Catching up

Saint-Foy de Conques, digital watercolour

I have mainly been publishing on my deviantart account lately and I was wondering whether it was worth it keeping two sites afloat (the deviantart account and this blog). Then I googled “digital watercolour” in google images out of curiosity. And up popped all the drawings I had published here … and not the ones I had published in deviantart. Conclusion: wordpress rules as far as SEO is concerned. And as one of my goals with all this is to pass the word (aspiring watercolourists, go digital!) I’d rather keep the blog and the google notoriety that goes with it. Thanks wordpress. And now for some catching up.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s say I’ll publish here every friday (as a way to get ready for illustration Friday – one day).

Creative commons and collaborative art

I had found the gorgeous lineart by Princess Elemmiriel on DeviantArt.com who kindly invites people to do their color version.

I then tried my luck with digital watercolour in mypaint (open-source painting software). I then added textures added in Gimp (open-source photomanipulation software). The background paper texture is by Dierat and the decoration texture by Mouritsa.

Watercolour re-coloring of freely contributed lineart on DeviantArt

This is a great example of what can be achieved by combining free contribution from various creative-commons sources. This ca only be done with free and open-source licences such as creative commons. I would never have done it if I had to pay for any of these resources, even a single penny: just having to signup for an account would scare me into doing some other project that does not require all that hassle. QED – copyright kills creation – period. Now if I had done the project as a paid commission, I’d be glad to contribute in return, but ex-post, once the work is completed and the customer is happy.

Therefore I want to thank warmly all those who contribute their work freely.

CC – attribution – noncommercial – noderivatives (as per PrincesseLemmiriel’s specs). “please do not redistribute without crediting”.