is as a result of learning how to use the eye dropper to get the exact color replicated when I need it, rather than having to write down numbers. I had another row, but while it was pleasing, it was boring. I had to add some color, and I am amazed at just how different the same shade of red looks throughout the piece.

I know that one of the things I will do this week is read more about color from the links in our lesson. If I just didn’t have to do lesson plans, I could play all night!!

I spent last night working on my assignment for the Photoshop class. Worked with some simple tools to create an abstract design, with basic elements of rectangles, circles, ovals, and triangles. I was pleased with the one posted below, but I wanted to try some more – especially since I have several more days before the new lesson comes in!

One of the things I was thinking about as I was doing this was how long it has taken me to finally free up the creativity so that the “picture” doesn’t have to be perfect or “look like something.” I’m sure so many of us harken back to elementary school and the need to create a picture within parameters, and consequently our creativity went to permanent sleep on us. Mrs. Ross (long since dead) insisted my snowflakes didn’t fall in a perfectly straight line. I didn’t know how else to glue them on – I wasn’t much of a random person, and design had to be ordered. Both of my abstracts are “ordered,” to my way of thinking, and yet there is a random “pleasingness” (a word?) to my way of looking at them.

Now for some of the nitty-gritty: I keep forgetting to do a new layer each time, but I am getting better at that. Remembering to “stroke” needs work – I find I need to write color numbers down, so that if I choose another color for the stroke, I can revert back to the exact ones I am using as my primary colors. As you can see, I like working in primaries. I discovered in the marque tools how to do single lines – rows and columns. So I like that added dimension. I ended up dumping one of the layers because it just drew my eye too much to that one shape and didn’t let me roam around the picture. I do feel there is an anchor, a focal point, with the black rectangle.

The Tucson Gem and Mineral Show starts today – I have a list of stones and beads for some of my “in process” art pieces – lots of fun over the next two weeks! The first time I went to the show, about 6 years ago, I was amazed at the amount of color in “rock.” Little did I know…..

Sometimes it seems like Friday will never get here, and this week was one of those. Last night as I was working on my Photoshop class, I kept thinking it was Friday night and I could sleep late, only to remember I still had another school day to go!

I had more fun with the Photoshop class – LaunchPad A by myJanee.com – it is a beginner’s class, and while I could do some of the things in the first lesson, I still learned lots. I’ve attached my first “playing around” – an abstract just using colors and basic shapes.

The motivation for me was to use primary colors, which I love, and just to see if I could create some pleasing shapes. I was happy with the project. The materials for the lesson are extremely well organized, detailed, and easy to follow. I have been looking to take a class for so long, even since Janet from MMU showed me the collage she had created with her photos from Africa. I’ve played around over the years, but there are so many ideas that have been percolating for years, that I feel I am finally getting to work on them! Who knows, maybe the t-shirts and quilt patterns will finally happen!

Linda

I finally did it! I set up a blog so I can write about our marbling and related art thoughts. I’ll be posting photos of the new Photoshop class I am starting. Be kind – I am learning how to take criticism!! This has been something I have been meaning to do as a way of recording process and product, and at the same time motivate me to do more fiber work. And…I can tell my students I am finally “almost” as technologically savvy as they are!