Is sharing now the same as stealing?

Digital media does present certain problems when it comes to sharing. You need to have compatible hardware and software for example.  Since nothing is in physical form, you can’t simply give your copy for someone to listen to, but you have to transfer it to their device. Some media has copyright protection coding that not only makes it hard to share or pass it to a pal, but even to another device that you own. 

Corporations are working overtime to convince people that they don't own the stuff they buy.  If the rights change to another company you might  find stuff you bought disappearing from your hard drive, disabled or charged an additional fee for. More and more consumers have the right to pay for things but have no control what happens to it when they don't want it anymore. If someone dies, what will happen to their giant media collection? Can it be left to someone? Truth is, no one really knows anymore. 

I am not saying that there are not problems to work out with these new technologies or that people should be able to just distribute things without any restrictions but the basic act of sharing should not be so easily made into criminal acts. Libraries could be considered (and maybe are  by some) as illegal entities distributing massive amounts copyrighted material freely to the public. Big companies have managed to extend copyright to a ridiculous extent. The people who created the media rarely get anything from sales anymore and the rights which used to pass into public domain after a few years can now be prolonged indefinitely, long after the creators have passed away. No one should be paying anyone to sing Happy Birthday at this point in time. There needs to be less delay in passing things into public domain and more making money by supporting new products and not just selling other people’s work who can no longer personally profit by it.

Yes there are nuances and complex legal arguments in this discussion to make but, in a way that’s the point I’m making. Its those arguments and the laws created by them that are turning sharing in far too many cases into stealing. 

Vieux Port Montréal

I have always wanted to draw this building and I finally decided to do it. Done in Sketchbook pro with a wacom tablet and took about 16 days to complete. Most of the work was on the front stones which are varied and irregular which give the place it's charm, I think.

Lost Artwork

I have come to realize recently that I have lost a lot of artwork over the years. Sometimes I'll find an old image or just something I see will reminds me of something I did long ago and  disappeared from my collection. I also think of all the stuff I  gave away to family and friends as gifts and never took a photo or made any other kind of copy of. What happened to all those drawings and photos? Where are they now? How many are lost forever?

I know where a vast number went... When I lived in Boston, my first apartment there was flooded 4 times in 2 years. I lost many drawings and thousands of photos. This was long before the digital age so all that wet paper was ruined forever. As soon as the technology made it possible, I scanned all the remaining images, drawings, paintings and photos alike and still have them on my computer and on back up disks. 

But what about all those works of art I did when I was younger? Firstly, would anyone (especially me) want to see them again anyway? Some, I admit, I would. I remember doing a series of "tall ship" pencil drawings and some pen and ink animal images...and lots of dragons and sci-fi stuff for fun and a friend's fanzine.  I also remember a series of poster recreations, logos and all, a preview of my interests and career in graphic design perhaps. A couple pages did survive from these periods and I'm still not ashamed or even unhappy with most of it. Some of it I leads me to retry things or inspires me to new ideas. 

Not long ago I redrew an ink drawing I had done on a massive mounted drawing board 25 year ago and managed to compare it to the original which was still in the home of the cousin I drew it for. I learned quite a bit just by seeing it again.  I think I have improved my skill set but also I could see how my focus has changed in what details I chose to accentuate and how I chose to represent  complex subjects. 

What can be done about all this lost experience? Not much. I am making an effort to photograph stuff I gave away if I can get to it. The more I think about it, the more things I remember are gone. Is it sentimentality? Curiosity about my own past thoughts? Ego? I can't say I really know, but I seem to be getting a lot from just trying to remember my past accomplishments and even more if I actually rediscover them somewhere. 

Unicycle Illustration

Fille Impatiente

Trying to get back into animation again… it's been a couple years since my last one. I wish I had the money to upgrade to C4Ds latest version which looks like it would make the many of the things that take me so long to get anything done, get done much faster.

This project has been kicking around a long time. It's nothing extraordinary but it's the first one where I learn dot rig well enough to not be struggling with the puppet the whole time and despite the long time between animations, I think I've gotten much better at the timing and fluidity of the character movement. Plus This has a real walk in it, which isn't great but it's true when they say the walk is the hardest thing to pull off.

The Sweet Fail of Success

Success is measured in many ways and in the creative fields there are perhaps more ways to think of it than in other endeavours. 

In my case, for example, I can point to many signs of success. I wanted to work in special effects/animation as a child and make movies. For the personal documentaries I  made I wanted to:

1. Win some awards
2. Get a project shown in a real cinema
3. Get something shown on TV

I've done all of these things and even sell my films on Amazon.com, something I wouldn't have imagined starting out. So I can't complain that I haven't achieved my basic goals. 

Now the fail part. I also expected with these achievements I hoped I would be able to squeak out a small living, nothing ridiculous, but this has not happened. I've worked on some nice professional projects for PBS and well know documentary film makers, and even though some won Emmys and Peabody Awards, I am cleaning streets part time to make ends meet with almost zero graphic design and truly zero video work is coming in for a couple of years now. 

There are lots of "reasons" for this. No one has the budgets anymore with the economic crisis ( or so they say) to hire people and I did not grow up in Montréal or New York City or get the chance to go to college… all of which would have helped make stronger networks to draw work from. So while my work is considered excellent and not even expensive, I have to remind as many people in hiring positions possible that I still exist as often as I can. Knowing the right people is everything in business and no amount of talent, hard work or dedication can overcome the basic fact of "it's who you know" and "getting there at the right moment". 

Then there is the artistic part. I am very happy with my drawings for one thing and while I could certainly use more money (read: any money) for my film projects, in the end I'm happy to keep making them and progressing slowly into more complicated things. So… success again. 

So in the end, I'm a success in how I think of my work and how it's received when I get jobs... but a failure in the "making a living" area which is, truth be told, the only measure of success everyone, including artists can agree on. 

City of Dreams of Tamino the Cat

(cover art to: City of Dreams of Tamino the Cat)

Mice Luce has released his Tamino comic on iTunes in the bookstore and I highly recommend you get it. It was along time coming, but the effort shows and it looks great on the iPad. It's an inspiring piece of work and I encourage anyone and everyone to buy a copy to help support not just Mr. Luce but all independent artists in general.

Colour Painting

I decided to try some colour photoshop painting and a more unusual subject (for me). I was fairly pleased with the result, though I still have much to learn about painting hair. I took some photos last year at Montréal Complètement Cirque  and I hope to fins a few more this year to get more references for more paintings. Since I am not finding models for a series on yoga poses on my own, this should satisfy that idea for now. I did this all in Photoshop as Sketchbook Pro recently updated to 6,2 and it's so buggy it's unusable for the moment. Hopefully that will change very soon as I missed its superior way of handling brushes.

Monoprice drawing tablet

I decided it might be a good idea to have a portable drawing tablet to take with me and use with my 13" MacBook Pro. The obvious choose was one of the Bamboo Wacom tablets. They are small, elegant and I already have an Intous 5 for the tower which I  use all the time. The price of Wacom tablets is fairly high so I looked into alternatives after a friend turned me on to some other brands to check out. In the end I decided to take a chance on the Monoprice tablet. 

It took a little,while to arrive but at less than half the price of a bamboo, it's more than equal to one in most respects. It's slightly larger than my laptop and the screen is almost a one to one ratio with the MacBook Pro screen. It is light but sturdy and easily fits in the bag with the computer. The pen is larger than a Wacom pen and needs a battery but, unlike some reviews on amazon.ca, I didn't really notice a comfort difference. Then sensitivity of the drawing surface is the same as a Bamboo, but half that of the other tablet I use. Even so, the differences were subtle and I think what you might lack in fine detail control can be made up just by working slightly larger.  There is period of adapting to the less sensitive pen while drawing but it's workable. 

The device has a line of preset and programmable buttons on the top of the drawing surface, which is quite useful but it lacks a wheel control for rotating the canvas while drawing like the larger Wacom does. This is sorely missed but not a deal killer. All in all, the small discomforts I had using it were more a result of drawing on the laptop, not the tablet itself. I actually,like the feel of the pen on the tablet more than the Wacom and this tablet lets you slide paper under the plastic for easy tracing if you need to do that.  

I'd say for the money, this easily beats out Wacom for a portable drawing choice. 

Below: 

My first test image made with sketchbook, some photoshop but all on the new tablet and with the laptop. 

Manior

I had done a large drawing of this many years ago. My cousin was married in this place, whose name and location I have completely forgotten. I haven't seen the drawing since I gave it to her and when I found one of the original reference photos, I decided to make a drawing for myself from it. I really worked on making the building stand out from the trees all around it and look 3 dimensional. If you look to the right side you can see the multi-storey birdhouse next to the front tree.