Huh...

[ellenmillion]

Clearbags hosed up my order pretty well - they send foam board instead of backer board... which would have made me complain bitterly except that I checked the prices (and verified that it was acid-free) and I made out like a king. And a check showed that they fit nicely into the bags that I order... so no real whining here! :P They also gave me double the boxes I ordered. Again, no serious objection.

Layla!! I hope your signing went well!! I didn't make it into town that late in the evening (and besides, I already have signed copies. *Grin*) The rest of you must check out her webcomics and buy her books - I just finished the first volume of Raven's Children, and it is FABULOUS. Very gritty and intriguing. I loved the in-depth world fleshing stuff in the back. (And the character reference - I'm a dope with names in real life, that's ALWAYS what I have trouble following in graphic novels.) http://www.laylalawlor.com/

Kate!! I loved the watercolor you sent. I am in envy of your control of the medium and want to throw all of mine out in disgust now. So lovely. :)

And I didn't really mean to make anyone feel (too) guilty with my last post. I know it's been a crazy time of year and all, and was only feeling gripe-y and insecure. It passes.

You'd better submit for next month, though. Darn it. (Muuuust finalized more themes in advance! I hope to post 'em for the remainder of the year this weekend.)

Ooo... wonder what the story behind this is: http://www.saveloomis.org/

Comments

[redrevvy.livejournal.com]

I thought the Loomis books were public domain ?

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the praise and the plug! ^_^ The signing did go quite well, although I was thoroughly fried at the end -- after a long hard workweek and then spending a couple hours on my feet talking nonstop, I was a zombie. But it's all good.

Here's the Loomis story in a nutshell. The Andrew Loomis books are considered one of *the* definitive figure drawing guides on the market, but they've been out of print since the 1950s and are a hot collector's item, fetching outrageous prices (well ... hundreds of dollars per copy). The Save Loomis people made PDFs out of the books and put them online, figuring that since Loomis is dead and the books show no signs of coming back into print, it's unfair for artists to be deprived of this resource because they can't afford the high prices for the collectors' copies.

Clearly, the Loomis estate disagrees.

Some of his "lesser" books ARE still in print, but the biggies are not. I bought a German edition of "Figure Drawing For All It's Worth", which is totally worth the $25 even though I can't read the text -- the illustrations are incredibly useful. I just felt too guilty about downloading the PDF without also buying the book. (I did go ahead and download the PDF so I could figure out what the text was saying, however.)

[millennialhippy.livejournal.com]

Don't be silly!!! You are far superior to me in painting in nearly every technique. All my brush makes are rocks and mountains.

[uminomamori.livejournal.com]

aw crap:(...Good thing I printed a lot of loomis and got a book on ebay.

I bet lots of us have still got those files out there.

Do you think somebody bought the rights to them?