No. This is not me.
This is a portrait of one of the witches that lived under my bed. It was one of my first drawings.
These witches had the disagreeable habit of terrorising me after dark. Then, one day, my mother gave me some important news. “Witches,” she informed me, “are very small. Not much bigger than your thumb.” My thumb at that time being somewhat insignificant, I no longer found it necessary to cover my head with the sheet when I went to bed.
Witch. Life size.
This portrait is more or less to scale. I hope you will find it much less frightening
Did that teach me the importance of imagination? At six or so I already knew it. Maybe I was even then beginning to forget it. I know what Picasso meant when he remarked that it took him a lifetime to learn to draw like a child.
I’m still an artist and I do love to show my art, but a gallery is not enough. I hope that as well as giving you a few tips on my current passion, touch tablet painting, my blog may cause you to look at the world in a new way.
When I say ‘look at’ I mean that literally. After all, my blog is called ‘Seeing Things’. I hope you will. I’m fascinated by how we see and remember things. Drop me in a library and I will head straight for the psychology shelves. I’ve been listening to some fascinating podcasts on the latest neurological research. A photon or two of proper light is beginning to fall on the dim and largely undiscovered world of our vastly complex brains and how they function.
Who am I to be your guide?
I like to think of my approach to life as creatively scientific. There may be quite a few adjectives people apply to me when they think I’m not listening. Otherwise the one they most often choose is ‘creative’.
Well, what does come to me as naturally as breathing?
Drawing does. Writing doesn’t.
Why am I witing a blog then?
Why was I an advertising copywriter?
How did I get an Oxford degree in English?
Maybe I have to go right back to what first inspired me. Long, long ago, my mother took me to my first movie, Snow White. I remember even asking her where to look for the picture. When it appeared I was body and soul enthralled. At the end I refused to leave the cinema.
I think I am still there. The witch no longer holds such terror, and whenever I experience an inspiring book or film, I long to create a similar land that is all my own. Words are necessary as well as pictures.
When the internet came into being, it was an open doorway to a world where I could be creative to my heart’s content in both words and pictures.
PS If you really want to know what I look like, visit Julia’s Portrait Party at Flickr.
COME ALONG NOW, PUT YOUR WORST FACE FORWARD!
PAINTER 12 BRUSHES
Great Post!! Thank you very much!
Congratiulations on the Award!! Saw your blog now for the first Time! Its great!
Thanks Simki68! delighted you like it.
Congratulations Valerie on the award!!
http://goldenretrevoawards.com/mobileartmediamusic
Thanks very much Matthew! My congratulations to you too.
Hello Valerie
Congratulations! Because Seeing Things was one of the best blogs this year in the Mobile Art, Media & Music category, you’ve won a 2011 Golden Retrevo Award for outstanding feats in indi gadget/tech blogging! You can check out all of this year’s winners (including yourself) here: http://www.goldenretrevoawards.com
What To Do Now: (besides jump up and down)
- Get The Winner’s Badge – Here is the badge code for your site:
- Tell your friends on Twitter and Facebook:
Seeing Things just won a Golden Retrevo Award (http://goo.gl/8ZSQ3) in the Mobile Art/Media category!
- Check out the Golden Retrevo Award Press Release: http://goo.gl/okcOC
- Look for Retrevo to start linking to some of your articles from our Facebook page (of over 55K fans). http://www.facebook.com/retrevo
- Some of your articles (with your permission) may be selected for reprinting and linking in our newsletter and/or on Retrevo.com (which sees over 5M monthly visitors).
Again, congratulations. It’s blogs like Seeing Things that make the world of independent gadget/tech blogging so fun and interesting. We look forward to seeing the content you produce in 2011!
Thank you,
Jennifer Jacobson, Public Relations Director of Retrevo Inc.
About Retrevo
Since its founding in 2006, Retrevo.com has grown into one of the largest, most trusted consumer electronics shopping and review sites in the world, helping shoppers decide what gadgets to buy, when to buy, and where to buy them. Retrevo uses Artificial Intelligence to sort through over 50 million online gadget-related data points to review about 97% of gadgets on the consumer electronics market (daily). Retrevo then applies its design and user interface expertise to guide shoppers to the right gadgets and gadget accessories. Retrevo is a well known Silicon Valley based company that has recently been featured in such publications as Time’s TechLand, AFP, Fortune, Wired, BBC, SmartMoney, Mashable, TWICE, and Electronic House.
Hi Owl,
wanted to tell you about our new iPhone app called Magic Artist. You can snap a pic, and it will then draw that photo onto a blank canvas… paint stroke by paint stroke! (I can email you a promo code so you can try it for free, please let me know: philipp.lenssen@gmail.com) Favorite results can then be saved to the photo album. Here’s a video demo: http://youtube.com/watch?v=cKAEndFxMTY — and here’s the App Store page with more screenshots: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app.....43965?mt=8
hope this is of interest, thanks
Philipp
Me again.
I was hoping you could list “iCreated” on your blogroll of “Art of the iPhone”since it contains hundreds of pieces of original iPhone / iPad art and is updated daily.
The app also has a Apps page that has mini-reviews of over 250 art and photography app, each linked to the iTunes store, so it would also be a great addition to your “Websites of the Art apps” section.
It’s free this month, so please download it, look it over, and consider my requests.
Thank you , and
Regards,
David
iCreated is indeed full of information as well as inspiration! Marvellous. You’ll now find a link to it on the sidebar, and I do hope whoever reads this will go off and explore it. Well worth it! Thanks very much.
I’d love to contact you guys, to let you know about my app “iCreated”.
It promotes iPhone art, and links art to iPhone apps.
Please contact me dleibo@mac.com, so we can talk.
Regards,
David Scott Leibowitz
http://stone.com/icreated/index.html
http://tinyurl.com/icreated
http://stone.com/icreated/Press_Release.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leibo
http://www.leibo.net
Thanks for letting me know, David.
Oh! How I relate to all of this! I’ll go with you to the library — you head to your psychology section, I’ll go to the Arts section. And the Literature.
Then we’ll meet in the Readers’ lounge (the one with all the tall windows and lots of daylight and comfy furnishings, and trade articles and book sections. (I’ll sneak in a couple thermoses of hot coffee.) You can keep your “studio” on as long as it’s on silent.
And what you wrote about creating your own fantasy worlds from great films and books is right on! I’ve been doing that from the time I first read Heidi of the Alps.
You may not write as breathing, but it sure seems so. I love your humor and how you see the world, and then how you present it here. Creatively scientific. That’s a lovely thought.
One last thing, my friend. My degree is also from Oxford… er, that is, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
Delighted you brought that hot coffee Barb! We can spend many a happy hour in that library.
Hello,
This is Rose writing from http://www.huliq.com. I visited your blog and liked your content.
Would you be interested to send us a guest post on any of the issues related to the topics that you cover in your blog. We will publish it in our site http://www.huliq.com
In return with each guest blog we will give one link in the author’s biline back to your blog. We only ask that the guest post ( we prefer it be a news coverage, sources can be Google News, CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo News, BBC and others) be a unique story and not be published in your blog.
HULIQ is indexed by Google News and Google requires that the length of the unique news is at least 5 paragraphs. We desire it to be at least 6 paragraphs if possible. And that all need to be a unique content. Once you send us a new story totally unique we will immediately publish it with you link in it, and within 15 minutes it should be indexed by Google News.
Please let me know if you may have any questions about http://www.huliq.com.
If you want to consult the topic with me first that’s perfectly fine as well.
Many thanks
Hello Owl,
Pleased to meet you.
You have produced a very detailed witch.
May I ask, when you sketched her?
Hello Ana. I drew this witch when I was around six or seven. Since Hitler often shared the dust balls and cobwebs under the bed with the witches, you may judge that that was rather a long time ago!
Hi Kevin,
I just recoloured the background image. This is a little striped, stick-shaped rectangle called bg.jpg which is repeated along the top of the screen to make the panels. It is to be found if you go to to your blog –> themes –> amazing-grace –>wp-content –> images –> bg.jpg (Hope I haven’t missed any folders out but you’ll find it I am sure.)
Just recolour it as you wish and replace the bg.jpg with your own version.
Valerie:
On Vladimir Prelovac’s website you mentioned changing the background color of your header – could you let me know how you did that? Thanks.
Kevin
But did I see the owl flying over St Anne’s this lunchtime? Plenty other fascinatingly uninteresting people there…