New Books

Well Shutterfly was a fun site to hang with during storm and headcold.  First I created the book of Country Roads.  It's really hard to edit down my watercolor studies to a 20 page format.  I have nearly 100 paintings to choose from. But I managed.  Can't wait to see it in print.

Then I started the next one celebrating my youngest son's offroad bike group.    OMAR. Old Men Adventure Riders.  They have such a good time and visit such remote, interesting places, often in the high Sierras.   I used photos they shared on FB.   This is a present for Matt.  I think he will love it.

Then I got another free offer, so created a book  of my watercolor abstract studies.  Again, I've done more than 100, but have given many away.   Making the selections and laying them out is the hardest part.  I really worked hard on this one. Including more text.  Got it to perfection and placed order..but it would not upload.  Several failed attempts, then contact with their support team, suggesting my tablet may be having memory overload.  So, ran clean up service, and tried again.  But then found my book had been scrubbed out of the system.  Damn!  Double Damn!!

This morning I redid it.  From memory, this time "my" memory.  It's not quite the same, but I was anxious to see if I could upload and place order during this free period.  Yea!!!

It worked.  Now it's just wait and watch for packages.

If I like them, I may recreate some of my altered books this way.  I would like to see how they look.     Then I can donate the originals to a special collections library, or sell them.

Falling for a freebie

It all started when I signed up for the Betty Crocker recipe site.  They send daily posts with the most delightful recipes that I can adapt to my special dietary needs.  So far we good.  But one day they sent an offer to produce a 20 page 8 x 8 inch hard covered book FREE.  Shutterfly produced some books for me several years ago, and now that this offer came in, I'm going to make a new book. 

Most of the photos I planned to use were taken on my cell phone.  I downloaded Shutterfly  app to my tablet and started to work my way through the process of selecting photos.   My goal is to use my watercolor studies of country roads.  And maybe later a second one of my watercolor abstracts. 

Many of the photographs needed to be reshot with the tablet in order to facilitate uploading to Shutterfly.   Now I need to edit down the number of favorites. 

A book I had done on another site years ago is too chaotic.  I tried to put in pics representing too many types of art.  Much like my life. LOL It does show examples, and progression, but it's not cohesive. 

I don't want this one to be cluttered up. 

Its winter with dreary grey or  rainy days, so I like having a project.  And I'm glad to find out that I can do this without using the computers that are either hard on my eyes, or in the case of the larger screen, has an operating system I dont like.

I can hardly wait for Spring.