Come see the NOVACon!!!!

Just a reminder that the NOVACon is coming to Lubbock Nov. 1 at the Lubbock Garden and Arts Center.

You still have a couple of days before the contest deadlines, so if you haven't entered already, now's the time!!!

We'll also have plenty to do the day of the convention. It will run 8 a.m.-6 p.m. and have a live art contest, art show, charity auction, poetry jam and recycled art contest. There will also be local artists selling their creations, so come out and support local art.

Tickets are $5, or you can go to the NOVACon Web site and download a coupon for two tickets for the price of one. Children under 12 get in free, so bring the whole family!

I am completely happy :)

I spent all afternoon trying my best to capture the most miraculous thing I've ever seen. I was eating lunch over at the Lubbock Garden and Arts Center and noticed there were a lot of butterflies flitting around the flowers in front of the building. I decided to go get my boyfriend's film SLR camera to get a few pics.

When I got back, I realized the full enormity of what I was witnessing. This was part of the Monarch butterfly migration and there were literally hundreds of butterflies from different species, including of course many monarchs. They were gorging themselves on those flowers and those in a garden area inside the arboretum. They were so involved in what they were doing, I could literally take pictures from inches away. I even reached out to a few, and they put their legs on my finger :).

I was out a couple of hours and took about six rolls of films, which I'll be developing soon, but I was also able to get a few digital pics as well.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my extraordinary day :).

Cool blog image site

Note: This image is not my personal work and as such, is not subject to Creative Commons. Please go to Acobox.com to use this image on your blog
and follow their guidelines and terms of use.

I tried out a new Web site today for getting images for my blog, and I mostly like it. The Web site, www.acobox.com, offers a wide variety of photos you can look up and use on your blog.

The main selling point of this site to me is how easy it is. All you do is select the image, and it provides code for the image for you to insert directly into your blog. The image above is an example of the photographs available, and I think they are all really high quality.

To get the code, you just have to tell the site what alignment you want for the photo (optional) and what width you want the photo to be (available in 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 px sizes) and it provides the code.

Overall, I found the site very user friendly and easy to navigate. That said, there are a few drawbacks:

• The site is made to operate in Internet Explorer, and as a Firefox user, I found this a bit frustrating.
• When creating a user account, you are e-mailed your password, which Acobox generates. This is really more of a personal preference than anything, and you can change your password to something memorable pretty easily when you first log in.
• While there are several different categories of photos, some categories have a very limited selection. I suspect this is because it is a fairly new site, and figure there will probably be many additions to the photo selection in the future.

The LLAMA Today back in production

We have restarted printing for The LLAMA Today. Look for it on Nov. 7 during the First Friday Art Trail in Lubbock. As always, if you miss an issue, you can always visit The LLAMA Today Web site for articles, activities and news from the Lubbock Art Community.

Additions and changes

I finished with the latest incarnation of the Bakka Creative site. Under the "Explore" bar, you'll notice the ZITMOBIP Store and Fiction and Other Works links are now in working order.

I've also added a page to purchase photography prints, as well as a link to printroom.com, where I'm selling coffee mugs, coasters and other items with my photography on them.

There are still a couple of things in the works for this site:

-More links in my "Links" section for some of my favorite sites and blogs. If you want to participate in link sharing, feel free to e-mail me.

-An e-books link where I will be selling my work on www.mack-attack.com.

I will also be giving regular updates on what's happening with my art, so feel free to subscribe to get the latest news :).

As always, I love hearing from others interested in the arts, so drop me a line sometime!