Dawn Blanchfield – Page 2 – Dawn Blanchfield

Posted on July 26, 2021December 20, 2024 by Dawn Blanchfield — 2 Comments

Obviously

oh my god what is wrong with me?? It hasn’t even been a full month since I built that new website on Adobe Portfolio and I’ve already scrapped it! There was nothing wrong with it, I just had all my stuff spread over too many separate sites. So I just spent the last 3 days reconfiguring my WordPress Elfini blog site to do it all – portfolio, blog and online store. I even relocated the whole installation from a sub-domain to the root directory. Holy hell why do I do these things to myself?!

And then this morning when I thought all was well except a few more design tweaks, I found that I couldn’t upload images to WordPress! Oh that is not okay! So, I hit the google. And I tried all the things. Nothing worked. And I tried some more things. And then I totally broke the site.

::very external screaming::

So, knowing my poor blood pressure was going to hit unhealthier levels than normal (I’ll tell you about my blood pressure woes later), I reminded myself that I have backups. Lots and lots of backups (this ain’t my first website rodeo). So, I hopped back into the FTP client and deleted the whole shebang and then re-uploaded yesterday’s subdomain folder that I had downloaded before I moved it and ta-da! Everything is working and I can upload images and at some point I might even start breathing again. fuck. Don’t tell my doctor about any of this. Or any English teachers who would be appalled at my infatuation with run on sentences. I save all my punctuation for .php files.

Now, I just need to figure out how to hide the sidebar on the shop pages and make the portfolio page full width – it really shouldn’t be this difficult! And after I give up on that because I spent most of yesterday trying to crack that nut, I need to create a bunch of product pages because Big Cartel doesn’t have an export products function because of course they don’t. So…. yeah. Big fun happening over here.

But my birthday is Friday and we are going to Santa Cruz so cake and cooler weather. I’ll take it.

Posted on July 10, 2021July 22, 2021 by Dawn Blanchfield — Leave a comment

If I’m not angry am I even alive?

So, the Adobe Bullshit ^TM really is all its cracked up to be – how annoying! Everything I have been struggling to do for years with outdated programs, apps, and work arounds is now so stupidly simple to accomplish. If I wasn’t so giddy I might be really pissed off. Surrender and be happy? That doesn’t sound right at all.

But here we are 3 weeks later, and a new website has been built in Adobe Portfolio*, Squarespace cancelled, and I spend my days working happily in Photoshop and Illustrator learning all the ins and outs and shortcuts that get shit done. Stupid programs that work.

So, I have nothing to bitch about. Why am I even here?! I’m just listening to some Bauhaus and waiting for Erin to let me rat up her hair.

*the biggest stumbling block in creating the new website was the eternal problem of how to organize the galleries. UGH! Still not happy with it.

Posted on June 17, 2021July 10, 2021 by Dawn Blanchfield — 1 Comment

Madness I Say!

Well, it has been 1 year and 2 days since my last confession. I am finally creating art again and that has led me back to the blog. The path from there to here was not peaceful or intended – it was more off a twisted ankle leads to rolling down a steep and rock-strewn hill and then crash landing in WordPress with multiple contusions and a bad attitude.

I started watching some Skillshare classes again last month, and that has reignited my creative mojo – thank the Maker! It feels so good to be creating again after almost a full year of making no art at all. Covid and all that goes with it has definitely done a number on me. So I’ve been making illustrations on my computer in Affinity Designer and Photo because fuck you Adobe and your damn subscriptions! and that has been fun.

But then I hit some Affinity snags while making this piece-

Affinity Designer has no Offset Path. Why??! And then yesterday I wanted to create a half tone and all hell broke loose! You can’t seem to make a gradient half tone without unwanted artifacts on the edges! The solutions offered in the forums were just crap Band-Aids to the bigger problem. I was already annoyed with having to constantly adapt the simple Photoshop or Illustrator steps to work in the Affinity programs and apparently yesterday broke me.

I went to the Adobe website.

Now I have been mad at Adobe since they started this whole subscription game. Just let me buy your damn program and be done with it until I want to upgrade! I’ve limped along with my precious Lightroom3 and who knows how old a version of Photoshop that I had on my old computer for years now. And when I couldn’t get Photoshop to work on my new machine, I downloaded GIMP and then searched out new alternatives. I wasn’t going to get sucked into the Adobe machine!!! Yet here I am today, seething as I hoist the white flag and don the shackles of a Creative Cloud subscription.

::thedeepestofsighs::

So how does all of yesterday’s ragey-foot-stomping-temper-tantrum-I-hate-Adobe!-drama bring me to the zombie blog today?? Well, apparently Adobe Portfolio (it claims to make pretty portfolio websites) is included with any CC subscription, and my annual Squarespace fee is due in a couple days. Why pay for additional (and expensive) website hosting on top of the Adobe Bullshit (Bullshit is much easier to type than Creative Cloud Subscription and soothes me so that is how we will refer to it going forward thank you very much). Let’s try to save a couple hundred bucks a year right?! Well that sounds good on paper, I don’t use Squarespace’s store features as I have a Big Cartel account so no problem loosing that, but Portfolio doesn’t have blog capabilities. Okay, since I was already down the rabbit hole, I exported all the blog posts from my Squarespace website and imported them into my old WordPress elfini blog. Ta-da! Now all the posts are together again and I can just add a nice link to the blog in the nav menu of a new Adobe Portfolio website and Bob’s your uncle and all that jazz. But that of course called for a blog refresh – removing old outdated widgets and installing a nice new theme – and apparently this morning I have a lot to say about all of this! So here we are. I’m bringing blogging back.

And we all know that writing a blog post is my favorite form of procrastination. When I finish here, I have to actual hit that purchase button for the Adobe Bullshit and then build a new website so I can let the Squarespace subscription go before it renews in 3 days. I just wanted to create a damn halftone. My brain sucks.

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Dawn Blanchfield — Leave a comment

2020 Bang Bang

or Life in the time of Quarantine and Riots.

My last post was a little over a year ago. The end of May with lots of fun things to look forward to in June 2019. I have fuzzy memories of a big down time after my solo show, but then what? I’m sure there were lots of things that happened during the 2nd half of 2019, but damn if I can remember any of them. I can’t recall much of anything from before the complete clusterfuck that has been the last 3 months. Maybe clusterfuck is the wrong word. Maybe not.

The beginning of 2020 started out fine – joined a gym and was doing yoga again. We went to San Diego for a long weekend in February. We had plans for a few more trips this year already booked. Then March hit and things started to go sideways. Coronavirus hit the news. March 16th the schools were closed. Then everything was closed. Months of sheltering in place. Then George Floyd was murdered. holy fuck. Throw some rioting and looting into the protests and a lot of bad decision making from the top and here we are. The world is on fire and rightly so. I’m reading, listening, learning how I can do better. Trying to stay in the moment, but also not.

I’ve watched myself pushing things away, distracting myself, trying not to be overwhelmed by it all. Because there have been days…

So I’ve been moving from one brain-distracting project to the next. The first couple weeks after the schools closed, we were on top of things. Erin and I were painting, going for walks and doing her PE assignments together. Trying to keep things “normal”, but normal was gone. In April I found my birth father (he died just last year) and then spent weeks learning everything I could and building a huge new family tree! A most excellent distraction. Then we started working in the yard again and my plant obsession kicked up a gear. A potting bench was ordered and I started thinking about gardens. But first a week focused on putting together a gallery wall in the foyer (ha! sounds so snooty). Then after much planning, Chris built me an elevated garden bed and voilà! I have a garden growing outside my studio window. And a morning dove is sitting on her nest in the tree next to it. I now spend my mornings outside watering and walking around the yard – a much nicer way to start the day than hopping on the computer first thing to read about the latest horror. Although today the Supreme Court ruled that federal anti-discrimination laws protect gay and transgender employees – “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination “because of sex,” includes LGBTQ employees.” and that is some much needed good news in all this madness.

So, now what? I’ve started making art again and am going to start listing prints for sale. That outta keep me busy for a few days. Not sure when I’ll pick up an actual paintbrush, but at some point all my little defenses are gonna break and I’ll have to crank up the volume and throw some paint around. I can’t wait to see what comes of that! #haveshinkonspeeddial