The joys of freelancing

OK, sometimes I have problems with clients being unhappy with reasonable charges or contract terms. But I've never had this one!

An encouraging quote

Go, labour on, 'tis not for naught;
Thy earthly loss is heavenly gain;
Men heed thee, love thee, praise thee, not;
The Master praises - what are men?

Horatius Bonar

I came across this in the hymn book yesterday. It's not a hymn I know, but it's on the same page as one we often sing. Never read it before - but it was exactly what I needed to read yesterday, and God knew that.

How to make iPhone / Touchscreen gloves

Almost makes me wish I had an iPhone, just so I could do this!
Although you obviously need a friendly knitted pigeon to help.

Admin

I hate it
>:-(

Colour

It's amazing what a difference just changing the colours in a picture can make.

I drew this picture. 

The focus of the picture was the little girl who is not listening. Very usefully, the school has a variety of colours in their uniform, so I was able to use the colours to direct your eye.

However, I then decided I actually just wanted a general picture of children listening. Being short of time, I decided to use the same picture, but de-emphasise the not-listening little girl, so she was no longer the subject of the picture.

Tweaked a few colours, and here we are:

Of course, it would have been better if I had drawn it differently - having the bored child centre front is not ideal. :-| But it'll do.

(P.S. Please do not examine the chairs too closely. Some of them are very odd...)

New

Happy New Year!

New desk:

It's an old door (which, I'm guessing from the marker stains all over it, my granny used to make flannelgraph) and Ikea legs. I plan to use it as a painting and drawing table.

New programs to play with: 

I have downloaded the trial version of Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, InDesign, etc). I'm seriously thinking of getting it. I have been very happy with Corel PhotoPaint, but it does have some limitations. And after the fiasco with Publisher, InDesign is definitely a requirement if I want to design a book again!

There are some really good features - such as the ability in Photoshop to cut out photos of people with frizzy/wispy hair.

Sample photo before:

 

 Photograph ©Trevor Goodwin | Dreamstime.com

Sample photo after: 

This took me exactly half an hour. Well, when I say me, Photoshop more or less does it for you. It's not perfect, but good for a first attempt. Would have been quicker if I was more familiar with Photoshop's controls. Before, this would have probably taken hours of tedious work - and not been as good.

And, on the theme of New Year, here are a couple of little verse cards I designed for the RUN the RACE Holiday Club (coming soon...)

 Photograph ©istock/mediaphotos 

Photograph ©Sparkia | Dreamstime.com