Tag: website

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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.

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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.

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New Year = New Website

Some people are all about spring cleaning, but I am a New Year cleaning kinda person. I take down the Christmas decorations and get all inspired by the uncluttered spaciousness of the house and I’m off! My studio always gets cleaned up for company in December because it is technically the formal living/dining space and we host Christmas dinner, so by the time January comes around, the studio is already in pretty good shape. But there is always room for some organizational improvement and the purging of hoarded “I might use this someday” art supplies! This year I tossed a bunch of old magazine and sorted through a pile of random packing materials and papers on a shelf of the workbench. Usually, that would be enough procrastinating and I could get back to making art, but noooo….

My arch-nemisis “Big Dumb Brain” decided that maybe Ink & Bone Alchemy should include a Society6 account in addition to the Esty shop. Oh and we should probably learn to use a new vector art program while we’re at it. And if it doesn’t seem like I hate myself enough, yesterday I decided to redesign my website!

oh. my. fucking. god. why??!!!

::deep breath::

::one more::

I’m fine. I only obsessed over it for a day and a half. What theme will best bend to my will? Galleries or pages? And I still am not sure how things should be organized! But I think I have the site looking and functioning close to what I wanted. I still have more new work to add (I’m going to have to warm up my scanner soon) and a shit-load of information to add to all the new galleries, but at least it is up and running again.

I was just informed today is Sunday, not Saturday like I thought. huh. I should probably shower.

I have also been buying/transplanting a bunch of plants. I obviously am not killing enough things in my new video game! #elfinikills #brownthumbforever #poorplantsneverdonenoonenoharm


One last Christmas procrastination to complete!

One last Christmas procrastination to complete!

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Updates and then some…

wow. I logged into my website 2 days ago and realized that not only had I missed posting about the last 2 shows I was in, but I also hadn’t added any of the new work I had done this year!

The past eight months have been hard and I have been grieving and depressed for much of it. So much so that my daughter titled one of my recent paintings “The Great Depression of 2017”. damn. But like always, I paint what I feel. There has been a lot of positive things among the sad and in the big picture view life is still very very good. I have just allowed myself to be present and feel everything as I moved slowly through all the emotional ups and downs.  And although I feel like I have been creatively off my game, I actually have been painting quite a lot this past month. So, yesterday I photographed the new pieces and updated the galleries. 

I am always struggling with how to organize the galleries on this site. Currently the pages are by medium, but should I include work that is over 2 years old? I’ve already pulled all photographs off the site. I haven’t worked in Cold Wax in awhile, should I pull that too? Should I create galleries based on specific bodies of work? There are definitely 2 different styles of paintings all intermingled in that gallery, but that is just the order I painted them in last year. Now what I’m painting has shifted again into a new body of work, should there be a some sort of delineation in the gallery? 

And I just removed the link to my old dusty blog, and now I’m rambling here! Stange days indeed. So, what have we missed? Buzz – the Art of Encaustic Painting is still up for 3 days at Blue Wing Gallery in Woodland CA. 


The Crocker’s Big Names Small Art was last week. I donated this pretty encaustic photograph, but did not attend this year’s auction as it was the same night as my daughter’s Open House at school. 


I always enjoy BNSA and was pretty bummed to miss it, but there is always next year! 

In upcoming news, I will have my painting “Catrina” in the It Figures show at Blue Line Arts in Roseville. I’m also thinking about putting these small encaustic collages in the Small Works Gallery. 

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It is also time to think about what to submit to the State Fair! And the Member shows at Blue Line and Viewpoint are coming up…  #thestruggleisreal

 

So, if you have any suggestions about gallery set ups, I would love to hear them! And I’ll try not to fall behind on my website maintanence again, but no promises. 🙂

 

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Procrastination Nation

Hell’s bells.

I am avoiding something.

I think it might be something big.

And probably ugly.

Yesterday I spent the day playing video games after a long break. Today I am giving my website a complete make-over. I typically clean when I am in avoidance mode, so this is atypical and disturbing behavior. I’m dealing with code for fuck sake! And yes, I am positive there will be more swearing.

I think I am supposed to be writing. I started something a couple months ago and then let it fall to the side. It’s going to be another brain-fuck so I’m guessing that is the hesitation to pick it back up. I do not want a repeat of the mental state I found myself in last year at this time. It took me well into the summer to recover. And yes, I’m being a bit vague because I never did talk about any of that on this site. In a nut shell: a research paper on adoption for an english class coupled with the stress of getting Kyle graduated and into college broke my brain. But I think I really need to get this family stuff out of my head and onto paper (can’t afford a shrink right now) as I find myself over-sharing with random strangers.

hi. let me tell you about my fucked up family history.

yep.

So. Go check out the new shiny zoot suit I put on my website! And the previously named “Freeway Project”? It’s still progressing but at a glacial pace. This semester’s Fiber Arts class is giving my a lot of ideas as to how to deal with the sculptural elements of the project. In the meantime, Erin and I are weaving.

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Look at what I cooked up!

So, this here blog? elfini? It’s all Julie Tilsner’s fault.  4 years ago she said “Hey Dawn, you should start a blog!” And when Julie says “Jump”, I say “Fine… if you insist. But I’m not going to enjoy it.” And I think we all know how well this turned out.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago, Julie finally said “Hey Dawn, you should redesign my blog!” And I jumped up and down, said yes, and insisted she bail on the evil Typepad and migrate to WordPress.

And a word of advice here – do not get me started on Typepad and the Six Apart world. The seething raging hate!!

Luckily Julie bent to my will and is now happily hosting Bad Home Cooking on a spiffy new WordPress installation. And it looks something like this:

www.julietilsner.com

Now click the pretty picture and bask in the glory of the new and improved Bad Home Cooking! Same old funny wrapped in a shiny new package.