jpg or gif

well what a strange thing
doesn't seem to matter, once you upload it to blogger servers it's a jpg, even if it was a gif on your computer.

I was asked by a lovely illustration friday artist lady if I could help another member with a blogging question.
I said I would be happy to give it a try, and found that he (the member with the problem wanted to know how to put his own banner image on his blog.
well having studied HTML for five minutes with on-line resources like webmonkey and echoecho I felt I could give it a pretty good shot.
so I wrote this guy a long email explaining what he would have to do, and anyway, to cut a long story short, I thought that maybe I would like to give it a go myself.
so having found my banner image in my template, which is the not at all unlovely
following gif from the original tic-tac template that I am using


I set about making a replacement from one of my favourite themes, little ball paintings. (also seen in a previous post)
the following is the same image that I used for the invitation to my last exhibition, now one year ago in madrid.


so I uploaded the gif that I made in fotoshop and got a jpg bit of html, so thinking I must of uploaded the wrong one I went about it again and got the same thing.
so I have to use a jpg when I change my banner image.
oh well, I hope it works alright. You will probably know by now, having opened this page you will have seen the balls or the cool blogger header.
balls mean, I rock, cool header means my coding skills are of the level that I fear.
isn't blogging grand.
(if you haven't worked it out by now I still haven't tried to change the banner. I will do it after I post this)
anyhow I have decided that you lucky devils don't even have to click on that link, if you don't especially want to as I am going to get a bit more milage from the images that I uploaded then by using them again here.
this is the painting that I have done that took the most time.


three months, it took. with time off for good behavior.
or really with a couple of weeks where I had to work on other things because it was getting a form of carpal tunnel syndrome.
that's three months where I was working 10 to 12 hours a day.
there is ten thousand eight hundred and twenty blue balls there.


each has seven steps to complete it and the background is painted between the balls, as one of the last steps.
well before the shadows anyway.


the whole thing is watercolour on gesso, and as you can see there is a lot of cracking and crazing, a thing which I think adds to it's charm.


I just hope that it doesn't mean that at some point the paint will just fall off.
I hope it is in some museum by then.
(which contradicts what I think will happen, but we can all dream ¿no?
I should point out that the whole painting is 27 X 22 cms or 11 X 9 inches so it's fairly concentrated painters energy there.
I did fear that I wouldn't finish it a few times.
(right near the start too, when I realised that I should have left the space, that represents the reflected highlight of each ball. I had to draw the paint back off the surface of the gesso with the tip of a paintbrush putting the tiniest little drops of water on each one and then drawing that water and paint up with the brush and then cleaning the brush on kitchen paper and with water and then repeat. etc. ad infinitum)


anyhow an experience it was.
got me a mention in the review of a competition exhibition in an arts newspaper here in madrid (el punto de las artes) where the reviewer, who remained nameless, even after I rang to ask who it was, lumped it in with a couple of other works in the 'also worth a mention' part of the review.
after getting my name badly wrong, as did the organisers in the catalog and on the wall tags, he said that my work represented a new and interesting discourse.
so I was pretty pleased with that,(one has to take what one can get, otherwise known as beggers can't be choosers) and of course I think it does.anyhow I should really be doing other things, but I have recently discovered that there is a large art materials store not far at all from here so I think I am going to go take a look and take my little doggy mate for a walk at the same time
kill two birds with one stone as it were

I'm having some second thoughts too
I am thinking that even if I succeed in putting my new banner up I might end up going back to the other if it looks better.
I didn't think much before making this one and I think I could have made a better job.
I'll see how I go, see how it looks.
thanks go out to anyone who is visiting, rest assured I will return the favour
isn't blogging grand

love from me

illustration friday blue dog

Well, that took a while
what a drama real life can be
anyhow here's my final blue illo.




and what an unusual thing for me as well, but I have loved it, well, you know what I mean. This illustration friday thing is really good for me. and it keeps me off the streets.
I was really stumped for a while by the theme blue, but then I started thinking of true blue, and blue dogs of aussie land and then after I had started painting this blue dog, lourdes said that the only image that had occured to her was ojos de perro azul (eyes of the blue dog), a story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, so a bit of synchronicity there.
A little while ago, well not that long, back when the theme was free, so two weeks, I think, alina posted a picture with her kit.
I thought I would return the favor.
here's my table this morning.



note the dead cactus. :|
There are plenty of live cactus, doing very well indeed, just off to the right of this space, you'll just have to take my word for it.

so that is my entire work, study and painting space.
That table top.
(which in itself is about one twenty-eth of the space of the whole house)
note the depth of the layers, although it's a bit hard to see.

well I better post this and take my non-blue dog down to the street until he turns blue, from the cold, and then take him to bed and he can warm up under the doona where he sleeps, and I can get some sleep as well

illustration friday- blue stopgap

kind of a stopgap, I'm trying to come up with something



sorry,
but it is blue

illustration friday

pine needles needling me

while looking through some of the blogs of this weeks illustration fiday I came across a really cute birdy and pine needles drawing, that so reminded me of me, although it's a long time since I have made any serious attempt to represent one of our fine feathered friends.
I haven't however, ever gotten completely over my lifelong desire (well thats some sort of tautism) to become a bird painter, and most of what I do when I draw (when I do draw) could be described as studies of objects to go in bird paintings.
I did the following drawing last year, as one of the build-up to longer works.
what a shame I got side tracked.
goddamn technology, (as I am sure she will)
this is a detail first, which on my screen looks like it has come out about life size, ie. the size of the original drawing, which, incidentely, or not, is the size of the original object, or, life size
:)



and this is the whole drawing, which is a non Asomething size, 30 X 42 cms, or for those of the american persuasion, . . hang on!. .. well rethinking that one, that is an Asomething size, being A3, so just ignore that. for the americans that's 12 X 16 and a bit, nearly 17 inches, unless I am sadly mistaken, and the drawing was done from a 'fresh' specimen that I broke of a tree in the park.
sorry tree
I had it set up, spiked on a needle tool, so that it was hanging over my desk, at the angle you see here.
took about ten days and had to finish when I accidently tapped it with my pencil, and all the needles fell off!
the nick of time



You can see why the drawing by ellen made me think of me, and made me want to post this.
also, sounds a bit silly but don't be afraid to post comments to my blog, and say whatever you want. I don't encourage only superpositive comments, although if that's all you can come up with...
love youse all