Frogs

I recorded the very noisy frogs in our dam this evening.  Here is a sample :




Requires Quicktime to work.

Codec

I have been testing various codecs (compression/decompression) in Premiere Pro for use with our video projects. Having a slow Internet connection makes it near impossible for me to upload large files to “Blogger” and it also seems a bit silly to upload a large file only for “Blogger” then to squeeze the file down to something more manageable.

However, the only codecs that have shown any promise for me so far are the Flash video variants. They give small file-sizes with reasonable quality.  Sadly “Blogger” does not accept any flavour of the Flash codecs.

Image © PeteM2010
 
Met this couple of wise owls on the farm today – but they had no answers either. Any suggestions anybody?

Respite

Oh what a term that was – experienced a lot, tried a lot, made a lot, tested a lot, laughed a lot, failed a lot and I am absolutely buggered. (My muse is also suffering from severe art fatigue!) Looking back on the term, however, it was for me a productive and exhilarating time. It’s been a privilege to have the chance to participate.

I marvel at some of the talent in the class – some great works were presented at the assessment time. Well done! Very inspirational, but also a bit humbling. 

Pleased to have completed the projects – some took me an awful lot of time for rather pedestrian results. Lots of ideas, but they failed spectacularly in the execution! 

Wanda, Rest in Peace:

Image © PeteM2010

Wanda II

Got myself into an awful tizwaz attempting to complete the fish-drawing portfolio. I had a number of ideas about what I wanted to achieve, but the score ended up: rubbish bin 5 or 6, portfolio nil. (Counting becomes painful when you are on a loosing streak).

Then I remembered what Lidia told me in the early days of the course when I was struggling with the model assignment – “You can fix anything in Photoshop!”

So I exchanged the pen and paper for a stylus, tablet, fish photos and scanned drawings. Still quite a few attempts ended up in the virtual trashcan, but I found that less demoralising as those failures were not staring back at me. 

There are a few of ideas from the Sydney trip I still want to pursue though, but with finishing time looming, that will have to wait until the next project.  

A Shoal of Fish Bones:

Image © PeteM2010

Ups and downs

Experimented with some fish drawings yesterday, not a good day – should have gone fishing instead. Probably wouldn’t have caught anything, but at least I would have enjoyed the outing.

Had a look at last weeks drawing – now that was a bit of fun. Large pieces of paper stuck together to make a mega canvas. Now that was something to get lost in. Had quite a few laughs with the mess I created making this one. The final result reminds me of a dog we once had, Henry, forever cocking his rear wheel (leg)! 

Image © PeteM2010

Copyright

Rather than catching up on my artworks, today was spent in the Federal Court listening to legal argument and expert opinions. The Honourable Judge knew of my interests and invited me to attend the hearing.

The case revolves around intellectual property rights, a hot issue also being debated in Sydney today, however, in Sydney it was all about the music industry.

The plaintiff and defendants had between them about a dozen highly paid barristers and solicitors – the cost must run into tens of thousands of dollars per day. Add the cost of expert witnesses and potential damages awarded, and we are talking serious monies in anybody’s language. People take their intellectual property rights very,very seriously!

And that’s the point! Using copyrighted image and sound bites harvested from the Internet is too easy. Watch out – the worm has turned! Getty Images, the world’s largest image library is currently trawling the Internet for illegal use of any of their images, films, videos and sound files. Rumours have it that their robot/spider is able to find the illegal use of an image even if it constitutes less than 1% of a collage.  If illegal use of an image is spotted, an invoice is issued, and if not paid, court-action follows. These guys mean business!! My web sites have already had the Getty spider/robot visit more than once! How do I know? My ISP informed me and the AWSTAT for each site confirms their findings.

Remember Napster? The legal hullabaloo was back in 1999, but it changed the copyright debate forever. We have been warned!

If you happened to see me on the telly tonight outside the Supreme Court together with Mr Robert Farquharson, the association was purely coincidental. Honest.

Blender

Having spent a few frustrating hours trying to learn Blender, I was relieved to lay the blame on the Mac version of the program rather than on my ineptitude. Blender reportedly behaves on PCs, but for me, my PCs are used purely for business whilst the Macs are used solely for art. Never the twain shall meet. 

Anyhow, substituting the skull project for a vase project was fine by me. I found the latter much more fun, and having achieved a glass like transparency in Photoshop, I was chuffed with the final image.


Image © PeteM2010