Thursday, 10 August 2017

PROTECTING MY WORK ONLINE


Regardless of what Oscar Wilde had to say, its not nice when your work gets stolen and reused without your permission. Therefore, its a good idea to take some steps to protect your images when you post them online. Check out  http://www.howdesign.com/design-career/on-the-job/protect-your-work-online/ to get some ideas. I think using a watermark is probably the most effect method and the hardest to by-pass. 

Also, why not consider addressing the issue directly ? I am going to do this when I update my web site next. I am thinking of adding something like the following :-

"If you want to use my images for your own purposes please contact me and just don't nick them. I am always happy to share my work and won't always charge for images, especially if you want them for your own personal use."

At the moment I am reading Show your work!: 10 ways to share your creativity and get discovered by Austin Kleon. Since I am going to take on board a lot of the advice given in this book and start making my work more visible I reckoned it was time to start watermarking my images.




What design to use for my watermark ?

My father always used a metal embossing stamp on his Celtic silkscreen prints. When he passed away in 1994 I inherited the stamp and continued the tradition, stamping all my own Celtic work with it. My father designed the stamp in the '70s using his initials and lucky for me I have the same initials, so it seems the perfect design for my new watermark.





                    CREATING MY WATERMARK



First I photographed a sample of the stamp and uploaded it to my computer. Then It was time to edit the image in my image editing software using my lovely new WACOM tablet. Once I had traced the design, I made the background transparent so that it can be overlay-ed on an image and adjusted the opacity to get the watermark effect.



JOB DONE !

Thursday, 24 March 2016

BACK TO LIFE, BACK TO ART

HOORAY !       Spring is here.

Finding my way back to being an artist after a long dark winter.

My very first blog !

After a couple of weeks of torrential rain followed by some pretty cold weather, today as I write this all the windows and doors are open and it is the start of Spring in Tuscany. 
For me it also feels like Spring on the inside, in my head.


The Skellig Islands, West of Ireland with Montecatini Val di Cecina, Tuscany in the background.

After a pretty tough year and a half in which I fell out of love with my art and barely went into my studio I am finally getting back to work. This is all very good news as being an artist is pretty important to me - I guess I don't know how to be anything else.

So, back to work. First up some house keeping - refurbish my website and  I definitely have got to clean my studio, vacuum the cobwebs and clear out all the junk that has absolutely nothing to do with art and its creation.

I know the coming weeks and months won't be easy - the sun doesn't always shine in Tuscany !

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