Creative Fat Grrl

Creative Fat Grrl was a name I invented for myself when I wrote a web column for Lockergnome. I was looking for something that felt like me, not one of the bright, trendy and excitable young people who create energetic YouTube video posts on the side. It was something I could live up to without feeling left out. I kept it going for a couple of years. The name still works for creative arts sort of posts. Most of the posts in this category will be written for that column or others.

There are 2,969 posts filed in Creative Fat Grrl (this is page 5 of 297).

Tom Carter – Art from Vancouver 

            Tom Carter, artist, Vancouver, BC. His style reminds me of the old postcards, hand drawn looking with that sort of range of colours. I would call it muted, for lack of a better word. They look like something you could find (if you were lucky) in a thrift shop, a little time worn and dated but a treasure still.

Tom Carter Gallery

Tom Carter Artist on Facebook

I made screenshots of two of his set of Christmas cards, posted to Facebook, this year. I am far too late to order a set of cards. If I can afford a set, they would be great for next year.


Why Do All Our Ideas Have to be Good Ideas?

I’ve been feeling less than inspired for awhile. Sometimes I look for inspiration and ideas online. Most of the time I don’t find very much. I tend to rule out ideas that don’t seem they would work for me. Some are too challenging, not just hard, but far more than I could consider starting and hope to finish. Some just don’t fit with me, don’t suit me. As if they don’t apply to me. They just don’t seem like good ideas.

But, I found an article this afternoon which was about just that, in part.

Good ideas are generally hard to come by, even for the most talented artists.

Not every artwork is a true creative success. Assuming that you are stuck for inspiration, think of ideas you have put aside because you thought it was mediocre. The point is, to keep creating. As long as you produce artwork, there is always the chance of seeing something in your painting that inspires another.

Source – Artpromotivate – 20 Art Inspiration Ideas for Creativity

Why do I put aside some ideas too easily?

If an idea seems not right to me, why don’t I use that as a starting place to come up with something that does work for me? Isn’t that what inspiration is, really. Not finding something and using it just the way you found it, but to change and adapt it, to create something new and unique and original of your own.

So I’m going to pick up some of the ideas I put on the backburner and work with them. Even if I’m not happy with the results I will at least have done something. Made something new.

Have a Vibrant, Creative Blog with Simple Art you can Make Yourself

A blog needs to be visually appealing to stand out, attract and keep readers. The content, navigation and spelling alone don’t get noticed in that quick, first impression. Illustrations get noticed right away.

Of course, not everyone is an artist. Not everyone can draw or take time to learn to use graphic software. So most people borrow photographs and other images from other sites and people. Mostly everyone does it… kind of expected… even standard and sort of boring. Some of the images really have nothing to do with the post they are attached to. The image is just there for the sake of having an image. A place holder.

A great blog can do better. You can do better and, you don’t have to be a great artist or spend time learning anything complicated. You won’t need to spend money on new hardware or software (in most cases) either.

Here are ideas to get you started. With the following you can create a vibrant, unique and individual blog which will attract visitors to your blog.

If you have a digital camera get out there and take some photographs. Look at small things and see them up close and from different angels. Looks at groups and large quantities of things and photograph them. If you’re writing about building shelves, photograph one of the nails up close. Just put a white background (a sheet of paper works) behind the nail. Make sure you have enough light in the room and take the photo. Try a few at different angels and see which turns out best.

Scanner art is simple and straight forward too. Clip pictures from old magazines, advertising flyers. Turn them into a collage, arrange them on your scanner, use that same white sheet of paper over the top of your images before you scan. The white paper gives you an all white background, like a fill. Your image will be clean and ready to save for the web.

Hand drawn images will also work as scanned art. Draw a cartoon image. Use a real image, clip art, as inspiration. If you don’t feel comfortable with your drawing skills write out words in your own handwriting instead. Scan your drawing or your written words just as you did for the scanner art. Don’t forget the white paper as background.

Pixel art and ASCII art take some time to learn. Neither are really hard if you have some patience. Both will give you unique and creative images which no one else but you will have.

I have used all of these at one time. I continue to mix up ideas and create my own images. It doesn’t take a lot of time or effort. Of course, there is some time to learn the sills needed. However, you’re not making masterpieces to sell for millions, just an illustration for your blog.

Making Much of a Dent

I don’t think anyone volunteers to be forgettable, or forgotten. Maybe in some fictional story, but fiction doesn’t count.

But, just like we can’t know everything or meet and know every person (even just those alive while we are) we are going to be forgotten. It’s not something to make anyone feel particularly happy but, the good thing is, you won’t be here to know about it.

I do think we are reincarnated. But, that isn’t the same as remembering who you were. If you are reincarnated a dozen times do you really want to remember all of them and if you do, what would you do about it anyway? Time has gone. You have to move along with time or get left behind in it. Which is being forgotten all over again.

No matter how famous or infamous you are, nothing is permanent. Certainly not anything living. You could debate the definition of living. Is a gas living? Possibly. But, is that the same gas which was here billions of years ago. Similar, not the exact same and does gas have something which makes it alive? Something like a brain to feel and make decisions? Do we, as human beings, even know what passes for a brain of some kind among other living things? Jellyfish (I have heard on a science show) do not have brains. Yet, I’d say they are alive, living things. Maybe they do have a brain, its just not something we understand as a brain.

Science is amazing but we really know and understand almost nothing. The most true thing about anything is realizing how little you really know about anything once you start learning about it. Things look so much simpler from the outside when you really don’t know much about them at all.

That’s how we are all forgotten. No one really knows that much about any of us and we just aren’t that important enough in time and space to make much of a dent.

Bill Murray’s Personal Philosophy

Found this on an old blog post, one I had made in a blog I kept in mothballs.

I think the only reason I’ve had the career life that I’ve had is that someone told me some secrets early on about living. You can do the very best you can when you’re very, very relaxed, no matter what it is or what your job is, the more relaxed you are the better you are. That’s sort of why I got into acting. I realized the more fun I had, the better I did it. And I thought, that’s a job I could be proud of. It’s changed my life learning that, and it’s made me better at what I do. – Bill Murray

I Used to Write The Busy Person’s Guide to ASCII Art

This is what is left on the site, other than some links to other sites. I wrote a newsletter for this site but I didn’t think (at the time) to keep any copies of them. Wish I had! I can remember thinking of good ideas to write about but not what the actual ideas were any more. Now and then I try to find the newsletters, somehow. But, they are gone, just sent as email and not posted to the Internet. I’m not sure what year this would have been. Probably the early 2000’s.

Meet Your ASCII Art WZ-ard: Laura Tripp

Laura Tripp: ASCII Art was a mystery I had to solve. In July, 1996 while still a Net newbie, I thought the pictures made with keyboard characters were amazing. But actually making the pictures myself seemed so out of reach. I didn’t even know what they were called.

Finally, I found a site answering newbie questions and they emailed back and told me: ASCII Art! The mystery was solved! I made my first keepable picture January, 1998 (with the help of Albert and Joan on the Sig-List). ASCII Art became my special outlet for the drawing I have always wished I could do.

Some people, like my husband, say it’s outdated, a throwback to the 70’s. Little does he know, ASCII Art is still evolving and it started before computers. If you want to find out more and get help making your own ASCII Art and signatures, visit my Realm often.

And be sure to subscribe to my weekly 45-Second Newsletter. Explore the possibilities of ASCII Art as website promotion, an art form and a challenging but cheap, hobby.

LauraTripp@wz.com

Hello world!

This is a personal weblog, or website. Choose your poison. Long ago such things were common. Most have become extinct in the present time. I don’t count social media posting as a personal site. Typing in something, posting a link, a video or an image and moving on is less personal. Kind of impersonal.

This is my hello world post for the sake of WordPress, but I’m actually running ClassicPress, a fork of WordPress.

I will post more here, later. I have a LOT of content to move over and around from sites which I’ve been running since 1998. This domain began in 2002.

Ghostly Sighs in Cemteries 

            <img class="size-full wp-image-36 aligncenter" src="http://strangeontario.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cemeterysighs1.png" alt="" width="652" height="818" />I don't know if ghosts hang around cemeteries. I would think not. If you were deceased, there would be better places you could spend your time, if you were hanging around. But this illustration caught my attention today. Maybe a ghost would be sad, just about being not alive and not feel like being among the living. There have been stories about jealous ghosts, those jealous of the living. Not for any particular thing just the fact of being alive at all. So, ghosts might hang around cemeteries and graveyards. Maybe they would find friends there, those they had known before and those who they have things in common with now.

Image from The Gorgonist on Etsy.