More Etsy Love

 

Just wanted to send out a big thank you to everyone who has included my mandala and fractal art in their treasuries on Etsy. Here are a couple screenshots of some great treasuries where my items were found just this week. :)

Honesty Mandala

Last week I came to the realization that I need a creative kick in the pants (yep, it's true). After much pondering, I decided that a little bit of goal-setting would be just the thing I needed. So, I officially declare that every Monday will now be Mandala Monday (at least in my world), and I will create a new mandala to kick off each week. This is somewhat ambitious considering I typically use my fractal images as source files for my mandalas, and I haven't exactly been cranking out the fractals lately either. So, it's time to fire up Ultra Fractal and see what happens. Stay tuned! :)

Edit: Just added this print to my Etsy shop: Honesty Mandala Art Print

Scientists Find Viewing Fractals Has Soothing Effect

Earlier today I was surfing around the internet and stumbled upon an interesting article from 2006 about scientists studying fractal recognition and the physiological effects of viewing fractal images. This backs up my claim that fractals, like mandalas, are wonderful to use in meditation (see my earlier post, How to Use Mandalas and Fractals to Meditate).

Here's an excerpt from the aforementioned article:

"Imagine working in a windowless building, cut off from the soothing sight of clouds blowing across the sky or leaves rustling in the wind, as another deadline looms. Feeling stressed, you look up at the wall and see a strange but somehow pleasing pattern etched into its surface. You feel better.

That's the kind of future that University of Oregon physicist Richard Taylor imagines, and now he's working with other scientists at the UO and other universities around the world in hopes of realizing it. They're studying patterns known as fractals in an effort to understand why and how certain ones seem to give people a mental boost."

Read the entire article here. (The article was originally published in the Register Guard, but appears to no longer be online at that location.)

Odds & Ends

Happy (belated) New Year to everyone! I can't believe it has been nearly 2 months since I last posted! Note to self — write more posts for blog in 2011. :)

New Printer in the House
Santa brought me a New Year's gift last week (What can I say? He must procrastinate as much as I do!) It's the Epson Stylus Pro 3880. I'm thrilled to finally retire my nearly 10 year old printer, the Epson R1800. It was a great printer (wonderful color), but the seemingly endless nozzle clogs and empty ink tanks had me pulling out my hair. The 3880 is a lot larger than I anticipated, but it can print very large prints. Look for some of those appearing on Etsy in the near future.

NASA Contest
On another note, I've decided to not enter the final judging of the NASA & Etsy Space Contest. I'd submitted my bestselling print, Celestial Staircase, and did not read the fine print as I should have. Granting the "Sponsor a non-exclusive, fully-paid, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicense-able and transferable worldwide license to use, reproduce, transmit, display, and distribute" my image is a little more control over it than I wish to give them. But, that quoted sentence ended with the phrase "in perpetuity" — that was the clincher! I'm too fond of it to kiss it goodbye.

Adobe Illustrator
I've decided to make a resolution this year — to make friends with Adobe Illustrator again. I've had it installed on my computer for years, use it on and off for odd jobs, but for the most part, it sits there collecting dust, neglected and begging for use. Although I've claimed in the past that my brain doesn't function in the means necessary to become a skilled Illustrator user (think Robot from Lost in Space: "Does not compute, Will Robinson."), I'm going to make it my new bff. Look out Photoshop, there's a new kid in town!

Nasa Contest Update

Just found out that my fractal art image "Celestial Staircase" has been chosen as a finalist in the Nasa & Etsy Space Craft Contest. Apparently this was announced sometime last week, but I hadn't heard anything via email or convo. This was a fun contest I entered at the last minute, just on a whim, but you can still check out the entries and read about it here.

Shops "On Vacation" Until New Year

As of today, I've placed my Etsy shops in vacation mode until the beginning of the new year. Thanks so much to everyone who has visited, purchased items, and emailed or convo'ed me with comments and well-wishes. I wish all of you a wonderful holiday and look forward to hearing from you in the new year!

To Infinity & Beyond

...er, maybe just to outer space and back. Here's the scoop. A week or so ago I entered my Celestial Staircase fractal image into the new contest being sponsored by Etsy and NASA to commemorate the end of the space shuttle program. It has made it through the first round of voting and has now entered the second phase: to be voted on by registered Etsy users.

Here's where you come in, visit the Space Contest Page, register as a user (if you are not already registered), then find my image in the 2D reproduction section and vote (if you feel so inspired). All votes are greatly appreciated, and if not voting, stop by anyway to see what the hubbub is all about. Who knows, my fractal may be flying into outer space sometime in the near future. :)