The Artist's Eyes by Jenn Lee

“Get your motor running, head out on the highway,
Looking for adventure in whatever comes our way.” ~ Steppenwolf

As I sat here this morning looking back on the year past and thinking about the year just begun, these song lyrics just popped into my head…literally. What an inspirational and motivational quote for the new year!

Each year we sit and ponder new years resolutions…health, careers, relationships, changes of all types in an constant quest to make each year better than the year before. Instead of making new years resolutions this year, I decided I wanted a new year motivation/inspiration. I hear people all the time say “I wish I had stuck to my new years resolutions…” or “I broke my new years resolution…”, myself included. Finding your inspiration or motivation is key to meeting goals or expectations. Each goal requires steps to fulfillment.

While you sit there thinking about the goals or plans you want to complete this new year…think first about what inspires motivation for you. Think about what keys help keep your motor running. Then get out on that highway and find your adventures! On your mark…get set…go! Inspiration and motivation is an art…in this artist’s eyes. Happy new year everyone!

Here we are halfway into November, all the stores have fast forwarded from Halloween decor to Christmas. The retail industry screams, “Black Friday is coming! Mark your calendars!” Commercials on tv are all about deals for Christmas. Everywhere you turn including your mailboxes are reminders of Christmas and getting those presents for your loved ones before they run out. But what about Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving was a day of thanks that was created generations ago when America was birthed. Thanksgiving is the one day out of 365 in a year that we take a moment out of our busy lives to give thanks for everything in our lives. Of course five minutes of every day we could give thanks for at least one thing in our lives…right? But I admit even I take for granted the things in my life that I appreciate, love, need or have.

Like an epiphany, my mind runs through the things I have taken for granted in my life. Like a blind man given sight…all the colors all my senses are renewed. Sounds cheesy right? I’m sure some of you may think so, but seriously…think about it this morning..tomorrow morning, every morning. When you wake up, get that first sip of coffee to shake away the fuzziness…what am I thankful for?

While sipping my coffee I of course thought…I’m thankful for this coffee! ha-ha! But seriously, I am thankful each morning that I wake up. Thankful for the love of my life sleeping peacefully next to me and all the wonderful ways we show each other how much we appreciate each other as well as, he’s also my best friend. I am thankful for all four of my beautiful children and their good health. I am thankful for my family and the time spent with those that have passed. I am thankful I have a nice home for all of us to live in and all three of our wonderful kitties to share it with.

I am thankful for the wonderful friends that are in my life. Even though life speeds by at times and we get caught up with things that keep us from seeing each other as often if at all…my friends are always in my heart and mind. I am thankful for the smiles and laughter, the hugs and time shared, knowing we all are there for each other in times of need as well as times for fun.

I know this seems sappy in some minds, but seriously, take a moment…look around you…what do you see? What do you see that you take for granted? Finding things to be thankful for surrounding you isn’t difficult, just open your eyes, you will be surprised at what you come up with. It’s enlightening and well worth it….in this artist’s eyes.

When I first started a serious interest in art, I was always going through tons and tons of paper, canvas’s, pencils, paints and supplies. I always had boxes of past artwork stored here and stored there. As the years have gone by and multiple hassles with moving around, I have either given away or tossed many art pieces. This is why I love my tablet PC….

In today’s day and age, we are all about technology and gadgets. I had purchased a ThinkPad X41 Tablet PC awhile back, for it’s portability and tablet technology. Much like a Wacom digital tablet, it utilizes a full screen touch point ability for use with a stylus. There are several reasons I believe that this is a great asset to an artist like myself.

One reason I believe it’s a great asset is because I am primarily an ECO friendly artist. I try to keep my imprint on the environment as little as possible with my use of non toxic materials, recycling and reuse of materials. With using a tablet/touch pad PC, I have the ability to draw, paint or sketch out ideas all digitally. With this technology I do not have to use any paper, paint or other materials. It not only reduces my material usage, it but frees up a huge amount of office storage space as well.

Another reason I think it’s a great asset is its portability. As a business woman, I need to have a portable portfolio. Having the convenience of being able to carry my portfolio with me is great. As well, when I am quoting a commission, being able to sketch out ideas on location or digitally sign contracts on the tablet PC, increases productivity.

Recently I decided to add switching my OS (Operating System) as well. Mind you I know Microsoft is popular, and standard on any PC purchase besides a Mac, but we are not limited to it. This laptop came with XP Tablet version installed. Though it was nice to power it up and go, it was not as speedy as I would like, plus XP is a retiring OS, which means I will have to switch it out in the near future. Knowing this, the newer Microsoft OS’s will not run efficiently on this laptops specs. With those things in consideration as well as input from my good friend Jason of Webfoo, and his knowledge and passion for Linux, I decided to try running Linux on it.

Linux is an Open Source operating system. The impressiveness of the Linux community building/creating a completely free OS is amazing of itself, as well the amount of people in the community that donate so much time and energy adding to, fixing issues and developing of their own free will and time spent.

With the successful installation of Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 on my little tablet PC, I immediately noticed a more than significant increase in speed. This alone was a moment of pride and excitement. Pride because I consider myself a complete beginner in working with Linux and excitement that it installed and was configurable without a hitch.

Not only was I able to install the operating system, the free applications available are amazing. I hear a lot of people talk about the amount of applications they can get on their iPhones and iPads with Apple, but at a cost. Again I reiterate, the free resources available in the Linux community is astounding.

If you consider getting a tablet PC, Ubuntu is definitely something to do a little research on. GIMP is like Photoshop. It has many brushes, actions and tools just like Photoshop, but without any of the cost. It has a wonderful application called MyPaint that definitely competes with Adobe Illustrator as well. From my standpoint, MyPaint has the full range of capabilities you have with drawing or painting on a canvas that mimics real life. Did I mention these too are free? Some things to think about…in this artist’s eyes.

When we bought our home, I was absolutely excited about this project…creating a Koi pond. I had always said when I had a house that I owned I wanted one. Thankfully John was in total agreement with me!

It took us awhile to get to this project but in the end it was the artistic vision we had imagined. We slowly collected the rock from various places around our city which served dual purpose in doing so. It was an ECO friendly way to re-purpose a natural resource, as well as giving us something that meant more to us than a trip to the local rock quarry.  Being able to say “That came from the riverbed by Johns parents.” or “That came from that spot we love to take environmental photography.” personalized it way more for us.

Our good friends let us have their old pond liner, the rocks came only with sweat equity and the little long finned goldfish were also donated. In the end we paid for the waterfall pump equipment to the tune of $200, a few small succulents planted around the edges $35, and the small Japanese Maple we picked out for it’s character $20. Every bit of the energy and time put into the creation of this small artistic project, will forever imprint on us memories personal to us.

As an artist and John, a photographer, the enjoyment we get from visual stimulation is as good as gold. We enjoy going out every evening to watch our little fish and listen to the waterfall as we sit and talk about the days events…..pure heaven and priceless….in this artist’s eyes.

I have been tasking my patience dealing with computer issues the past week. I say tasking because I haven’t quite gotten to the point where I have lost my patience and had images of hurling my computer out my window yet, he-he.

I know that it would probably be a lot less stressful to take my PC to a technician and have them trouble shoot it, but the thought of spending that much money on it seems unnecessary to say the least.

After a week of trouble shooting, I found that the video card was the culprit. Back in the early 90’s I was a die hard ATI fan. Then I started having issues with their cards overheating or not being able to last very long. Since then I have been buying Nvidia cards.

Now saying that, is no different than a photographer saying “I prefer Nikon over Canon“. There are good points to both brands but some features are more important to some people vs others. The same goes with video cards. There has always been an argument over ATI vs Nvidia and which is better.

I will say since I started using Nvidia I had been happier with the longevity and reliability for sure…until this card. Up until the Nvidia Geforce 9500 GT, all of my Nvidia graphics cards have had better cooling support. This card seems to heat up more than my past cards and since I also bought one for John’s PC, it has come to the conclusion that this particular card is faulty.

Now you are probably wondering why I am rambling on in this post about my computers video cards aren’t you? Well it’s because as an Freelance Artist and part time Artistic Consultant, I am on my computer or referencing my computer many hours a day. Having a working PC is very important as well as one that can handle a graphical workload. When you are tasking your PC with programs like Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator, Vector graphics programs or any graphically intense programs, take considerable notice in any machine you are thinking about purchasing or upgrades to existing machines you are thinking about and do plenty of research into the user/customer ratings and reviews before buying…a good tip…in this artist’s eyes.