artalicious

So, I'm messing around with the blog layout and thought I'd put up a new banner. I'm going to blame those two cuties as the reason for why I haven't blogged in FOREVAH. Let me tell you, the next time you start thinking "Hey, 5 dogs sounds like a good idea!" trust me, it's not.

We are down to just 4 dogs now and hopefully we'll soon be down to 3. The pups in the banner were strays that were born in our neighborhood. They were just too cute to let them get run over by cars (which is what killed the rest of their litter) or to let the local drunk keep carting around (which is what was happening to them!). The other dog we had was my in-laws dog that we (successfully!) re-homed for them. I think that Robert and I must be insane. Or big suckers. Probably both.

So, since it's practically June (eek!) I'm going to roll the April and May stock updates into one. We have put the puppies to work and shot some stock images of them.

The look of the blog will probably also keep changing. It's not quite how I want it, but sadly I know just enough html to be dangerous, but not enough to keep me from tearing my hair out as I try to change things!

And now for the GPP (like those three up top aren't enough!). This is my friend Crystal's newest addition, Molly. She was a stray that someone dumped.


And these are Crystal's dogs meeting Molly and thinking "ZOMG. WE CAN HAZ KITTEH?!"


It turns out that they did get to keep her after all! (Crystal may also be a sucker :) )

~JML

Posted in: Animals, blog edits, Dogs, Stock Images on May 22, 2009 at at 10:38 AM 2 comments    

Ok, this isn't exactly art, but I think it's pretty creative.

We own a house built in 1960. It has it's original hardwood floors (which are beautiful). BUT those hardwoods have shrunk a bit in their 50 years and now have some decent gaps between them (which are also beautiful). What is less beautiful is when our cats track litter all over and it gets stuck in those gaps. And then when those same cats mess with their water and we end up with litter cement in the cracks. That's actually kind of gross. And impossible to clean.

So Robert came up with a design for a "cat bench/litter home". The basic idea being that it's a bench with a hole in the top that holds our litter boxes. The kittehs jump in and out from the top, which ends up keeping most of the litter either inside the bench or on top. It's awesome.

I shelf papered the inside to make clean up easier (our big man cat can have, uh, difficulties with aiming). We also put it on casters so it's easier to move and it needed to be raised as it sits right over the AC vent for that room. We've made it very open so that the bench won't hold on to cat poop smells and discourage any of them from going in.

So far, it's been a hit! The litter is staying inside, everyone has been ok with using it. In fact they love to sit on the top (which has been enhanced with a thrift store bath mat) and watch the birds.

The other great bonus is that none of the dogs can sneak in there and eat "kitty treats!" Before we would have to shut the door to the cat room and make sure that the kitties got potty breaks, but not anymore!

Here's some other views. Fatty Duncan admiring the birds outside. They have their bath mat on one side and food and water dish on the other (the dogs also can't get those now either!).


The view during the feeding frenzy, uh I mean dinner time. Mr. Tub sez "Back off from my food bitches!" You can see one box peeking through the hole in the bench lid.


Robert is demonstrating poopy scooping time! We keep that long piece of scrap wood in there and use it to prop up the lid. You can also see the shelf paper. I didn't do the whole inside because I'm lazy and it's hard. I'd also like to paint the whole bench and seal the inside with a high gloss paint.


And on the "front" of the bench, we wound some sisal rope to make an extra scratcher for the cats to use.


So that's it! It was a fun project and it's really made a difference in keeping the kitty room clean.

For our GPP, I've been saving this fantastic photo of Boo, our girl cat.

This is our kitty:


This is our kitty on drugs!


~JML

Posted in: Animals, pet furniture, Random Things, Robert Hill on March 20, 2009 at at 12:29 PM 3 comments    

Here's a Gratuitous GPP (a GGPP?).

This first one is of Keira as a puppy. I think she was about 4-5 months old. Her ears were full grown, but she wasn't!


And here's The Taters (ie, Aggie). She's being majestic in the kudzu. I think she looks like a foo dog.


I hope they make you smile!

~JML

Posted in: Animals on February 13, 2009 at at 6:03 PM 6 comments    

I'd like to start posting a recap of how many uploads, acceptances and sales we've had at the end of each month.

January was pretty good! I've stayed motivated and have been uploading images pretty often. Not as often as I like, I still have tons to go through, but we're doing at least 10-20 every weeks.

Shutterstock

We had 68 photos accepted and 21 photos rejected. Some of those rejected images were resubmitted and then accepted (I did some bad isolations and uploaded an incomplete model release). So our gallery grew from 128 to 196 during January.

We had a total of 73 downloads during January which earned us: $23.19. Not our best month ever, but pretty close! My goal is to end up with 73 downloads per day, rather than per month.

Here's one of my favorites for January.



Big Stock Photo

We didn't upload here at all. Mainly because I hadn't yet found a generic model release. We've been using Shutterstock's MR, and obviously BSP won't accept that. I also didn't feel like harassing our models to make them sign 3 different releases.

So, no growth in our portfolio, but we made $5 dollars in sales! It's $5 we didn't have before.

Dreamstime

There were also no uploads here, for the same reason.

No portfolio growth, sales earned us $1. (I gotta say, it's a lot harder to get excited about that $1.)

Goals for February

We now have a more "universal" model release, that, supposedly, all the agencies accept. Which means we can start to upload more model photos to all the other agencies, not just SS.

I'd also like to start doing more planned shoots. Right now we're just finding models, having them do their own hair/make-up/outfits and shooting them. That's ok, but those photos don't sell crazy well because the models aren't clearly doing or selling anything.

And now, to end with a gratuitous pet photo! Today's GPP is of O'Malley, he's Keira's boyfriend and is owned by our good friends Katie and Rhiannon.


He's a cutie!

~JML

Posted in: Animals, Big Stock Photo, Dreamstime, Shutterstock, Stock Images, Stock Recap on February 3, 2009 at at 10:50 AM 2 comments    

I thought I would put up some images that we've been taking in the studio (and by "we" I mean "mostly Robert").

First, we had an open house of sorts with all of the other studios and the gallery. We took holiday portraits for anyone who was brave enough to step in front of the camera, and there were some fantastic results!

Here's a great one of our friends' kid hamming it up. When I asked her if he practiced this a lot at home, she looked at me and said she's never seen him dance like this before!



Then we got this cute image (which I took, not too bad I think!):



We also took a holiday portrait for our friends, Katie and Rhiannon with their dogs, O'Malley and Oliver. There was much waving of toys and shaking of treats and wearing of antlers (on the dogs). They went with this one for their holiday card.

We then thought it would be a great idea to traumatize our own dogs, so we brought them over to the studio and made them do embarrassing things with holiday decorations. No animals were harmed during this photo shoot, but I can't say the same for the decorations.

Here's Keira, plotting our demise as soon as this is over.


Aggie gets pissed off. Keira hits the floor.


All is soon forgiven. Much kissy face is seen.


They make up over a meal of holiday garland. Lovely. I launch myself at them to make sure they don't swallow any. Damn dogs.


The rest of the images can be found by clicking here. We ended up picking 4 different photos and printed them out with funny captions and put those in our holiday cards.

Next up will be some of our model photos we've taken for stock.

~JML

Posted in: Animals, Dogs, Holidays, Katie, Kids, Portraits, Rhiannon, Robert Hill, Studio on January 12, 2009 at at 1:15 PM 3 comments    

Here's a quick drawing for IF. Heavy. I'm guessing that mama bird is actually feeling quite a bit lighter at the moment. Though imagine how many worms that baby will need.

~JML

Posted in: Animals, Digital, Illustration Friday on March 21, 2008 at at 6:13 PM 0 comments