Rambling

Sparring ~

sumariel — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 03:27:30 +0000

Just heard from an old verbal sparring partner from High School, and that was a loooooong time ago. I am hoping he will join me here to spar again like old times. We used to be part of a group not unlike the Breakfast Club. That was fun.

Since I no longer see Y’shua as God Incarnate, I am hoping for some interesting debates on the subject, and since my friend has continued, or so it would seem, as an active member of the Baptist church, this could be fun. Proper debate is polite and gracious, and I know my friend is capable of that, the public is invited to join us with that rule in mind. One need not agree with any point brought to the table, but one must always state one’s rebuttal in a gracious manner.

Site changes are in place ~

sumariel — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:26:49 +0000

The newly designed pages are up, Robertsloan2 a friend of mine from Deviantart has already given me one of the best gifts I could have gotten, as one of the things I was after was softening the page because of eye burn from black on white. I did have fun learning how to do all that. And still have a ways to go before Piquance is ready to fly, need to take some time out to do my nephew’s animals for his birthday. Thanks for looking!

P.S. The software is irritating me because it refuses to allow me to display the image wrapped right. Frustrating!

I haven’t been lazy, honest ~

sumariel — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:30:50 +0000

I have been designing Piquance, the site where my computer stuff will be. This is because the site I now have “up” has both my watercolors and my cg stuff. They really don’t belong on the same site. And I have done some different things with the Wild Garden Art site. I have found out what I was doing wrong on the background thing. It was definitely me that was the glitch, you knew that.

This is the background, now, as it goes quite well with the theme of Wild Gardens. All the pundits say to find a theme, and I had already had one, not consciously, but because of my own proclivity toward drawing the wild ones. The other stuff, though, is not at all about wild animals or of providing a home for them, but has more to do with the silliness, the sweetness, and the tartness of life. Hence the name Piquance. I have already started the blog that will go with that, which seems in my view to be getting the cart before the horse, but, oh well, it’s coming well also, http://piquancy.wordpress.com.

This is the logo as it will look on the new pages, not too different from the last, but has a background of willow leaves and is clear so the cerulean parchment shows through. I know all this stuff must bore anyone reading it, but it will provide me with records of when I did what, at least until someone starts visiting the sites and I get a dialogue going with someone, dialogues are much more fun than monologues, that’s why so many blogs fail. Most people don’t talk to themselves enough to enjoy just babbling on. Anyway, I hope to have everything ready to go up within the week, that’s the goal, now let’s see if I can keep it.

Accomplishments? It’s a good thing I’m not getting paid!

sumariel — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:06:28 +0000

It’s been a fun week, I have done a lot and accomplished nothing. I have been experimenting with backgrounds for the website, and buttons, and all sorts of “improvements”. I did like the willow leaf as a button. It sort of seems to go along with the Wild theme. I am working on other things that may find their way onto the site, if I can figure out what I am doing.

I have been using Netscape 7.2′s composer to put it together, and ran into a glitch that I wasn’t sure was the composer or me, and since it is no longer supported, I was lost as to how to find help. I find that Mozilla has a newer browser, the Seamonkey, that has the composer built in, so am using it, as of this morning. Unfortunately, it looks as though I am the glitch not the software, which means I need to ask some questions or find some instructions, however, that is the point in using a software that has support. And that is what I shall do. I have been trying to use an image as a background, and it won’t stick in the user menu, and It won’t show up when I try to put it in the html, so I must be doing it wrong, and need to find out what it is I missed in all the instructions.

There are a lot of wonderful papers and images that could work as backgrounds if I can figure out what I am doing. Soft and subtle textures and colors that add to rather than distract from the print. But . . . . .Ya gotta be smarter than the software, eh? So, I will just keep rambling, and figure what I learn now will help me somewhere later.

Hey, Good morning,

sumariel — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:41:56 +0000

I have been working on learning how to put buttons on my site rather than just straight links, you know, where the menu is on the left, that sort of thing, I have learned how to create the buttons in PSPXI, now the trick is having them coordinate and look like they are part of a wild garden, these actually look to ‘neat” as in carved for a wild garden, so I may still continue to learn and see if I can learn to make some “wild” buttons.

Added a new design to both website and cafepress, not a startling one, as it fits with the experimentation with punctuation marks I have been doing. It is called the asperand, which seems to be a “new” name, as it has been so often misnamed the ampersand. I am thinking about finding a couple of other truly fun punx so that I can make a “set” for cups and things like that. Well, it will be fun exploring possibilities.

I am also wanting to expand my section on the watercolors of the little wild ones, so that each has it’s own page, and my readers can see what it will look like on a T-shirt before they venture off my site over to cafepress. I am not sure whether that will make a difference, but, sometimes, seeing the product can be just the incentive that says, “Oh, yeah, that looks cool, I want one.’ We’ll see.

Anyway, it is all good, and fun, and keeps me busy and out of other people’s hair. And, say, sometimes that truly is all good. Thanks for taking the time,

Soon,

Suzi

My new website is up!

sumariel — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:17:07 +0000

This time the website is one I was able to design from A-Z, that was fun, but a lot of work. I have a new appreciation for the designers of the templates that are all over the web. I am actually hoping to take an idea I got from one and put it into practice, but it may take some experimentation. It uses a drawing and the look of vellum on the site, I like the idea, as vellum just looks and feels rich.

A friend of mine spoke about the business of the slavery being a bit jarring on an otherwise almost bucolic site. I think I may have to use a different formulation, I am not sure, I may just go ahead a create a small network of sites that address certain things, as that would keep the art site from being confused.

If I do that, it will be my goal to make the entire network about learning to honor the Sacred Space of all living beings. Seems a bit ambitious, and I may go at it a piece at a time. I am trying at the moment to think of what to call the hub site. Sacred Space has been used to mean so many things that I am not talking about that I may have to develop something for this that will stand on it’s own. I am thinking about simply using the term “honoring” as in honoring one’s sacred self, honoring other humans, honoring other corporate life forms and honoring Spirit. We’ll see how that works. All that I have written for the book could then be worked into those sites, so I won’t have to invent the wheel for all the copy for the sites.

It might just work out!

Answering a complaint, lol ~

sumariel — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:01:05 +0000

Crystal has “complained” that she doesn’t just want to hear about my artwork, she wants to hear about Suzi. So I will try to include some of my own difficulties in my blog. One of my issues is that I dislike rather strongly concentrating too much energy on negatives, and my health has been steadily becoming more and more of a challenge. I am dealing with consistent and chronic UTI’s. That is not to be unexpected, but it is a pain in the back . . . . . .and sides . . . . . .and groin, not to mention the trips to the BR.

Now that you all know my physical condition, mentally, I have some down days, but that is the purpose of being on the internet so much, to keep too busy to concentrate on the down side. And that is also the reason for doing the drawings. I love them, I love how they look when I have finished with them and I love that they add joy to other people’s lives. And with the cafepress account, there is also the possibility of adding to my income enough to pay for some of my necessities, you know, like shampoo and body wash? (Clicking on the sparrow will take you to the cafepress page that shows the items he can be imprinted on.)

These past few weeks I have been concentrating on getting the adsense accounts with Google set up, that makes it so that ads on my sites and blogs will be more focused on what I offer, and not detract as much as enhance. That’s a nice thing, especially when, with adsense, there is the possibility of my actually making a bit of money from the ads also. I am also writing on a place called hubpages. The articles there have been fun, and I am enjoying that little venture. Here is an article I wrote on Sacred Space. Again, the articles I write at that site have the potential to make me a bit of money.

Anyway, with the internet, and the art, I do manage to have fun, even though I terribly miss that zany bunch of friends from Indiana!!

Love to all,

Suzi

Gonna have to change ~

sumariel — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:41:29 +0000

What an ugly thought, change! However, there are those who say that is the only constant in the Universe, so I guess the only answer is to “Get used to it!” However, Texas weather is so boring, (and when it gets exciting it gets dangerous, so people actually pray for boring.) That I think I shall have to find another intro to my blog. Perhaps the wild ones that are so much a first love, I would enjoy that, perhaps you all would as well. Start over?

There, that’s better, a new Wild child every day. I think that will maybe keep me busy for a bit, as well as providing some different pictures and things to concentrate on. I am working up the courage to start on the series of three for my nephew. I have them all rounded up, and let me think, yes, at least two of the references are in the public domain, so I could show you them before I have drawn them out. And I could give you a link to the poster that will be the reference for the third.

This one is from Wiki, I love that source for references, their pictures are in the pd or they won’t list them. Then Taja, from pdphotos, I believe, what gorgeous fellows, all, eh? It is going to be a bit of a challenge to do justice to all of them, but I try to collect a number of references, so that details I can’t see in one photo, because of angle or size of photo, will show up in another and allow me to get more dimension in my piece.

When I was working on my vixen, the beginning pic, I had to go to a reference of the skeleton because I could not tell from my photo reference where the shoulder should be. When I drew it in where the skeleton showed it should be, I went back and looked at my photo reference, and there it was, so subtle I had missed it, but there, nevertheless. Well, have a lovely day, Ttfn, (Tigger’s tata for now!)

Suzi

Been too hot to think ~

sumariel — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:52:09 +0000

I know, I know, but remember, I come from Indiana where it gets hot and humid, too, however, Texas is just enough further south that hot to these folks literally could fry eggs on the sidewalk.

Enough of that, have had some fun with the website, I am kinda stuck on that slavery business. That is just messing with me. I know it shouldn’t, it’s been around forever, but, we live in a time when the humanity of our fellow travelers should matter more than that. So, I have been doing more on the Free the Slaves page. I added a T-shirt design that is quite simple, and says “Free the Slaves, with an acclamation point after the sentence. I posted it, no money for myself, not that the kids or any one will take me up on it, but it’s worth a try. Anyway, I have been doing stuff like that instead of getting busy on my art, bad girl.

I found that I already had a lovely gallery to show my work since I have a live.com account. Silly woman that I am, I have been all over the internet looking for a suitable album with which to show my work in a quick but elegant format that would let people peruse my work without all the rest of the stuff if they didn’t want to see all the “green” widgets, and “wildlife” widgets, and “bee” widgets, and anything else I can think of that’s widget crazy.

So, I have more work to do there, since I just realized I had the durned thing last night. So, I am off to do some fixin’, then, perhaps I ought to do some art. I have more projects ahead of me that I need to get to work on, I have promised Jean, my SIL, a triptych for Ryan, we are looking through “big cat” pics for the right ones, that will be fun. I do like the big cats, Ryan will have a birthday full of them as there is one clouded leopard that I was going to do for him, though now I am thinking of one that’s a tiger cub caught in a tree.

This photo is in the public domain, so I can post it, and the wonderful thing is, if I need some input from people that are better artists than myself, I can go to Wetcanvas and post the pic as well as my work. The clouded leopard that I intend to use for the pose is not in the public domain, so I cannot post it, but there is a reference from Wikipedia, and those are always PD. I do think the clouded leopard is such a pretty cat, and this one is going to be fun to do. I am always thankful to folks like the ones at Wikipedia, they make looking for references so much easier, since, when you know what it is you are seeking, it is always easier to spot it in the throng.

Fair ~

sumariel — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:11:00 +0000

That was the weather as it was reported today, but whatever the weatherman said, add HOT to it. I have spent a lazy day, well sort of. My brother and his son went off to a Boy Scout camp, yeah those thoughts went through my mind too, but I thought it best to keep my mouth shut, as my SIL is a worrier. She has talked to them and they are having fun and are busy.

I haven’t done much with the art today, though i have worked a tiny bit more on the wren, and have found a Great Blue Heron I want to do. I’ve putzed, puttered, watched a bit of the history channel and basically been a chair potato, since I never sit on the sofa. I have also found a web image editor that has a nice simple border for my pics, without having to put my poor little computer through the trauma of opening up PSPXI, I love that program, and all it can do, but my puter thinks the program’s too big for it, and hesitates a lot. Take care,

Suzi