Art & Naked Beauty

“ Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed. ” William Blake http://t.co/cGKD6JrW7K pic.twitter.com/SFqrXQ4fz4
— norton elissen (@sighclone) March 2, 2015

Where to store my working sketches on-line

I'm not sure twitter is the right place for my art. My worked does get viewed and quiet a few favorites, but the rest of the tweeter verse is out chasing celebrities or promoting delusions of self-grandeur. I don't feel at home there although I will post some sketches into #thedailtsketch hashtag, I still firmly believe sketching is good for my soul/health.

My on-line sketchbook on tumblr, In Praise of Rubenesque Mademoiselles, remains largely unviewed and I can't figure out why? I quiet like the paper stacks format (the images are stacked on each other so you have to move them to see what umderneath)

.

By far my best audience is on flickr, that is weher I get the most expoures, view, favourites & comments. Plus I have a group of regular friends who appreciate my art it just a pity I'm considered UNSAFE and therefore cannot be displayed in any public areas. So you have to have a flickr account and be a friend or memeber of a group that allows retricted images to see my art.

So the net result is I'm not sure where to post my work, so there will be a little bit more duplicate posting and probably I'll stick with this place as the best place to keep my works, with a little exposure over on google+ (I'm not sure I believe their views and followers statistics)

Such is Life I guess

The great unviewed

“Is #art on social media more about #voyeurism than #creativity?” http://t.co/DCCjzmcr7K pic.twitter.com/anrKEtWoHw
— norton elissen (@sighclone) November 25, 2014

I'm not writing this out of malice or even much research, this is really more about some observations. I have enjoyed trying to get back involved in the social side of the web, well mainly on sites other than facebook.  Specifically I have sent myself the challenge of doing something (eg a sketch Creative each day and post that). I started out trying out tunblr, and I really like the tumble log idea and simplicity of how to post.

The real problem I have with tumblr is I remain largely unwatched. I've tried hashtags and reposting as tweets but I have so few hearts/likes I know I am posting into a void. The few I have followed up seem to be from the more voyeuristic, reposting porn side of the troll community and I'm sure my art doesn't appeal to them. However there has been more interaction via twitter, particularly once I found #thedailysketch hash tag. Twitter still feaes like posting into the void but the trolls there are mainly celebrity chasers or wanna be celebrities and a tine community of artist who don't mind sharing their inspiration and some of their works. However it is two services I have used for a long time (and had drifted away from that clearly gve me the highest interaction. They are Flickr, and I know most of the folk that still interact with me have known me for a long time and Blogger, which still gets a reasonable number of hits/views daily (without as many comments). A little surprising is my google+ profile, which I only set up so I could keep using blogger (it was almost 100,000 views?) and it definitely brings folk to my blog posts (hopefully those that can understand and appreciate it.

So enough navel gazing. I think there can be community on the net for art, and a good place to practise and share but there is a lot of superficiality and trolls to avoid. Perhaps it is important to think about where and who with your want to share rather than number of hits/views/likes or 1+'s

with apologies to Lord Lytton for the misquoted title

I'm tweeting a bit again

“Forget the LOLcats put some #art on your favorite #screen today” http://t.co/pmBLqpXexe pic.twitter.com/sysMSZchVe
— norton elissen (@sighclone) October 20, 2014

One place you can find me is on twitter. Even though I do feel "I am shouting into the void" I can see this is a legitimate place to reach a larger community of potential art appreciators

Alas poor twitpics....

i liked the way the badge or widget or whatever it was from Twipics worked (just on posting the last item I had uploaded to twitpics. All automatic and no code to copy and paste ...something that tests and old bloke like me) ...but alas it has disappeared without trace and I have to do some editing and such to show my work here ...such tedium

Time to look for a new photo to twitter methods : )

By Bye Twitpics ...was nice while it lasted

out of my depth

First Itunes is playing naughty ...now twitter ...or is it just karma getting back at me for slagging off apple inc

Beware I am a promiscuous tweeter

I actually get a lot of flack from my so called friends, because I'm an old guy and I tweet, that almost as perverted as using facebook to them. The really bad news I must hide from them (seriously they will never read my blog ;) ...is I am not choosy where I tweet ... I will tweet from anywhere using anything ...shame on me ...I know this because I have checked with TweetStats.

Shut up you are making me hungry

Melbourne has always been a food obsessed place ... not in a bad way, just savy about food, fresh ingredients, rich cultural diversity and tastes, a decent restaurant culture from the simple (eg the age's cheap eats) to the ridiculously opulant (and they get no free advertising from me) but lately the conversations äre becoming very focused ... and its because of a TV show ... masterchef ...everyone is watching ...it eclipsed the michael jackson saga here, more popular than the current sporting draw cards the tour de france and the ashes (that's true cricket to the heathens and we have started poorly I'm afraid) ...something more important than sport is so un-melbourne! ... then tonight little george let the cat out of the bag with two four letter words FOOD PORN ... yes that's what we all need to stop thinking about the global financial crisis, tax and other bad stuff

Don't get me wrong this is not wanton GLUTTONY or depraved use of edible items in exploitative sexual acts, it is the thrill we get about imagining our next meal ...we need to be excited about eating, it is a survival instinct, and you don't just need TV to do that ....I belong to a food porn group on flickr and I have noticed a lot of tweeters post photos of what they eat, MegaNom has a particularly delicious tastes ... the only problem I have with all this is ...damn am I hungry

Iranians can longer see the twitterverse

What you will see in Iran when You try to use twitter today!

The story of twitter(so far)

This wonderful illustration is from monolith's article that begins

...Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. Seems every where you turn these days that little blue bird is staring you right in the face

Are you part of the Twitpocalypse?

one of the 365 days of Candy Snap

365 days- day 41- flower power, originally uploaded by candy snap.

A fellow melbournian, candysnap is an accomplished film director, photographer , new media guru and prominent twitterer, but best of all she is now our official International Digital Entertainment Festival Co-Ordinator.

Keep your eye out for her work.

candysnap with yellow flower
watercolour on paper

the story behind the Twitter cocktail

On sunday we had a big house warming party ...and I was barman ... some time into the proceedings talk of the best cocktails merged with some heated discussion about things interweb and stalking, pedophiles and other weirdos... i was in a minority but we all like twitter so ... well somehow... this drink was born, a cocktail in less than 140 characters! ... and it was good


The Twitter Cocktail :: start with sugar cube covered in blue curacao, half shot of richard, top up glass with shaved ice & then lemonade

Ricard is a commercial version of the popular french aperitif pastis. The sugar cube dates back to the absinthe rituals and the blue curaco was the only blue liqueur I could lay my hands on. The shaved ice turns the ricard & curaco a milky light greeny blue, the shade of the default twitter background. BUT be warned the twitter is a drink to be savored slowly over much conversation, and just keep topping up the lemonade ...two or more and your tweets may become illegible.

wankergirl in charcoal

wankergirl in charcoal, originally uploaded by sigh clone.

I have been a follower of wankergirl for some time on twitter and I generally get a good laugh or at the very least a big smile from her exploits ... she is totally original and refreshing ...you see she likes to broadcast on seesmic or blog from "bathrooms" (yeap, fair dinkum she does it in dunnies) all over Canada and the US. If you listen carefully to the video below you might see her explain why.. well almost ...just before she gets interrupted!

*******
WARNING from Selth - WankerGirl is "Why parental controls were invented"

(at last) posting pictures to twitter

well I'm pretty happy ... i can more easily include pictures in my twitter posts now, using the very new twitpic tool ... check it out! ... it just the sort of thing i like nice and simple, and does a good job of it... so watch out for more of my art tweets ... (you have been warned!)

what is your TMI?

I started worrying about how many tweets i had to read each morning to stay in the loop... the answer is probably none... but anyway it got me thinking is there an optimum measure of the right weight of follower and friends on twitter... maybe its something like the BMI... brilliant why don't I create a TMI (the twitter mass index)... and it is easy to compute just divide your followings by twice the number of followers... that's your TMI



On the low end of the scale with TMI's less than a half are the socially thin. the introverts that as likely as not to have the "I am only giving updates to my friends" playing over and over. They probably also literally only type in what they are doing.

At the high end are the dangerously obese twitters that just take in everyone else's musings, their motivation may be manifold but it is most likely they are voyeurs, peeping toms and trolls. Often they may just copy you and because you are not following them they think no one will notice. Closer around the TMI of two are the just excessively talkative and group seeking overweights... most harmless but take up a damn lot of bandwidth

So that leaves the happy tweets around the TMI of one.

All pretty straight forward really...

So why the factor of two... why not?

cocktail time.... on twitter

I've just decided my twitter friends might need a bit of a lift... lots of uming and arhing, sigh, and boredom... so it might be time to start having some virtual cocktails of fridy nights/saturday morning

Ok here is the first one its called the rhythm of love... and I learnt how to mix it in tahiti

Firstly about one thirds fill a cordial glass with midori
next squeeze and pulp a whole kiwi fruit into the glass
carefully layer in creme de cassis and fresh double cream

that's it...

belated party feed

Its the last saturday in september and I'm hosting a "not really a grandfinal" party, this afternoon, there is music and videos inside for te anti-AFLtypes, but I wanted to have a place out on the balcony... (not for the smokers... they were not invited and anyone my age who smoked is already dead anyway) but for those who simply must be kept in the loop... so I had the idea of looking on twitter and fortunately their is an AFLBOT which I can put on an old TV screen... for the more keyboard obsessed there is also the aflcast which points you to breaking afl news and other related netfeeds.... if your don't know what AFL is? too bad!

Was a good idea but didn't work out... ended up getting the audio of the ABC Grandstand coverage

Congratulations to the cats.

new toys

There are an ever increasing number of applications and "toys", turning up for twitter these days... well i call them toys, they are fun things to play with... Twitter blocks is an amazing 3D staircase world that tracks conversation threads across your friends and followers... but don't get yourself too deeply embedded, you may never return from this esheresque labyrinth.

deja vu...

This cartoon, by hugh of gaping voids blog, really amused me.

IF - Visitors

for illustration friday's topic visitors

BTW its a twitter joke