raloria

Last month I had grand plans to join in on this month's Inktober. Failed at it last year and I wanted to give it another go. Well, life had other ideas, as my first week of October was a very rough one. So much for plans.

Lately, I really haven't had the time or energy to do anything artistic. It's been making me feel a little antsy and tonight I decided enough was enough and I was going to do something no matter what or how simple.

So I grabbed some Mermaid Markers by Jane Davenport and drew simple squiggles and loops in one of my art journals. I really like the results. It's not overly complicated, it doesn't have any meaning, it's just colorful lines on paper and it only took me a few minutes to do. So maybe I haven't been able to participate in Inktober. Doing these pages made me feel better - just like that. :)

Got another little art journal flip-thru for you today. Thanks for all the lovely comments to my first one. :)

Again, this is just backgrounds. Nothing is finished here, but just about every page is painted on, except the back inside cover. I've got about 2 more art journals that are filled with backgrounds (and a few finished pages), so I'll probably be filming flip-thrus of them next.

In an effort to do more art work as well as keeping myself awake after supper, I'm trying to work on my art journals/ICADs/Smashbooks/etc. for a couple of hours each evening starting at around 10 p.m.

( Adventures in Art Journaling... )

Thought I'd start something new...a bit more RL stuff from me. I've heard from some that I don't do enough of that. I'm assuming it's still true...

Don't ask me what this is going to be, I'm still working it out in my head. We'll simply see where things take me, alright?
Let's start out with a little "stream of consciousness" to start.


:: I've got the song "Blooming 18" by Ace Of Base stuck in my head at the moment. No idea why. Gah!!!!

:: K is not coming down today. Yay! That means we can do what we want. I could finish the dishes, but not sure I want to bother. Will probably continue scanning old photos with mom.

:: Why is it I want to paint, journal, or be creative late at night when I really can't? *sigh* I did gesso an Art Journal page that I didn't like the outcome of so I can have a do-over. :P

:: Must remember to change the water in my flowers when I get up. Some of them are spent/drooping. Some of the roses have opened up nicely though. :)

:: Am already thinking of saving some of the rose petals for use in my Art Journals, Smashbooks...whatever. :P

:: My arms always get cold in the evenings. Yep, just my arms. The rest of me is just the right temperature. Why don't they make arm warmers like they used to make leg warmers in the 1980s?

A pretty pic of Vancouver via Flickr, since it's on my mind all the time now. VanCon in 2 months! Btw, we can see that purple-topped building on the left from our hotel room each year. It actually cycles through different colors. Pretty!



Ok, enough for this night. Mom keeps asking when I'm going to bed. Nag, nag, nag... :P

Decided to do a search of whatever new online photo editors might be out there and found another worthy addition to my arsenal: Picadilo.

It's completely free (you don't even have to register) and it has quite a treasure trove of effects. Everything is fully adjustable with fine tuning controls and its Sharpen effect is excellent (a bit of a sticking point of mine). Best of all (for me, anyway), it has the best Bloom Effect I've seen besides the one I use with PhotoScape on my PC. There's also a nice Textures section. My only complaint: there's no frames or stickers whatsoever, which is sort of disappointing. There is a nice little selection of text fonts though.

It also allows you to Favorite any of the effects into your own list, but of course, since there's no registration, as soon as you leave the site they're gone. But still, if you're doing a session of editing it's a nice option to have the effects you use most readily available and together.

http://www.picadilo.com/

I look forward to trying this editor out. Here's a little test I did with multiple effects (click for full-size):



I'm often asked which online image editors I use. Well here's the current list, basically from my favorites to lesser ones (but still good and recommended)...

1. Ribbet http://www.ribbet.com/
2. Pic Monkey http://www.picmonkey.com/
3. iPiccy http://ipiccy.com/
4. Pixlr http://pixlr.com/
5. Fotor http://www.fotor.com/
6. BeFunky http://www.befunky.com/
7. Picture2Life http://www.picture2life.com/

:: Creative Brainstorm
Last night as I went to bed, I got this infusion of ideas into my head. I realized I wanted to get back to drawing, especially with charcoal, which is a favorite of mine. Luckily, I can still get to my art class supplies, even though they're partially buried in a room. I've already got some ideas. Also decided I wanted to stretch my writing and try my hand at some drabbles or ficlets. This all came at me so fast, that I actually got out of bed to quickly write all of my ideas down.

I've already written my first ficlet & I'll be posting it this evening. ;)

:: The elderly can be frustrating
My aunt, mom, & I went to visit my grandpa yesterday and we had a nice time, but OMG that man can be exasperating! He's got some really bizarro ideas about how doctors are. He seems to think that he doesn't have to contact the doctor and tell him he's been having trouble with his left knee, that he fell on it before he ended up in the hospital over the summer. Why? 'Cause his doctor should know all that from looking at his info. on the computer. Grandpa: "He's got my number, he can call me." The impression the 3 of us got is that he expects his doctor to be a mind reader, that his doctor is going to call him and check up on him! *facepalms* Um, no. We tried to explain that he has to call his doctor and let him know something is wrong. He also told us how he basically insulted his doctor the first appointment he had with the guy. Gee, and he wonders why the doctor isn't too concerned about him? Sheesh. We went 'round and 'round with him on this, but my grandpa is very stubborn. Gah! Doesn't help that he can't hear well and contradicts himself all the time. So crazy having conversations with him. *sigh*

:: Hate the cold!
I really do. Once we get into fall and winter I just wanna hibernate, be somewhere warm, and not come out until the spring. LOL The temps are dropping and I keep jacking up the heat in the house. I know it's not the greatest thing to do and our heating bill will suffer for it, but once you put on all the layers you can and you're still cold, you gotta do something, right? It's not even all that cold, really. Highs in the 50s, lows in the 40s or high 30s. From what they're saying we're in for a rough, cold, wet winter. Could mean snow, even in the lowlands...oh goodie.

:: My other Tumblr
I've held off posting about this, but I finally decided what I wanted to do with my first Tumblr account. Originally I was going to use it to showcase my photos, professionally, but I found a better site to do that. Instead, this one will still be for posting my photos, but for fun. So I thought I'd share the link to this Tumblr with my flist, in case any of you want to follow me.

So I have 2 different Tumblr accounts. Feel free to follow me on either or both:

My Photography Tumblr: Visual Passion (only for my LJ flisters)
My SPN/Jensen fangirling Tumblr: On The Road To Shambala (public)

:: Bought the book of "Supernatural: John Winchester's Journal" by Alex Arvine last night. I've started reading it already and read a bunch of the cool passages about Dean and Sam. It's neat reading and matches up well with what we already know from the show. Loved reading about how Dean slept in baby Sammy's crib to keep him safe right away after Mary's death and how he quickly showed his hunting skills. Then you've got Sam wanting to be normal almost immediately and being a geeky Mac-loving, research kid. :)

:: We've gotten a little snow already. Not much...less than an inch. I keep checking out the local radar for more snow showers, but it's all heading to the mountains in the east for now. It looks like Vancouver might be getting some of this stuff, too. I'm watching the webcams up there, but they seem normal so far.

:: Made some cool fractal backgrounds for text icons tonight with Aviary.com. Next step is to open them in Picnik and tweak/refine/resize and then add various SPN quotes. I had a lot of fun making the fractals. I never knew what color combinations I would get, but some of them were so pretty! I now have over 50 of them in a folder waiting for those next steps.

:: LJ seems unusually quiet lately. In a way that's a good thing, right? No wank going on, that I know of anyhow. But it's boring with things so quiet. I want to post things, but who will see it? *sigh* Maybe things will pick up tomorrow with reports from the NJ Con. Jared may not be there, but Jim and Misha are. Wheee! Can't wait to start reading people's reports, looking at their photos and videos. :)


Okay, time to get to those comments. *dives in*

My license to kill....heh, heh, heh. >;)



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