LITDigitalart Custom Pet Portraits

Ever since I got my first iPad in 2010, my interest in art was reignited. I found an app that I could draw with and it all snowballed from there. I was able to create pastel and watercolor paintings using DC and my husband as my muses. Then I opened an Etsy shop to sell custom pet portraits. My first order was a Labrador retriever from Oregon. Then three children’s books were illustrated and written and self published on Amazon after having two that were made in to apps with Storychimes and sold in Apple’s App Store. Since then I’ve added shops to Fine Art America/Pixels, Redbubble, Zazzle, and Amazon Merch. Every day I’m promoting my work on Instagram, Facebook business page, twitter and tumblr. I tried to tie it all together on my website that was created using Wordpress. All of these things keep me busy in more ways than I can count. It’s still exciting to sell an image of something I painted - worldwide! Now it’s been over ten years since this all started and digital art is commonplace. The orders for custom pet portraits is nothing like it was, but I am still tickled to get returning customers and even a few new ones. Regardless, all of the portraits are posted on all of my sites and I am pleased with what I tried to accomplish - especially since no one helped me do any of it. It’s all self taught! I always had an interest in art. This is a fun way to participate in it. These are a few examples of the portraits that were painted in 2021. Thanks so much for supporting my work - I really appreciate it! 

The Capitol

We lived on Capitol Hill for thirteen years. I worked at the library of Congress for ten years. It was our neighborhood. After I retired we walked daily to one of our favorite places - the Capitol. Before that we walked there on weekends and for all the events held there - from rallies to concerts to funerals to Fourth of July fireworks. When I worked at the library I was able to see the new Capitol visitor center being built first hand - starting with the groundbreaking for the tunnel that would connect the two buildings. We went in two hard hat tours as the construction progressed. Then in the afternoon I’d take a daily walk to the Capitol through the tunnel. We went several times to the senate chambers to observe and went on several tours with friends from out of town. It is one of my favorites buildings. Before the snowstorm this week we went to our old neighborhood and walked about. These are some of my favorite photos from the morning walk. 

Hulu Subtitles and Captions Glitch

TV is our biggest entertainment. In the evening we watch a lot of things. It’s one of the few diversions left that takes us away from the world around us and is the same activity we had the before the pandemic. We have cable, but we also have several apps - Apple, Acorn, BritBox, Netflix, Prime and HBO. You could say we are pretty picky about the shows we watch and have been very disappointed in most of them. So we decided to do a thirty day trial of Hulu. There were a couple of shows that looked interesting. So I downloaded the app on to the TV and phones. When we started to watch a show, the subtitles were in Spanish. We keep subtitles on for everything but it is annoying when they are in a language not of our choice and the settings menu had no options to make any changes. The funny thing was was the captions were in English on the phone. So I could mirror the show to the TV but that defeats the purpose. That lead me to two chat sessions with Hulu. The first said to delete and reinstall the app. That didn’t do anything. A second chat lasted an hour but at least the issue was finally resolved. Indeed, the settings menu is really bad. But if you know to stop the show while watching, there is a tiny convo icon you can click on to change the language. Since I can change the language via the settings menu on all the other apps I never knew this was an option. At least now we can watch on the app the way it was intended. But so far we are neither impressed with the app itself nor the shows we thought we might like. That was a bit disappointing.  

Thank Goodness for McDonald’s

It took a lot of convincing. My husband was getting antsy after having been without power since the early afternoon. We had a big snow storm and were stuck in the house. But we were also getting hungry. We thought we had sandwich meat, but we didn’t. So we thought McDonald’s would be the ticket. It’s just two blocks from where we live. The roads still looked snow covered and icy and there wasn’t a lot of activity in the neighborhood. All of the emergency power was on in the building. But there was no emergency power inside of the house. So we were able to use the elevator, and the lights were on in the hallways and the garage. The exit and entry doors remained open as well as the gated area used by the residents. We were so happy to see the lights on at the McDonald’s. Most of the traffic there was snow plows. We pulled up and ordered two Big Macs and fries. We tipped both the order taker and the guy at the window. I really dislike snow for so many reasons - this being one of them. When we finally got back home the electricity was still out. So I got out a candle and we had our dinner in the dim light. The power finally came back on around six PM only to go out again at eight PM. I’m sure you know neither one of us was very happy about it. But at least our tummies were full. 

52Frames Break the Rules Photo Challenge

The 52Frames photo challenge was difficult for me last week. It was about “breaking the rules” - either in some form of behavior or breaking a photography rule. Since I never studied the rules of photography I really didn’t know where to start. So I looked them up to get an idea about what they are - and how I can break them. We first started out in the neighborhood park where I asked my husband to pose backwards - we put his jacket on the opposite way so the back of his head faced front. It was interesting. But I wanted to try something else too. So we went in to town and took a walk around the Capitol grounds. We first parked in our old neighborhood and started at the US Botanical garden. I tried several slow shutter and overexposed options. Somehow they didn’t feel like I was breaking the rules. Then I quite accidentally discovered how to take sort of double exposure images. The images weren’t great but I learned something new by mistake! I’ll need to perfect that technique. Then I tried several different angles of the Capitol building - a lot of them reflections in the pool. After we came home I started to edit the options. None of them looked very appealing. So I ended up submitting the first photo of my husband. You’re not supposed to place the subject in the center - rule of thirds; he’s facing backwards - a no no; and I much prefer color photos - I made up my own rule. This week is self portrait. UGH!

Closing Out an Email Account

I set it up for my mom many years ago. I got my mom an iPad very early on. Even though she was in her eighties, she embraced the new technology after an initial hesitation. We used it for almost daily communications and that meant I had to set up an email account for her. Now that she has been gone for almost two years, I decided it was time to close the account. Every once in a while I would receive a notice that someone tried to log in to that account. So I researched about what it means to close out email accounts and how it might or might not affect my accounts. After studying about it a few months ago and then again last week, it was time to do the unthinkable. Luckily I still have most of the email communications up to the very end. I still have a hard time reading cards and letters my mom sent over the years. The pandemic has made it more difficult to adjust to life without her - since our normal routines and diversions have all been disrupted. In the end I’m so glad we had the chance to share as much as we did. The one thing that keeps me in line is that I know everyone else has gone through losing their parents. I think the holidays make is most difficult. So when I sent a test message to see if I disabled the account correctly, the return email said the email address was no longer available. Sad. 

Rainy and Foggy New Year’s Day in DC

We woke up to a very dense foggy and rainy day. Rather than take a walk - like we usually do - we took a drive in to town. There were several disabled cars and a roll over along the GW Parkway. The fog was everywhere. Once we drove on to Arlington Memorial Bridge the traffic thinned out to nothing and the streets were relatively empty. On the national mall there were a lot of available parking spaces. The tourist traffic was a lot less than it has been over the last two weeks. We continued to drive by all of the familiar landmarks. Everything looked a bit more mysterious. A few pedestrians and die hards were out and about. We drove by our old condo building on Capitol Hill. We do still miss the neighborhood but there are a lot of things we are happy to have left behind. It almost feels weird that we actually lived there for thirteen years. We do still love to visit. On the way home the fog was so thick we couldn’t even see across the Potomac and the bridges disappeared. It was an interesting ride to start out the new year. I’m looking forward to the sunshine.