art/idea recs

Here are some visuals links I think you might find interesting:

dolphin_daze is working on a tarot deck on her website. I can't give the art an A, but it is interesting and the composition of the pictures is intriguing. The ideas of the deck, however, are an A+. She has about a dozen cards posted so far. Lee, I would especially like to hear your opinion.

Monster Movie Tarot

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echoriath posted this link for Sean O'Boyle's photographs: the Modern Ruin project. It took me about three clicks to realize where I had seen them before - Annaliese shuttergal had sent me there a while ago. There are two people of obvious taste, so you don't have to take my words for it - it is strange and beautiful, and very interesting.

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przed wrote in her journal about seeing a documentary about Andy Goldsworthy and sent me off to track it down.

I love Andy Goldsworthy's work. He is a British Environmental Artist. I discovered him quite by accident about six years ago when I sat down (as I so often do) in the Art and Photography section of Borders when my back gave out. It was the book next to my hand and I fell in. Jim has since gotten three of his books for me - Wood, Stone, and (my favorite) A Collaboration With Nature.

He does amazing ephemeral sculptures of feathers, wood, sand, thorns... using *nothing* (with the occasional exception of ice) to hold them together. They are very zen, sort of Buddhist-Amerind in the sand painting sense and completely amazing.

I wrote in her journal that the ice fascinated me most of all, and the strength all balanced on fragility, the snap of a twig, a degree of temperature, and the center will not hold - and yet, the work is visible proof that they can, and do hold - if all work together.

She had written a drabble in the same entry about the Fellowship, and we agreed that this is the heart of both.

I found the documentary available for pre-order at Amazon, and put it in my cart.

icon update

I am sure you guys know my icon site has updates all the time with all the graphics games I play in, but I have a few I especially want to show, so a little round of icon update:

this one won over at musicontest this week - I don't think because of any talent of mine, but for the idea of putting these particular George Harrison lyrics next to Bean's eye:


and this I made with lilithilien in mind (If you prefer him simpsons-yellow, let me know)


I made this tonight in a game where I had to use this border. That's Annaliese shuttergal at the infamous box-car shoot - I just wanted her to know I was thinking of her


and I thought edrys might need this:



and just some random ones:

Feedback

The section outside the cut has been slightly edited after sleeping

This is not a rant, but we got our Mithril comments back and I do have a few things I want to say. I am keeping them here, because I really have no interest in the big brouhaha.

I want to talk about Jim's feedback first, (and this is as close to a rant as I will get.) Jim got this remark as part of his feedback on his story Whistling Past The Graveyard though what annoys me about it is not specific to the story:

Very atmospheric, though the gap it fills is not necessarily one that needs filling.

I do understand what this reviewer means, or I think I do - but that isn't what is being said. Please! It's fanfiction - either *every* gap is worth thinking about or *none* is.

If none, we can all hang up our pixels, folks.

Jim's vignette contrasts the way two different members of the fellowship, raised in two different cultures, react when confronted with the dead. It also, though seen through Boromir's eyes, gives us a look at Gimli's culture, and how the fellowship allow his spiritual needs to take the lead in the desecrated graveyard of Moria, where the dead are his own.

If these things are not worth considering, none of my little parallel symbolism moments has any reason to exist either.

I can feel myself getting a little ranty, so I will stop there and let you tell me what you think about that statement.

Inside the cut is my feedback, both good and bad and for the moment, without comment. (What I am leaving out is feedback on Corsairs, which was a collaboration)

I am slightly infamous at HASA for showing my review decisions without permission. Sorry - you gave them to me, they're mine now. Generally I only show my declines because I am not about to edit a story without getting more than one opinion.

I seldom edit a story at that stage, since I don't usually show them until I think I am done, and there is no future in trying to please everybody. But I have gotten some excellent suggestions for improving a spot, bandied them about in my forum, and fixed them.

This entry is meant to give me a permanent record, but I also welcome comments, pro and con. In a day or two I will be asking a couple of specific questions about places I am considering editing.

( feed (back) the fileg )

drive by

two quick things:

two photos at arwen_elvenfair's journal
click, and laugh


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Things I already love about PhotoshopCS

01. Adjust--> Shadow/Highlights

02. Adjustment Layer --> Photofilter

03. Interface for Artistic Filters

04. Color Replacement Tool


I have bought my three favorite PS books in the new CS versions:
Adobe Photoshop CS Down & Dirty Tricks
Photoshop CS Killer Tips (Killer Tips)
The Adobe Illustrator CS Wow! Book (Wow!)

so I hope to be cruising at speed soon