31.7.09

Keyboard cat Sold!

Woooo! :D

My eBay auction that I created for my Keyboard Cat Painting finished up yesterday afternoon while I was at work. Now I have sent an invoice with updated shipping costs and once payment has been made I'll pack her off and ship her out. *sniff*

It really was really enjoyable and relaxing making this painting. It has given me an idea to think about a subject matter that other people might enjoy and create some pieces to try and sell on eBay. At the moment I have a ton of other projects in the works, so this really isn't the greatest of times, but it's something to write on here and I can come back to it later.

List of possible subject matter:
- Trees (my favorite object to render)
- Cats (lots of peoples tend to like these)
- Flowers
- Blah

That's about all I've got this second. :D

I have also been thinking a lot lately about an installation project involving knitting (yay! knitting again!) And it does not involve Baby Hats or multiples of numbers this time. :)

It's still in the creation stages, i.e., Trying to make it not sound like a bunch of bantha-doodoo, but I'm getting kind of excited about it. Once I have a full proposal made up I have a couple places I'll try approaching about it. I was greatly influenced by a U of Guelph graduate named Kate Terry. My own project will incorporate the room a bit more, but her use of thread at certain points in a room got me thinking about the spirographs I used to play with when I was tiny. Then I started thinking about other craft-type products I used at that age and there sprung a seed for this new project.

We'll see what actually comes of it.

For now I'll spend the rest of my day looking at Keyboardcat while I can and reading more about Gimp. Too achy to go to the Gym. Blah.

So-long sweet kitty. I hope you are going to a good home. At least I know they appreciate your humour. :)

29.7.09

Distraction

Recently there has been quite a lul in the more immediately tangible aspects of my career. That is, I havn't been painting much at all. I chalk it up to crappy weather which has a bad tendency to influence my mood, and the fact that I have been attempting to experiment with the Gimp.

This lovely program is a freeware version of Photoshop. I personally don't find it performs quite to par since it works with RGB and lacks CYMK (there are ways of tweaking this, and I have attempted a plug-in called Separate, but have yet to use it properly. Call me lazy but Photoshop is easier when it comes to this, being built-in and all), and the fact that there is no easy "Flow" option for the paintbrush tool.

Did I mention my computer runs on Linux? Well, it, it does. :) There are ways of getting Windows and Mac based programs onto Linux (a product called Wine is handy), but I've tried iTunes on it and it is very slow and laggy. I don't believe my comp. is strong enough to use Photoshop through it as a result.

What I come accross in the past couple days though is a book called Grokking the Gimp. Written by a crazy smart and well-rounded guy named Carey Bunks (he's into Vaudville arts apparently), it is quite detailed and extremely helpful. It is also Open Publication. Find the index here to puruse at your own liesure. I have only gotten to chapter 3 but it has already put new faith back in me as to its abilities. Perhaps I won't get as frustrated once I have a better understanding of how the program works as opposed to simply not being able to find an equivalent to a Photoshop action.

So that's why I've been absent and have no current images up on here at the moment. We'll see how things go. With experiments sitting in .XCF format progress can only be guaged by the bar on the right of this site. :)

18.7.09

Threadless Keyboardcat Love!

For all who love and worship Keyboardcat there is now a T-Shirt with which you can pronounce your affections to the world! Well, it hasn't quite become a T-Shirt yet, but you have a chance to vote for it to become so! So you should do so! lol

Threadless, a website where people can submit images or text to possibly be put onto a T-Shirt, has, via Facebook has released one entitled: Three Keyboard Cat MoonIsn't it prettiness? *gush* I love the soft moon-glow about them all.

So go vote for it already!! ;)

In My Belly

Uploaded actual images of paintings I did in 2008. These came about because I was incredibly tired of knitting. (ALL of my projects in 2007 were knit or crochet-based) I craved working with oils and I have always been interested in macro images of food. So I started taking pictures of food I had already, was in the process of, or had just finished, eating. :D I thoroughly enjoyed creating these.

There. From top to bottom: Fudgicle, Cookie Dough, Berry Smoothy, Olive Oil Soy Sauce.

Fun Stuff. :D

17.7.09

just a post for Technorati

apparently I need to post a code so that they know I actually run this blog. :D

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Hope this works.

Jugglin' eggs that won't all fit in my basket

Right, so in an attempt to get more exposure to this site and to my art in general, I have neglected posting here. But I'm here now, yay!

So what have I been up to? Basically joining up with a lot of different Flickr groups, mostly ones that involve cats and paintings of cats. (Trying to bump up traffic for keyboardcat) I have also started a thread at the G4 channel website in the AOTS forum. It's for people who cannot join their keyboardcat competition due to the fact that they are not residents of the United States. There are some fantastical pieces. :) Last night they apparently showed off all the entries they had received from legitimate applicants. (Sadly I was working last night but I will be able to catch the repeat showing this afternoon)

I have also joined Deviantart which is an incredibly massive forum of artists (both visual and literary). On this site I have primarily uploaded images more along the illustrative side of my mind. I have found a renewed love of digitally-created art as well and have decided to pursue more projects along those lines. Below are two preliminary sketches that I will be attempting to hone using Gimp image-editing software (it's freeware quite comparable to Photoshop).


:) I expect many tedious hours in front of my laptop ... but that just happens to be my cup of tea. We'll see how things go.

I have also signed up with ebay to try and sell my keyboardcat painting. I really enjoyed creating it but I'd like to see what I could get for it. I'd also like to give 10% of the proceeds to the Guelph humaine society. We'll see how things turn out. I'll be posting a link once I actually create the listing. I'm thinking the beginning of next week (probably Monday).

7.7.09

Yeah, it's been a while

Blah-diddy blah, blah.
Alright, so I'm here now.
I have been quite lazy about writing on here but now I'm back and now this blog may get a bit more lovin'.

I've been spending a fair bit of time lately working on a website for my art which this blog is now a part of. www.hilart.ca

I've also finished an oil painting in tribute to keyboardcat that, though not in my gallery on my website, can be found on my flickr and deviantart accounts.

Here it is:

I actually had quite a lot of fun paintin' up this little guy. It's oil on canvas 23 x 35 inches.
As well, there's a competition currently in the works by AOTS (Attack of the Show) that allows viewers (unfortunately only USA residents) to submit their artwork of the keyboard cat. The winner will be displayed on the set of the show and a piece of the set will be sent to them, signed by the hosts. All the other pieces will be used towards a Kitten rescue program, which sounds pretty darn fantastic.

done for now.