Joyful Journey

From the British Museum, Q. Cassetti, 2009Raining and cold here. Loving it. Its that lovely rain that makes your skin feel fabulous….light and misty. The plants love it too. More great grass growing mist.

I have a happy elephant for you today…gleefully carrying his riders bedecked in bells, tassels and decorations. I think he is a good reason to get out of bed and think good thoughts today. If only we all could bring such happiness to our journey everyday. May this fellow inspire and encourage us all!

Today is “John Hancock” day at the  High School. John Hancock refers to one’s signature (as in Yearbook)— so the day is celebrated with Yearbooks, special lunches, music and fun. This is the day long funday before the tests begin. Oy. The end is near. I am hoping Alex can get some focus and hit his stride in the next week or so. Never compare. Each child is different and the puzzle I find, is getting into each child’s motivations and strengths to push and shove to get the best, get the happiness for each person. This is the true work…beyond potty training but part of the process with these gifts we are presented with. I know Alex struggles with me too, but recently we have had some very nice, very soft and meaningful times together. I would love to have more of that. He is such a sweet and tender person.

I am revelling in my Behance Prosite. I do not think its a stand alone, but is a nice extra to all the other visual networking out there, and is easy to link to all the other network “fingers” I have out there (Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Blog, portfolio). The smooth thing is that the projects that I post to Behance then streams over to the Prosite, where they are organized along with other pages you can post, links etc.that takes the work out further, looking more like a portfolio. Plus, with the easy to use tools, its a snap to put up with customizable features (posting headers, adding spaces and rules) along with the ease of posting visual work makes the $99. a year an easy choice to make. Take a look if you are website free…as this is a simple and inexpensive way to get a web presence that is immediately linked not only to a big audience through Behance but also  to your personal online communities.

Meeting starting in 12 minutes. Need to get my act in gear.

New tools: Behance's Prosite

I just wanted to mention this new opportunity for those of you that are code impaired but want to get as much of your work “out there” in an easy to use, networked, product. As you know, I use Squarespace for this blog which suits my needs well. No need to know code. Easy to use. Back up systems. Nice gallery features etc.

I have been placing my work in other visual networking areas with my favorite being Behance. Behance’s Gallery organizes your project work in a simple to use, plain field to showcase the art and not someone else’s graphic design. Now Behance has taken it a step further by offering their Prosite which repurposes these portfolio and links these projects to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, along with offering buttons for iPhone and a “favicon” for the URL at the top. For $99. a year, it is easy to use and has great reach with relatively low input. Take a look. I plan on a more graceful header when I have time. However, the simple template is not obnoxious. Take a look>>

Monday update

Chequered Bunny, Q. Cassetti, 2011, pen and ink, colored in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop CS5Monday. Things have changed. We have two kids in the house with a summer guest in the offing. Today is Rob’s birthday! We will hopefully have dinner out at our nice restaurant a block from here. There is an awards ceremony we need to attend…so maybe a late dinner.

We had a nice evening with all sorts of “Facebook Stalking” (Alex’s phrase) with the review of all the prom pictures (which is almost as much fun as the prom)—the dresses, the hairdos, the white dinner jackets etc. Kitty and our friend Thea were very consumed by looking at all these pictures—sort of a yearbook of some sort. Shoes and hairdos took the lead insofar as conversation. 

Interesting. Behance Network, a free, social networking page for visual people is a terrific resource to share (and get interesting feedback) where you can post projects and follow others. I have gotten some interesting leads on work from folks that have seen my work on Behance, so I cannot say enough about it. Also, Behance and LinkedIn, have an app. that allows you to post Behance projects (known as portfolios) to LinkedIn as soon as its posted. So, that is a nice extra to make your content get out there, easily. Now they are doing a Beta on easy up personal websites that parse the same projects/portfolios to a central page with a series of simple but really nice skins to show your work. One has choices in background, background color, font selections etc. This is something I may look into because of the reach, simplicity and to better understand what these two social networking sites can do with/for each other.

Wow. Look at this! You can flow the Behance stuff to your Facebook page! I need to try this out! I guess it pays to wander a bit on Monday morning! You never know what you will find! From the Behance Blog>>

Beautiful

Work beckons. There are a bunch of little projects gathering around my ankles…and should get them moving.

It is so so great that it is cooler and raining as it is changing the high pollen content here. Everything has been coated with chartreuse pollen from the walks to the cars, to even our furniture inside as it wafts in through the screens and windows. Shady is snoring.