Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Painter's Keys


The Painter's Keys website is a rich international online art community based in western Canada that includes a directory of participating artists, letters written by painter Robert Genn, musings in response to those letters by other artists, an archive, art quotations, international listings of art studios (in case you want to travel), and an online art gallery. See http://www.painterskeys.com/about.php for a better description than I can give.

You can subscribe to artist Robert Genn’s [free] twice-weekly thoughtful letters about living the life of an artist so they will appear in your own email account. Recent posts have been about Selection and Rejection, The Anticipation Response (how the release of the feel-good hormone dopamine helps our creative response to our work), and Art and Grief--how the recent loss of a loved one affects our ability to create art. Check the right sidebar on the homepage to sign up.

A Digital Book of YOUR Sketches?

On the web are a number of reputable companies that create photo albums and books. Typically, you upload your photo images into their software program, lay out your album pages, add text and ornamentation, and they print and bind the album and send it to you. For a fee, of course.



As part of the Digital Photography class I teach at the library I introduce my students to a number of these sites. The other day, when I showed them the blurb.com site, the company was displaying this wonderful book by Norman Shureman composed of his sketches. You like this idea?
By the way, the library has three scanners, in case you might need one for this or another project!