New Beginnings Art Gallery

Tonight was a reception at the New Beginnings Gallery that is located at 2124 3rd Street (Jefferson Highway) in Kenner (Rivertown). My art hangs there along with the art by artist and gallery owner Christine Coleman. The gallery has only been open a couple of months and my work has been hanging only a few weeks. See more photos from the reception on my blog, pic journal.

First Video Using Flip Cam

For a couple of months I’ve been noticing YouTubers talk about their Flip cams. Naturally I became interested in purchasing one. The question I had was whether it would work with my Mac. I was assured when I bought mine there would be no problem. Well, I did run into trouble getting my file, from the camera over to iMovie ’08, as a usable file.

Fortunately a friend e-mailed me a site that had three things to try. The last one on the list was Div X Doctor II. Finally I was able to make a file that maintained sound. Then I used MPEG Streamclip to make a MPEG 4 file. After that I had no problems.

The video was shot since renovations were completed at Cleanerama. I figured it would be nice to show how much nicer the place looks. Using the same music from the last video I shot there, I assembled my video in iMovie '08. Flip cam handles low light levels very well. I was pleased with the results.



3 min 5 sec

"a" Series Transition

Work on this series overlapped with completion of the previous one. I began adding the dots on April 7, 2007. So now, more than a year later, I completed this group of paintings. Some pieces dealt with more serious events this time. Thus, working on the paintings was more difficult for me - beyond just the imagery. A number of the pieces depict visual references of forced changes occurring between June and December 2006. That’s why I have settled on calling this batch the “a” Series Transition. Here they are in a checkerboard slideshow.

ARTinA's New President

After a number of years of being asked, I finally agreed to be the president of a local organization called ARTinA. The name stands for Art in Algiers. Although the organization began in Algiers Point members hail from all over the Greater New Orleans area. Originally the organization focused its efforts on a festival in October.

With the chaos following Katrina there haven’t been any more festivals put on by Katrina. Currently the organization is in a rebuilding phase. There have been some hands-on workshops, but participation has been much smaller than it was previously.

5 Facts 5 Tags

On January 4, 2008, I was tagged by cspotbeggg on YouTube. ARRRRRRGGGGH! Prior to that, I thought non-vloggers would be safe. cspotbeggg is not a vlogger either. Anyway, I decided to participate. Here is what I came up with for my offical dotdude repsone video:


1 min 40 sec

The music is the iLife '08 Jinlge "Spacey Club."

Prior to being tagged, I viewed YouTuber johnnysmooth's tag video. I then traced a chain of videos back to nerimon's video. From what I can tell, he initiated this game on YouTube as of December 21, 2007. The game mushroomed after that point. Some YouTubers were tagged more than once.

graphic identity Article on My Dot Art

Today the blog graphic identity featured an article about my blog, dot art. The article contains an interview with me. Some images of my artwork are included as well as links to some of my other blogs.

Art Scuttlebutt

Art Calendar, a business magazine for artists, has an area that is similar to MySpace. It is called Art Scuttlebut. Recently I was invited to create a profile. I still have to check out the forums there.

Two Pond Videos

The first one I filmed was at Poydras Home, the weekend of the Poydras Home Art Show and Sale. I went to see the work I submitted and see which other artists participated. Along a walkway called Memorial Walk on the grounds of the home, I stopped at a pond inhabited by a large numbers of goldfish. There’s a small waterfall. That area is so peaceful, I decided to shoot some video

Poydras Home Pond

On another day I http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giffinally got around to taking some photos on the Lakefront. While I was in the area, I went to West End Park. When I was walking through I discovered a flock of ducks swimming in the pond. Well, I couldn’t resist filming them.

West End Ducks

Dot Art Workshop Second Round

Since Tropical Storm Humberto scared off some of the artist participants in September, I was asked to present a second workshop for the ARTinA November meeting. Here are my students working on hard on their dot artwork. I have more photos on my blog dot art. Also, I have photos of the artists with the pieces they created during the workshop.

New Video, New Vimeo Channel

Recently I completed a video of a drive on I-10 called Road Home Highway. It is now posted on a newer blog, video process. This blog features videos that make use of special and or arty effects.

When I uploaded my new video to Vimeo last night, I noticed that channels are now being offered. Having set one up on YouTube, I figured that this opportunity might be worthwhile. Previously I have uploaded videos to Vimeo. I decided on dotartvideo as my channel name.

The odd thing is channels can avoid having features. It's a matter of customizing a channel. On a default channel there are boxes for a calendar, a blog, shoutouts, files (audio, image or document), links, channel activity, RSS feed, moderator(s), subscribers (little avatar squares together – similar to some blog networking) and even a forum that allows for topics (private and or public).

Dalas Verdugo’s tutorial videos explain everything about setting up and managing channels. He states that subhead bars were purposely given a gross color so you’d change them. That amused me.

Freewebs Improves, I Set Up a Page

Recently I noticed an article on Mashable about improvements on the site Freewebs. Four months ago I had fiddled with a site there and became totally annoyed with it. This morning I decided I was going to try once more. Well now I have a new page to show off.

As I have on other pages I used photo blurs from "Dirty Linen Night." They worked out well with a template I chose and avatar I chose. In fact I didn't have to change any CSS code. The template I used does have that option. So, click on the link below to see my latest page.

Freewebs: dotartdude

What is nice about Freewebs. is that a lot of tabs are set up as a default, i.e., a blog, a guestbook, a profile, etc. There is also the ability to add a range of widgets, polls and questionnaires as well as maintain a forum.

Dot Art Hands On Workshop

This past Thursday I conducted a “hands on” workshop with my fellow artists of ARTinA (Art in Algiers). First I discussed the artists that influenced my dot art and then showed some examples of my completed works. Next I demonstrated how to use wood dowels with cotton to paint different patterns. After that, all of us painted on small canvases that were provided for the workshop. For more information see my blog dot art.

Art Display at East Jefferson General Hospital

This month my painting, "Code Pink", is on display in a window art display next to the gift shop at East Jefferson General Hospital. Several artists are participating.

Puppy Whining

Since joining YouTube on May 30, 2006 I’ve uploaded thirty-eight videos. Twenty-four of them documented a litter of puppies over a seven-week period. The videos were dedicated to artistic expression. In the last two weeks my video, “Puppy Whining” (see below), became my most viewed video on my channel. As of right now the video stands at a whopping 934 views. The next highest video is one of two guys breakdancing at Mardi Gras, called “Operation Dance.” It has 713 views.

23 sec

Ginger Rose, who stars in this video, now resides in Lafayette, LA. To see more videos click on my channel, dotdude.