Finally I am on the mend (I hope)

As a lot of you know I have been suffering severe depression for a couple of years now and it has taken ages to find the right meds to balance my brain chemicals out, but I think we are finally there. The better weather is certainly helping, and the getting out and about on my own a bit too.

I am working on a little project with Valerie as she does great pencil sketches and paints, and digital art. I am hoping to incorporate it with my efforts which have come to a grinding halt but I have plans for expansion and marketing for the near future.

I am hoping that we are not heading for a,other drought because we have had no rain, the pastures are bare still and we normally start getting our first cuttings from the farmers in May. I will have to go and check out their fields. I just hope their prices come down a bit but with diesel at $4.40 a gallon plus I am not holding my breath.

I have finallly started getting sawdust again so I am getting all the stalls stripped, even with most of the horses out 24 7 and preparing them in case they are needed. Beginning of May I have to decide on 4 - 6 horses to send to the pasture down the road which will be a help.

I want to start working on Dosie and Cayenne first as they have the most experience under saddle, hopefully get them onto the trails if nothing else and make them safe rides which they really are already, they just need the miles put on to them.

Most importantly I have to start getting my readership up, my posts interesting and drawing more people to my site and photos and gifts for sale so that I can feed my brood LOL.

Thats it for now, todays photos are frpm the other day of a little dove in one of our trees and Blue out in the turnout

((((Hugs))))

Lori

xx

27September 2007

This is going to be a quickie again. I have my last horse show this weekend which is a relief because it has been such a dreadful year in general. I thought I would post a copy of the business card that I created using the Brat's photo. An artist in Canada named Lesley White bought the rights to paint an original 24" x 18" oil of this picture which you can see here on her website http://www.oilsbylesley.com/westernoils3.htm names First Taste of Spring just click on the picture to see a bigger version. She has also used two other photos of mine as references, they are on http://www.oilsbylesley.com/westernoils2.htm and are called Lookin' Back and Unbridled Spirit. She does a beautiful job. The Lookin' Back one sold at the exhibition she had it at a few days after completing it and she had 3 people fighting over who would buy it!!! She said she has never had that happen to her before, made me feel good I have to say.

I dont know if I will get a post in tomorrow before I pack everything up because we are going to try to leave early afternoon as we have to drive around Indianapolis and dont want to hit the rush hour traffic. It is about a two and a half hour drive. The show is in Edinburgh. We will come home on Sunday night after the show finishes.

I rode Dosie again today and he did a fabulous job, he really is nice to ride and I think is warming up to me a bit more. I also taught Blaze a little more about lunging. Not too much because he is still young but enough to give him a bit of exercise, he has a bit of a gut on him, has always had one (that can usually be caused by worms but he has been regularly wormed and has been potbellied since he was little LOL).

Well guys, thanks all for your regular visits, hopefully after this show I can get some stuff done that has been neglected, mainly my regular blogging buddies who I have been grateful for. ((((Hugs)))) and if I dont check in until Sunday, see y'all Sunday and have a great weekend.

Lori
xx

20 September 2007

Not such a good day today. We are hoping to get people from Michigan tomorrow to look at the horses with an intention to buy. We have been let down so many times before that I am not going to let my hopes get up.

I saw these flowers down in the field last night and was going to try to photograph them early this morning but forgot so I cut some off tonight but by the time I came to photograph them it was dark and despite being in water they were starting to wilt. I will try to get some tomorrow in daylight. Just thought they would give a bit of brightness to the blog today.

It was dreadfully hot again, 86 by this evening (normal average is 76), the mosquitos are really bad. When I woke up this morning I looked out the window at the horses in the field and they were milling around with their tails thrashing and obviously uncomfortable. Just hope it cools down soon so that they will go away.

Didn't get any more of the fence done today because I had to go into town to do some shopping and by the time I got back it was too hot.

Abraham, I try to make calendars for my special clients each year, they are nothing fantastic but I get them printed fairly reasonably. I tried to sell some last year but I left it too late in the year before I got them out. If I dont get them together for selling I will still be making some for particular people. I use an old version of Publisher. It took a bit of getting used to but it works really well. If you would like some help with getting one set up let me know and I will help in any way I can.

Donna I wish you were closer, I would love to sell you a paint and for a much more reasonable price. Dont know how much it would cost to ship one from here to you but it could very well work out less expensive than what they wanted for the mare.

Tracey, everything in print and photos on the web or otherwise is the sole property of the creator (and this is not just professional writers and photographers, it means anyone). You dont have to have a copyright disclaimer or your name on it, it is just a face. It is difficult to prosecute someone for just posting the picture on their site, but it is good etiquette to ask the creator for permission. I am sure most will allow a shot or text to be used, with credit given to them as long as it is not being used for profit by the person wanting to use it. I will try to find a link to a site put together by an artist (they have just as much trouble protecting their paintings) which should shed a bit more light. Basically if you did not create it, it does not belong to you and you need to ask permission.

On the subject of stolen artwork, the next time you see an "original" painting offered on eBay think of where it originated. They are mass producing paintings in China by the thousands every day, a lot without permission, and selling them here in the USA. Same applies to a lot of the posters and probably framed prints you may find in Walmart, although that I cannot be sure of. I just know that on eBay it is a big problem, I have had a photo stolen, "painted" in photoshop digitally and put on eBay for sale as greeting cards and prints. In China they will get maybe 100 painters together in a factory with easels and paints and they will give them a picture that they must copy. They do at least one a day each, get paid nothing for them and then the organisers flood the market. There are also american painters who will copy work but not on such a large scale and some of them also sell on eBay. I belong to a group called the Equine Art Protection League who look out for each other and it is our mission to get as many thieves closed down. We have had one eBay member closed down about 15 times in just over a year. She keeps popping up again and we report her and she gets closed down. She is well aware that what she is doing is theft but doesnt seem to care and has tried every trick in the book to get around us. At this time of the year she sells a lot of Christmas cards and greeting cards with images of horses, dogs, cats and general animals, all lifted off the internet. The beauty of it is that once eBay has closed someone down they can NEVER have an eBay account again, so this is out trump card. We concentrate mainly on equine images because that is what we all specialise in. If the stolen work is on someone's website, we contact the web hosting service and they will close the site down. I could go on all night about this but rather I will find some links so that anyone interested can check it out.

Okay off my soapbox. Hope you all had a great day. (((Hugs)))

Lori

xx

2 August 2007

A bit of an abstract today, this is a Photoshop technique that I did called Amazing Circles (Ovals in this case) and I used the photo of the "Snow On The Mountain" plant that I posted a shot of a while back. I love this and have done it with butterfly and flower shots and you get some fabulous effects.

It has been unbearably hot again today and will be for at least the next 5 days. Still hoping for even a little bit of rain for relief.

Taxes is doing great, I got his dressing technique perfected today and he is not chewing it so hopefully it will heal nicely. I still have to get help as I can't tie him up and he wants to move away from me when I touch his leg.

I have nearly finished editing photos from the show (didnt get as much done today as I hoped and have another 9 pictures to do) so I am hoping to get some, if not all of it mailed before closing tomorrow.

((((Hugs)))) and hope everyone is well.

Lori
xx