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As part of my job I do about four bookmarks a month, sometimes more for special events (or just because a certain event such as one on stories as a tool of community preservation should NOT be placed on the other side of the bookmark I call "Hungry Kitten").

Occasionally, I actually proud of the work. (A lot of them are just cropped pictures that are PRET-TY.) And yes, I use clip art . The really fun ones are my black and whites (BW's): while we have white cover stock that handles color photo quality pieces well, my boss invested in these electric (bright, bright, bright!) colors of card stock which are just plain old fun. I suppose I can be less simplistic and do something with color ink on them but with my laziness guiding me, I just design everything around black print. (Less thinking is always good for me.)

The other thing is, I make sure at least half of what I do isn't overly feminine, hence the Lizards:

(I don't think I will do anything like this again....it took hours and I still see areas that don't look right because I can't crop at an angle....)

Anyways, that is all SOP for me and lately between making promo stuff for summer events, fall events and my computer classes I have been a little burned out. Which is probably why this month's BW's are a little off kilter: each one is kind of a mini-story...

Fish Friends

Hungry Kitten

 As head tilting as they may be, I absolutely adore them...I haven't liked anything so much since the lizards. It's kind of annoying really...I like them so much I show my co-workers and say "Isn't it cool? Aren't I fabulous?"

Total geek-out.

Visitor

So my mother is visiting me down in NC this weekend and this blog is suffering. Friday's post was a little weird and not alot of fun to write (I don't even want to read it over to check it out and see if it is as boring as my memory made it...and I'm not about to link to it either) so I can't imagine it's all that interesting to read.

Also because I have a visitor, I haven't done any work. The good part of the visit (besides getting to see my mom) is that she also packed up all my portfolios from past art classes, junior high to college, and brought me my favorite piece I ever made (with the exception of the series I did around a hand in front of railroad track. Perspective is so much fun to learn.): a collage we built in miniature then recreated on a larger scale.

Anyways...back to my guest.

Strange Affection

I have a great deal of affection for clip art. As campy or boring as a majority of the images are (the actual photographs they put in clip art can be great for a presentation but using too many of them is a bit of a soul sucker). I keepusing clip art to create promotional stuff for work...

Why? Because infringing on copyright makes my stomach go all sour.

Does this mean clip art is really within the public domain of free usage? I have no clue.

(I should probably clarify this...but that would require I stumble through the legalese of Microsoft, so do it yourself.)

Anyways, the reason I am still a fan of clip art probably has more to do with the functions in Microsoft Office Suite. I can recolor, I can make background color transparent, fading, color saturation....the old stand-by's of flip and rotate.

Basically I can take two black and white abstract designs and create this background:

The background pattern is entirely made by yours truly (can you hear the modesty or is that my imagination...oh, my imagination, got it). I did it for a book mark where I wanted an gingham-ish pattern in a rosy-brown.

I know this has no mail, no art and no philosophy but it is part of why I am enjoying my mailart projects so much. Sure someone else may have created the basic block you are using to create but you can still end up with something interesting and totally your own.