I tend to draw clip art rather than write about it. So this is not a previously published writing sample. I never thought I could draw, though I wanted to and wished I could. Online I found ASCII art, text art created from the standard keyboard characters. Joan Stark became a famous ASCII artist in those days. She was one of my teachers as I learned how to make ASCII art in the newsgroups. From my early ASCII art I became a sketcher and doodler. Drawing a rough draft from an idea so I could turn it into ASCII art later. At one point my husband said I was drawing and getting pretty good at it. Of course, I scoffed. These were just rough sketches, not any sign of skill on my part. But, they were recognizable and even I had to admit I was learning what was necessary to turn a pig into a dragon, etc. Which lines gave meaning to a drawing versus my traditional stick figure drawings. I still draw stick figures. In my recent past I drew a stick figure cartoon for over a year in my personal blog. I also illustrate blogs with web comics for friends. I am still a casual illustrator and only web graphics, created/ formatted to be online. But, I have a real passion for drawing. It has developed from my early ASCII art and grown along with me. They say ASCII art is dead now. I still see it, very retro looking but still alive. I’ve heard clip art is also dead. Photos are posted with blog entries, not graphics, clip art or illustrations. What a shame, a huge loss I think. The photos take away from the blog post as the two are not really connected. It is so much better to post a real illustration, something created for the topic written about. I wanted to start a campaign to change the policy of posting random photos with blog posts. But, friends talked me out of it. So far. I really think this topic, Clip Art, is important for About.com to keep going and to expand into avatars, icons, bio and profile graphics, favicons, blog backgrounds, blog headers and illustrations for blog posts. I would like to work on this with About.com and show the people of the Internet clip art is not dead. Clip art is growing, evolving and still creative and fun as well as functional. I’d like to encourage others who are so sure they can not draw. I’ve begun Doodle Week, twice, with different friends. The plan is to get more people drawing. After almost a year I got a bit worn down and retired the campaign. I started it again but just didn’t have enough readers as it was a new blog network I was working with. However, having the reach of the About.com network would help and I would be glad to run Doodle Week at About.com. I would like to get more people creating their own clip art for their own sites and profiles online. I promise I am not an Artist, just an artist with a passion for creating something that doesn’t look like a pig when I intended to draw a dragon. Doodle Week (second time around) – http://www.ululating-undulating-ungulate.com/doodle-week/ Doodle Week (my first start at it) – http://stickfiguregrrl.blogspot.com/ Tricky to come up with experience. My clip art has just been for personal use. Here are some places where it appears. Almost all of it is hand drawn and then scanned into a file for the web. The ASCII art I create in Notepad and then use a screen capture (as the quickest and simplest method) to format them for use on the Internet. I’ve made web graphics but have never thought to keep or showcase them so I can’t really show them off to you now. http://thatgrrl.ca/ldb/ – Need to be seen in FixedSys font. My HTML used to be enough but doesn’t work now. I have been putting off fixing these pages as they are mainly just for my own viewing. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thatgrrl/sets/72157603381762801/ http://thatgrrlca.blogspot.com/search/label/Doodle%20Week http://thatgrrlca.blogspot.com/search/label/drawing http://www.ululating-undulating-ungulate.com/author/laura/ http://www.inherited-values.com/author/laura/ I wish I had something prestigious to show off my work. But, it’s been for friends and mainly a labour of love. I would like to have an egreeting card site for the stick figure grrls, they are kind of fun around holidays. (Grrls is not a typo). I’d like to know if the clip art I create belongs solely to About.com once I post it here? Or, do I still have some ownership so I can post it on my own sites as well? ]]>