A Scanner's Tale

Once upon a time there was a scanner in a happy working relationship with a Millennium-chic tangerine iMac. They hooked up from time to time and the scanner would happily chug away, shining a light on random pieces of paper that needed turning into pixels.

Artwork, college research, old photos, applications forms, pretty things in magazines - all this and more fell upon the scanner's gaze and passed into the bosom of the iMac's hard drive.

Together they worked, USB in USB, until the iMac grew too slow and weak to keep up with the world online and was usurped by a cocky, flashy, whizzy laptop.

But the scanner found it too hard to get on with the laptop and stayed loyal to its old friend, giving it a reason to live until the day the poor, ancient 9 year old iMac went "fzzzzzt" and smelt of burning.

To this day... oh you know how my story goes by now. Two years later and I still can't afford to get my iMac mended.

That still left the problem with the scanner. The company who made it have decided, in their wisdom, not to write a Mac OS 10 driver for it because, obviously, us Mac owners are rolling in cash and can't resist buying all the latest gadgets the second they hit the shops. Or something like that.

I've used the scanner at the library but you can only guarantee getting it if you book in advance, which means knowing virtually down to the minute what time you're going to arrive. Not always convenient. Neither is the one hour a day time limit, lack of elbow room and inconvenience of lugging all the paperwork around (assuming, of course, you haven't forgotten something).

So scanning has been a neglected job over the past couple of years but, in order to get my portfolio up to date for potential clients, I've had to catch up.

Thankfully I had a brainwave and realised the answer had been staring me in the face all along.

Mac OS 10 (at least on the older versions, not sure about nowadays) also has Mac OS 9 lurking in the background. One click and the flashy new desktop reverts into the clunky old one that was once so futuristic and Millennium-chic. Perfect to avoid chucking out all the old software that you can't or don't want to upgrade. Not entirely glitch-free but hopefully good enough to make the scanner talk to the laptop.

So I hunted out the CD, set up the scanner and clicked Install. Not easy to do with crossed fingers. The computer went a bit weird and tried to load certain things twice but - joy of joys - it worked and I can now do scanning on my laptop!

It's not a perfect set up. I can't access the scanner through Photoshop, which means I'm lumbered with everything saving as a memory-hungry TIFF (remember them? I can't recall the last time I used a TIFF. PNGs have long since stolen that part of my heart devoted to file formats.)

I've enjoyed a good trip down memory lane over the past couple of weeks, looking through my archives. It's occasionally a bit cringeworthy as a lot of the stuff I made a decent living from just hasn't passed the test of time. I've almost finished tidying up the scans and am currently uploading them to my Coroflot portfolio. Some of the best ones will also be added to my Facebook albums too. When time allows I'll be back on here telling you the stories behind the work. You'll get to see techniques I've used which aren't reflected in the digital art I've shown you already so come back soon and expect a few surprises!

Commonwealth Games

Back over to Zazzle this week, where I've had the cyber-hoover out to clean the place up ready for some new arrivals.

Neat!

Time to unveil (or should that be unfurl) some new flags. I was keen to get a bit more ambitious with them, as I can now do the basic tricolour in my sleep.  The next country I really wanted to get my teeth into was Australia...

Australia just needs a few tweaks to turn into New Zealand...

...and if I'm doing Australia and New Zealand, why not chuck in Canada and make this a Commonwealth set?

Australia and New Zealand had to be distorted a bit to fit a rectangle into a circle. The key was that the Union Jack on the real flags fits exactly into the top left hand quarter, so once I'd done that the stars just had to fit round it proportionately. The stars themselves were a new challenge, especially the New Zealand ones as I would have to knock out the red and white sections separately depending on the background. I created the stars using an outline filled with a set of lines stretching point-to-point, giving a splattered, ink stamp effect.

Although the Canadian layout is quite simple, the maple leaf has several fiddly details which took several attempts to get right using my continuous line technique. The key turned out to be never overlapping the red and white lines, bending them round each other where necessary whereas I normally like to keep them straight. The brush effect means a couple of the corners fade out but, as it's symmetrical, your brain fills in the gaps (why should I do all the work for you?)

So there they are, my 3 new countries.  As usual they don't just come on black backgrounds, there comes the fun part of deconstructing them onto different coloured backgrounds.  Behold the full set:

As with the other flags, these are available to purchase on keychains and various sizes of badge and fridge magnet. They're as small and affordable as it gets so if you're struggling to choose then why not collect the whole set? They've also been scaled up onto tee shirts if you'd rather wear it loud 'n' proud.

As always, you don't have to settle for the shirt style I've laid out here. You can check out how the design looks on all types of long and short sleeved tops for men, women and children. Get creative and make something totally unique to yourself.

Now that I've tidied up the shop, you'll find my new additions on its home page and also in the New Products category. All the other countries are now listed in "Flags" under "Browse This Store". You can choose from:

• France
• Germany
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• South Africa
• UK
• USA

So here's that link: http://www.zazzle.co.uk/valwoodhouse or click the Zazzle panel on the left of this page.

While you're busy browsing, I'm off to dust down my old scanner and see if I can make it work on my laptop. A few surprises from the archives are waiting for you...

New Café Press Goodies - Part 2

As promised, the second part of my big Café Press overhaul is now complete, with another total of around 150 products added. So here's a look at the designs that have just been updated, with a few more picks of the best new clothes, gifts and homeware.

My cartoon animals look adorable on the latest baby clothes and accessories.

These wall stickers are a quick way to brighten up your kids' rooms. The large format (sizes in inches) shows off all the details of this cuddly giraffe.

This range of Thermos branded picnic ware is just the thing for a day out at your favourite beauty spot.

Some more of the new products. The laptop skins are fresh in store and have been added to all non-Christmas shops including those featured in my last update.

Don't forget this cute elephant!

All the designs are available on almost all the products and several of them come in different colour options. This gives you hundreds of choices across all the stores. Just pick the design you like, click its button on the left of this page and discover all the treats for yourself or a loved one.

The four Christmas designs will be getting their update in the autumn, in plenty of time for Santa.

Next up, I'm putting the finishing touches to three new flag designs. If you like the ones I've done so far, these are going to blow you away because they're the toughest ones I've done yet! They'll be added to my Zazzle store in a few days so watch out for that.

I'm also hoping to get my old scanner working so I can add lots of archive work to my portfolio. Let's hope it plays ball otherwise I'll have to lug all my sketchbooks and folders down the library!

A Friend In Need

UPDATE 23rd June 2011

I've taken the decision to remove this post.  Unfortunately I have not received a very good response to it and I'm not prepared to bare my soul and tell you lots of deeply humiliating personal secrets if it's just going to be met with a wave of apathy.

My circumstances are still pretty dire.  I'm currently appealing the decision that led me into trouble and I've managed to arrange a payment holiday on my loan, so hopefully that will help me along a bit.

I'll keep the payment button on my blogs and I would still ask you that if you enjoy anything you see on here or the Scrapbook then please try and find it in your heart to leave me a little donation.  Anything you could afford would be gratefully received and will be a massive boost towards getting my life back on track.

I would like to sincerely thank the few people who did come to my aid and offer help in various forms.  Your generosity will not go unrewarded and forgotten.  It's times like this you really get to learn who your friends are.

Thank you.

New Café Press Goodies - Part 1

Those busy bees over at Café Press have been sourcing dozens of new products for us to offer our customers, so right now I'm in the process of updating all my shops (apart from the Christmas ones which will get an overhaul in the autumn).

With nearly 50 new items to add, design and price-check, this is no quick job! Four of the shops are ready to re-launch, so here's my pick of what's screaming "buy me" right now.

Sleep with Kevin the Octopus! Pyjamas available in a range of styles and colours for men, women and children.

As if all those teensy little hearts weren't cute enough, now you can wear them on a fun range of costume jewellery.

3 new water bottles add to the Sigg bottles already in store. A great choice of must-haves for your favourite sport.

If ever an accessory screamed to have a rosy red apple on it! Perfect for jazzing up your beloved gadgets.

Don't forget all these designs are available on all the products, feel free to mix and match to your heart's content. The five remaining animal designs will be getting upgraded next, so watch out for news on that and my second pick of the best new products.

To browse the stores, look for the buttons on the left of this page and just click on your favourite design.

Happy shopping!

Patriot Tees

Having made my first set of Zazzle tee shirts, as shown in the last post, I really got in the mood to do more. Spring's made an early start here in the UK and we're all on the look out for nice cool clothes and hopefully plenty of chances to show them off.

What should my next range be?  Well I have all those flags I'm really proud of.  Although they were designed to go on little round things like badges, there was no reason why they couldn't be scaled up for a bigger product.  All it needed was to resize the files and knock out the background colours.

So now all my existing range of countries - UK, USA, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan and South Africa - can be worn proudly on your chest on a wide selection of colours and styles for men, women and children.

A snapshot of just 6 of my new tees.

Almost all of them are available in the same colour combinations as the badges - one neutral background and one for each of the flag colours.  Due to the range of shirts offered by Zazzle, unfortunately at the moment I'm not able to offer Ireland on an orange shirt.  This still leaves a choice of 30 unique designs, something for almost every day of the month!

There's also the flexibility to customise the designs with text if you want.  Plus, apart from the black and white tees, there's also the option to choose another shirt colour.  So don't feel bound by what I've laid out, get creative and make yourself something that's totally one of a kind.

Grunge outline added to the stars to make the American flag work on a white tee.

The badge of my Japanese flag on a black background unwittingly became a best seller following the tragic earthquakes and tsunami in March.  Now it's also available as a tee shirt.

To see the full range visit http://www.zazzle.com/valwoodhouse and search for tee shirts.  Don't forget all these flags are also available on badges, magnets and key chains.  More countries are in the pipeline, I'm looking forward to showing them to you!

I'm now working on giving my Café Press shops an overhaul.  The company has added lots of new products recently so this is going to take some time!  Watch out for my pick of the coolest must-haves over the next couple of weeks.

Also I'll be taking you on a trip through the archives as I'm sorting out some of my old work to scan in for my portfolio.  It'll be interesting to see how much of it has passed the test of time!

2011 - The Story So Far

Yo blog, long time no see.  How's things?  Crikey, where's the time going?

4 months into 2011 and this is my first post of the year.  Stuff has happened in that time which has forced my hand professionally but hopefully in a good way.

For family health-related reasons, it's now no longer a good idea for me to be out of the house doing a 9-5 job.  I could see the day coming and maybe that's why I've been a bit reticent about throwing myself into applying for jobs.  So I'm no longer prepared to compromise, it's becoming a home-based freelancer or nothing.

Money has always been the stumbling block stopping me from going for it.  Hopefully that's about to change as the government is about to introduce an updated version of the old Enterprise Allowance Scheme (which helped me start my first business in the late '80s).  This should offer more of a financial cushion to support me with materials, marketing, etc, if only for a few months.  The trouble is nobody knows when this scheme's starting or exactly what it's going to offer!  So right now I'm badgering the Job Centre every time I visit and I've been booked in with a new business support group who will hopefully be more use than all the other idiots I've been shunted off to see over the years!  Ah well, we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm giving my online shops a spring clean and over the next few weeks I'll be adding new designs and products for your purchasing pleasure.

First up, I've taken some designs I originally submitted to T-shirt design competition site Allmightys and added them to my Zazzle store.  They're inspired by 3 of my favourite animals and are bound to turn heads as part of your summer wardrobe.

(The following images are mock-ups.  The finished products are available in a variety of styles and colours although I have presented them on the colour I feel suits them best.)

A mean-looking red deer stag confronts his opponents with his vicious antlers, ready for the rut.  Shirt available in light and dark formats.

Hundreds of individually-drawn feather details on this glorious peacock, strutting his stuff for the hens.

A salmon makes a death-defying leap up a raging waterfall to reach its ancient spawning ground.

The shirts cost from $22.95, giving you a practical, hard-wearing garment and also a unique piece of artwork you will never find anywhere else.  So if you enjoy reading this blog or my Scrapbook, or if you like to follow me on Twitter or Facebook, please do what you can to support my shops and spread the word to new followers.

Next in my shop spring clean I'll be adding new products to my Café Press stores, putting some of my Zazzle designs onto new items and also unveiling some new additions to one of my ranges.  Watch this space!