When my curmudgeon-y ways start acting up, I have another Resource I can fall back on ... the best Resource of all ...
If you hear God calling you to do impossible things, don’t be afraid to answer the call. He has a way of asking you to do hard things that He knows you can’t possibly pull off. That way, when you don’t fall on your face in utter failure, there won’t be any question in anyone’s mind concerning Who gets the credit!
A couple of years ago I knew that God was giving me an impossible task ... let's put together a website.
Of course He led me to the perfect web company to help with that, 11 Fingers Design, and they're the ones who designed it and do all the heavy lifting month after month and keep all the web/internet stuff up to date and humming along. I never have a worry nor a care about it ... I am totally freed-up to concentrate on content, which is scary enough for a curmudgeon like me.
A brand new website can be a bit empty and stark … let’s fill it up!
I had no clue how to do that, but I was on other sites all the time when cruizing 'round the 'net ... I'll just imitate what I see on other sites. So I wrote some stuff, and drew some stuff, and we published it on the site.
It turned out just fine! This was fun! Let’s do it again!
And we did. Then we did it again, and again ... and again … I didn’t want to stop!
I was having a ridiculous amount of fun … and I have discovered a surprising new love … web graphics!
Not so much the coding and the styling, which I still just barely know enough about to turn in my monthly updates. No, I’m talking about the look and arrangement of the pages – have you ever put together a page layout that changes shape and size?!
And the content – does anyone actually read all of my jabber?
And the COLOR! I do love working in RGB!
When getting my book illustrations ready for printing, everything is high-res and CMYK. Colorful scanned images dull down when converting to CMYK mode for printing. It’s a necessary part of the job and I just do it and try not to think about it too much.
But graphics on the web stay bright and colorful in RGB. Especially the Homepage, because there I can add even more bold color and images in the background.
So right away I was really enjoying putting images up on the Homepage and in articles. And stretching them out all across my wonderful wide-screen HD computer monitor … just like a nice, wide, 2-page spread in a picture book! So easy … until … uh-oh … I found out that this stuff had to fit on phone monitors, too! Phone monitors that can be vertical AND horizontal. Tablet monitors. Hi-res monitors. Lo-res monitors. Square monitors! Yeesh!
Well, how hard can it be … laying out pictures and type that will fit any shape and any size … but … double uh-oh! … these things MOVE!! ‘Cause when you turn that phone around … good grief!
Laying out a webpage is NOT the same as laying out pages in a picture book.
After almost five decades of thinking I had graphics all figured out … well, it’s time to learn new ways of doing things! Makes me want to get out of bed every day and get back to it ... what new thing will I learn today? Work is so much fun when it takes you places and teaches you things you never knew before!
Does that sound curmudgeon-y to you? I don't think so either. A curmudgeon wouldn't be doing stuff like this ... maybe I'm not so curmudgeon-y after all ...
As for anyone reading all my jabber … all I know is that, while there may not be millions out there reading, somebody is. I know, because I get the emails from folks wanting to publish and they tell me about the help and encouragement they found on the site … and that’s what it's all about!
I love my job!
Thanks