More Freebies

I found these free pics and over 700K more at Freepik.com, which allows you to download any of them without strings. All you're asked to do is provide a photo credit line, which they provide already coded for your web site or blog. There is a daily limit (five images, I think) if you use the site as a guest, but if you register for a free user account you can get at more.

Image Credits:

Roses: Designed by Freepik

Clock: City image created by Www.slon.pics - Freepik.com

Mask: Designed by Freepik

Pic Testing

Ignore me today. I'm playing again with Blogger's photo upload thing.



The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

Or not.

I'm finally getting the hang of it, I think. Thanks for your patience.

Focus

To practice what I preach, one of the new habits my guy and I are trying to get into is taking long nature walks. I'm bringing the camera with me so I can grab some interesting shots, which are helping me pay more attention to the little details around me.

Being outdoors, and away from the internet and the computer, always unravels my internal mental knots. Obviously the exercise is beneficial, but I also sleep better. My creativity skyrockets, too. More than anything I soak up all the natural beauty out there, just waiting to be discovered, and let it inspire me in new ways.

Here are some pics I took on our last walk:











Over the last couple years I've gotten away from using my camera for anything but my quilting and family-related events. So now, even when we're just out for the day running errands, I'm looking for new opportunities to take some interesting pics:





There's always something around the house or in the back yard that catches my eye, too:





While I don't have time to start another photoblog, and I'm not inclined to sign up with another photo-hosting service (shudder) I might put up a gallery page on PBW with some of the interesting pics I take this year. That will prod me to keep taking the camera with me on my little adventures.

Got any interesting (and PG-rated) photos you've taken lately? Share your links in comments.

Pardon My Bubbles

Pay no attention to the repetitive images; I'm messing with Blogger's code to see how I can make it work for me. I think I've actually got a handle on it now; I'm just uploading through their widget and then stealing the URL to work it back into my old familiar code, which allows me to resize it and put it where/how I like.

I'm going to have to redo fourteen years of posts with images in order to end my dependency on PhotoBucket, but at least now I know how to do it.

Image credit: Flynt

More Pics

Pic #1 : Cheetah pic taken by my guy for me.

Pic #2: Dome chandelier at the place the kids took me for my birthday lunch.

Pic #3: 81 spools of vintage thread I bought at GoodWill for $7.99 (storage box included.)

I'm trying out Blogger's photo upload extra-large size, and experimenting with how the text works with it. Also, I found this about storage limits on Blogger in their help forum:

"As of now there are no such storage limitations specifically for images you upload on Blogger. As Blogger is a part of your Google account, Google provides 15 GB of free memory for each account. This 15 GB will be shared across all Google products linked to your account such as Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos.

Blogger usually doesn't have any limit for the storage as the images the you upload will be stored in Google Photos of your Google account."

Just FYI: I pay $10.00 per year to Google for 36G of storage space for my free e-books, all of which take up only about 3G.

Pics Problems

I am ready to give up on Photobucket as a photo archive, as their service has become so problematic I can hardly upload anything anymore. Since Blogger offers a pic upload, I'm going to experiment with it today to see how it works (and show you some of the work I've been doing while I was on hiatus):

Pics #1-2 (Small Size on the Blogger Upload): Two throw quilts I made over the spring; I designed the bargello pattern for the second one myself.

Pics #3-4 (Medium Size): A tote I made from fabric scraps for a friend of my guy's who was in a car wreck; a quilt I designed and made with some gorgeous blocks and fabric that our pal Theo sent me.

Pics #5-6 (Large Size): A beach tote I made for my daughter after accidentally destroying hers in the washer; and my very first official art quilt, which I made for fun last month.

I have to figure out the text wrapping on Blogger's photo upload, but otherwise it seems pretty easy.

Can anyone recommend a photo archive/hosting service (other than Photobucket) that is simple to use and doesn't cost an arm + leg? Let me know in comments.

Everyday Inspiration

When I unplugged back in March I needed more than a break from the internet and the blog. I had a huge project to tackle, creative batteries in need of serious recharging, and a desire to get back to who I am (versus who everyone expects me to be for them.) This little critter here is an example of things I was missing. Over the last couple years I'd gotten so busy that I wouldn't have said okay when my kid said, "Mom, come outside and see this cool bug."

I stopped burying myself in have-tos and must-dos. I started going outside again, and taking pictures of cool bugs. I wandered a little every day, not to search for anything specific but to be open to inspiration. That cool bug (only the second mantis I've seen since we moved here) inspired a character in the novel I just finished; one who turned out so well that my client complimented me for it.

Would I have created the character without seeing the cool bug? Maybe -- but it probably would have taken longer, and the character might not have been as original. Taking five minutes to admire and photograph this little critter was just for fun, but it helped me with the work, too.

Since I am the least random person I know, I spent a couple of months doing very random things. I ordered a mystery box of modern fabric (which I don't use) and got a bunch of very graphic fat quarters in black and white with touches of gold. You should have seen my face; I've never made a black and white quilt. The point of the exercise, however, was to get out of my fussy old lady crazy quilting color junkie corner and try something new, so I made the fabric into this quilt.

The process made me appreciate modern fabrics; their deceptively simple patterns become classy and vibrant when you start putting them together. The challenge of making such graphic materials work together taught me some new tricks. Since I'm now set on making a true black and white quilt, I think it expanded my horizons a bit, too.

We tend to get complacent with our creativity. I've been doing the same things over and over because I'm pretty good at them, I don't have to think about the work involved much, and the results are predictable and positive. Whether it's quilting or writing or anything, there's nothing wrong with sticking to what you know. That said, unless we try new things once in a while, we can't grow.

What have you done lately to seek new sources of inspiration? Let us know in comments.

A Little Reveal

Since I probably won't have time to do any more with it this year, I thought I'd finally share my secret art project for 2016: Valerean, aka my Tumblr art blog.

I started it on a whim, really. I still miss PBWindow, and I wanted to have a space where I could post photos that I took and show what I made during 2016. I also didn't want to be the author me while I was doing it, or do it every day, or feel any pressure.

Of course I had absolutely no idea how to use Tumblr when I first started, and I'm still pretty clueless, so it's very basic. That said, it was fun to be Valerean for twelve months and share my art with people who didn't know me. I could post pictures of my family and no one batted an eyelash. I found some super inspirational photographers and quilters on Tumblr as well, and followed their blogs so I could watch their projects evolve. Everyone was very kind to me, too (which is why being anonymous has its privileges.)

I have removed some posts that had personal/family stuff involved, but the rest show how creative I've been this past year. If you want to see thumbnails of everything I've posted for the last twelve months, the archive is here.

I don't know if I'll continue posting to it now that I've made it public, but it was definitely a neat project.

Eye of the Storyteller

I'm not done lecturing you all about getting out in the world with a camera to hunt down some inspiration. Photographs are amazing wells of story ideas and solutions to your writing problems, but it's also about looking at everything with a storyteller's eye.

Three examples:



I took this pic because I like taking pictures of old buildings; they're more attractive to me than modern/new/hip structures. I also liked the circular brick pattern, which may or may not have once been a window.

Let's say it was, and look at it as a storytelling opportunity. The first thing I noticed is that brick inside the circle window is much more modern than what was used to build the structure. That shows a stretch of time between the creation of this place, and a very strange renovation.

So why did they brick up the window? What was inside? Were they trying to keep something in (a monster), or keep something out (sunlight)? What happens if those bricks are removed by say, the new owner, who has decided to renovate the old place?



Walking around an old church, I happened to look down to see this patchwork of old porcelain tiles. I snapped a pic just because they were pretty.

Now switch to your storyteller's eye. The tiles are pretty, but they're also in a definite pattern. The plainer blue tiles look like buttons, too. What if they aren't just tiles?

Four people walk around this church, and as they're in a huddle talking about the next sight to see they inadvertently stand on the four plain blue tiles. What happens next? How does it relate to the old church? Does it change those four people -- or are they transported to another place?



During our road trip we stopped at a little country diner to have breakfast, and I saw this quirky old family tree photo collage on the wall behind our table. I don't really know why I took a photo of it. Maybe just because it was in a diner.

Let's take a closer look at one section of it:



Two photos are missing. Perhaps the person who made the collage never managed to find pics of Moses and Harriet. But then why tag the empty spaces? What happened to those pictures? What about the two pics between the spaces? Why does Caroline look so smug (and more like a guy in drag than a lady?) What reason does Silas have to look so menacing? Or is he afraid?

Imagine you're a waitress closing up the diner for the night, and you just noticed those pictures are missing -- and two people who look exactly like Caroline and Silas are sitting at a table and looking at you like you're a menu. What happens next?

If I want to answer my questions about my pictures in interesting ways, I write a story. I think there is something in that old building with the bricked-in window, and the new owner renovating the place is about to set it free for the first time in two centuries. My four tourists at the church do accidentally stand on those four blue tiles, and will be transported to the time the church was being built. As for Caroline and Silas, they do corner my waitress in the diner for their own dark purposes -- at least until Moses and Harriet, her great-great-grandparents, show up.

So get that camera and get out there to take some shots. Look at your pictures later with your storyteller's eye, ask questions, and use your imagination to answer them. That's all there is to it.

Fountains of Ideas

One of my favorite times to look for story inspiration is when I'm outdoors or traveling somewhere. This is why my camera goes with me everywhere, too -- one picture can often fire my imagination with such a blaze of thoughts and associations that I can keep building and expanding on that image until I have a novel. If I'm really lucky, my photos can also help me write my way out of a story problem, too.

Case in point: I'm working on a project for a client that I thought needed an additional scene, and that's about all I can tell you about both without violating my NDA. I needed to pitch an idea, too, but I kept coming up short on ideas to make it interesting as well as significant to the story. While I was driving myself crazy trying to arm-wrestle some inspiration out of my brain, I sat down to take a look at a bunch of pics I took on a recent trip to one of my favorite southern cities, St. Augustine, and decide which ones I wanted to print out.

I photographed a lot of fountains on that particular trip, and I smiled when I saw this one:



Here's a closer look (you gotta love six guy heads spitting into a basin):



One of the aspects of this funny fountain is a great story element, too, and it appealed to me as a tool I could use in my scene pitch. How I might do that came with the color of this fountain in front of one of my favorite restaurants:



You just don't see that many red fountains around, right? My thought exactly -- and that bloomed into a bigger concept. Finally, I looked at this pic that I took from the side of a gorgeous fountain, so that the sunlight and shadows would show off the intricate art:



From that angle several details jumped out at me, all of which dovetailed nicely with my concept.

I still didn't have the scene idea fully realized, but I had enough to let it percolate while I went to make dinner. As I cooked I thought about precisely what attracted me to each fountain picture, and how I could work that emotional response into my scene and get it to motivate my characters. I rewound the project in my head to see what it would best fit with in the backstory. I looked for opportunities where I could put my personal stamp on it as well.

All the elements I found interesting came together with the needs of the story. By the time I was washing the dishes I had it. The end result was not a fountain in the story, but a new construct formed from these fountains of inspiration. I pitched the new scene idea that I built with them, and the client loved it. Tomorrow I'm writing it in and I already know it's made this part of the project stronger, more cohesive and definitely more interesting. The best part? It's not filler. It's what was missing.

Next time you feel stumped with a story, grab your camera, go take a drive or a walk, and take pics of whatever catches your eye. There is a little story fountain inside your head, and sometimes all you need to do is prime it.

Flea Market Finds

I haven't done a flea market slideshow in a while, so here are some very neat things I spotted last weekend when my guy and I walked around ours (the two old cars are going to make you turn envy green):

Day Away

While I was off on my one-day vacation over the weekend I took some pics of the lovely animals we saw, as many of them were willing to pose:



I've never taken such a neat shot of a tiger as this.



Okay, not every animal was willing to be photographed.



As swans can be very aggressive I tend to avoid them, but this dark fellow seemed calm and not at all interested in coming after me.



Still working on identifying this guy.



Also got this and several other wonderful shots of my writing animal. It's good to recharge the batteries and refill the well by taking a day away. Now, back to work.

Gated Away

While out of town last week I had the chance to spend a day in Savannah, and because I'm not crazy I carried my camera with me wherever we went. I always notice new things about my favorite American city whenever I visit, and on this trip it was all about gated spaces:



Sometimes when you see a bunch of stuff like this one little thing captivates you.



Like this little guy.



Some gated places seem to whisper of secret lives, trysts, and other things that happen once the rest of the city goes to sleep. I have a huge story brewing now just from this one pic.



Others definitely say not for you -- keep out.



My favorite spots still remain open to the public; right there for you to walk up and sit by and admire. So while I enjoying peeking over a gate now and then, I'm much more in love with where I can roam freely.

The next time you travel, take your camera with you when you're walking and snap whatever fascinates you. You never know where you might find some story.