Wednesday, September 4, 2013

In Which I Drown You In My Indifferent Graphics

You all probably know that I enjoy making graphics and that I'm not specially good at them.  Well, I've been making a ton, especially since school ended, and I do believe I've gotten a little bit better.  I thought you might like to see some of what I've done -- I know I always like to see others' graphics.  I can always learn something from them.
Oh yes -- feel free to use them, they're mostly not watermarked so credit if you like, if not I don't really care.  I never really understood the whole DON'T STEAL MY WORK thing that much.... as long as you're not selling it, why fuss?  It's just a digital image.

All my images are made with one of three photo-editors: iPiccy, PicMonkey, and Pixlr.  (Why do they always have to have rather silly names?)  They're each good for different things, so sometimes I'll use all three in one image.

First come the ones that can be used as desktop backgrounds.  I tire of desktops quickly, and so make a lot of new ones. If you use one, be aware that sometimes I don't measure the ratios right and then they're a bit too long or too short - also, mine are made for a 16:9 screen.


This was my first try-out of iPiccy, and I was quite proud of it, though I have since decided that it's not as wonderful as I at first thought.  The battle-cry of the Cristeros has always inspired me - I used to write it on the inside covers of my school notebooks, and it would make me feel very brave and ready for battle - a sentiment often necessary for the completion of math exercises -- or English essays -- or French exams. 



Despite my love of quotes, I always draw a blank when I go to make a graphic, hence the generally famous quotes I use.  I would much prefer obscure quotes, as I prefer most anything obscure, but when the time comes I never remember what I wanted to use.  I rather like this particular image, and surprisingly it took very little time.



I think a desktop for purity, strictly speaking, ought to contain more light and brightness than this does, and I couldn't find an image of a lily (symbol of purity) that worked, but other than that I am rather fond of this one.



If you couldn't tell, this image was the result of my love-affair with The Ballad of the White Horse.  The watermark is there because I posted it on Tumblr, and didn't save a non-watermarked version.
I know the stanza I chose sounds depressing, but I just love it because Our Lady gives Alfred no comfort and tells him that things are just gonna get worse, and yet he still gains strength to fight back that he didn't have before.  I haven't explained it well, but it's just such a delicious oxymoron to me, and before I read the poem, I had never thought of Christianity as journeying "gaily in the dark."  It's just a beautiful idea, and this little snippet reminds me of it when I'd rather "spell the stars/And times and triumphs mark" than be going gaily in the dark.
Perhaps I should not talk about my love-affair with this poem in the past tense.

The rest of these are not strictly desktops, though they can be used as such if you don't mind the not fitting.


This was the result of studying "Elegy in a Country Courtyard" and reflecting on how much wailing and keening and rolling in melancholy poets do.  "Fell in love with melancholy" indeed.  I don't know if you can even read all the quotes.  It was an exercise in trying out a slightly different style, and I'm still not sure what I think about it.



My mom wrote out this quote for me instead of giving me a lecture -- and it worked.



These words are from a poem by a Catholic author named Joseph Mary Plunkett about how everything in nature reminds him of Our Lord.  It's a beautiful poem, and this line especially caught my fancy.  One of the many pictures I have taken of the ocean from Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks worked perfectly as the backdrop.



The background in this graphic is a photo taken by me at Round Top, NY, when I visited the convent there. The quote is from the Regina Spektor song "The Call."  Another instance of me trying out a different style.

Well, I do believe that's enough for now.  If you made it to the end of this post without skimming and skipping...thank you.  If not, I totally don't blame you.

Tell me, do you have any tips for me? Questions?  General comments?  You know I'd love to hear them.

13 comments:

  1. I really liked them :) what are the quotes from the melancholy one from?

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    1. Thank you, Hannah! They're all from different poems, and unfortunately I can't remember which ones, because when I made that image I just flipped through my literature book and took examples of all the moaning and groaning poems I could find. :)

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  2. The men signed of the Cross.of.Christ! King Alfred and the Danes! The last stroke! Bake the whole sprig over again, a cake with kinder leaven! And any little maid that walks in good thoughts apart may hear the talk of the Three in One, for the gates of heaven are lightly locked and we do not bar our gold.

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    1. AHHHH THOU'RT KILLING ME, ROSAMUND. Too...much....amazing...writing. *faints away*

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    2. BWH fangirling party!

      I agree with you about that line of Our Lady's. It is dark, but it is ringing with hope because of the things that will never pass away, if you know what I mean. The world is dark, yet she speaks of Eternity before despair, and its the light at the end of the tunnel--or a light ringing through murky waters, like when Beowulf's sword melts...

      It's a poem worth memorizing to the end, even if Tolkien thought the end too much a collection of ringing images w/o substance. Before the gods that made the gods...

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    3. Yes, I do know what you mean.
      I would *love* to memorize the whole epic, but I don't even know if that's possible. I really should memorize at least part of it...
      Tolkien thought the end all image and no substance? I didn't know he ever spoke of it. Where did you find that out from? Even if he's right, it doesn't matter much because the rest of the poem is just SO full of substance one can't even take it all in. It drowns you.

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    4. I don't quite remember where I read it, but it may have been in Joseph Pearce's biography of GKC, Wisdom and Innocence.I'll have to check. But, what I read was.that as a young man Tolkien reveled in it, but later removed it as inferior. Which is ridiculous and almost made me dislike Tolkien, til I remembered Tom Bombadil, and Legolas and the Sea. I'll check and be back.

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    5. Yes, it was there, in the chapter entitled "Man Alive" or something of the sort. He said that Tolkien wrote to his son in 1944(?):
      "Priscilla... has been wading through the Ballad of the White Horse for the last many nights; and my efforts to explain the obscurer parts to her convince me that it is not as good as I thought. The ending is absurd. The brilliant smash and glitter of the words and phrases (when they come off, and are not mere loud colors) cannot disguise the fact that G.K.C. knew nothing whatever about the "North", heathen or Christian."

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    6. Wow, thanks so much for digging that out for me! Hmph. It would take more than that to make me *dislike* Tolkien, but it definitely makes me slightly annoyed with him. Ah, well. Nobody's perfect. Not even Tolkien. :(

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