I'm Twittering Now

This is one of the few non-art or animal related posts you'll find here on my blog, but I think the subject is interesting and worth writing about. And I hope you'll think so too. You won't even find photos or art in this post, which is very unusual!

I'd heard of Twitter some time ago and had resisted joining - thinking it was yet another time-sucking social networking site and I spend more than enough time on the computer & internet as it is. But a favorite Star Trek quote of mine is "resistance is futile", so you can guess what happened. Yes, and now you also know I'm fond of Star Trek.

In past posts, I've mentioned belonging to assorted eBay groups; I also have a MySpace page. I have a Facebook page too. I've never really gotten into Facebook, though, so I don't do much there. For the most part, I'm networking as a way to get the word out about my art and pet portraits, but I do find it quite enjoyable to interact on-line with other like-minded folks from around the world.

Now, back to Twitter, which I must admit, I'm glad I was unable to resist. In the short time since I've joined, I've found it to be interesting, thought provoking, fun and quirky. What exactly is it?, you may be asking. Well, think of Twitter as a micro-blogging site, where posts (tweets) are limited to 140 characters and designed to answer the Basic Twitter Question: "What are you doing?"

You will find thoughts, links, quotes, jokes, etc. on Twitter - some tweets are mundane, others are quite insightful, and there's everything in between. And now that I'm a resident of Twitterville, I've realized that I think in tweets. A thought will pop into my head and I'll think, "I have to tweet that!" It's an interesting by-product that being limited to 140 characters makes one think concisely - not a bad thing. I try to avoid the text messaging shortcuts if at all possible (because I'm not a texter and frankly, the shortcuts annoy me), but on occasion, I'll be forced to use a shortcut to get my tweet down to 140 characters.

I attempt to remain professional - I don't want anything incriminating, offensive or completely stupid floating out there in cyberspace - but Twitter is a place where I can make random comments and observations that I wouldn't post here on my blog. And I try to tweet thoughts that others will find interesting and that reflect the kinds of things I'd like to read on Twitter. I do tweet links to my art, as marketing is part of why I joined Twitter, but I try to balance that with other thoughts and discoveries. If followers (other Twitter members who decide to keep track of what I'm tweeting) decide I'm not their cup of tea and stop following, that's fine with me. I've done the same.

One of the more interesting things I discovered on Twitter is Tipjoy, a way to "micro-donate" via the web and very easy to do if you have a Twitter account. I read a tweet about donating to wellwishes to raise money for water projects in Africa. Intrigued, I looked into it further and discovered the Tipjoy site. I've set up an account and am working on setting up pages so that I can collect tips for my favorite local animal charities. Here are the two pages I've made so far: Greyhound Friends for Life and FieldHaven Feline Rescue

If you'd like to know more about Twitter, they have a thorough FAQ page. And these are some helpful, interesting and educational blog posts written by Twitterers with far more experience than I:

Before You Tweet by Tojosan

Twitter Etiquette: Viewpoint from a Non-Business User by LilPecan

Your Twitter Friends by NataniaBarron

. . . Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow . . . by Atherton Bartelby

And if you're curious about my tweets (come on, I know you are), I'm AnnRan5.

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2 More Portraits

Finished and delivered - yay!

Quincy the Newfoundland:

7" x 9", India ink, watercolor and color pencil on Ampersand Aquabord



Ankh & Taita, Abyssinians:

5" x 8", watercolor and a bit of color pencil on Yupo

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American Bulldog Portraits

One of my pet portrait clients is the proud owner of two American Bulldogs. If forced to generalize, I'd say an American Bulldog looks more like a pit bull than the English Bulldog (which I think is what most people envision when they hear "bulldog"). And I must note that "pit bull" is a catch-all term for a number of breeds: American Pit Bull Terrier, Staffordshire Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier and American Bulldog. These breeds are also lumped into the group often referred to as "Bully Breeds" which includes the English Bulldog, Bull Terrier, Boxer, Bull Mastiff, French Bulldog, Boston Terrier and a few others.

But I digress. . .

I want to share the portraits I did of my client's bulldogs. I finished one portrait a while back and just finished the second one this week.

This is Lexi


and this is Ella

Ella's older now and probably looks much more like Lexi than she did when I took the reference photos for this portrait.

Both portraits are ACEO-sized (2.5" x 3.5") in graphite pencil on bristol (paper).

Find out more about ACEOs and commissioning an ACEO portrait of your favorite critter on this page of my web site.

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New Drawing to Benefit FieldHaven Feline Rescue

This is Noah, a kitten saved by FieldHaven Feline Rescue, now living in a wonderful home. Noah had a really rough start in life, he and his siblings were infected with panleukopenia - a feline distemper virus that was fatal to his littermates. This tough little guy pulled through though - thanks to the caring folks at FieldHaven. The effective vaccine for this virus is routinely given to kittens, unfortunately Noah and his littermates were found abandoned and unvaccinated.


This drawing is now available in my Etsy shop, click on Noah to see the listing.

The drawing measures 3" x 3" and is matted to 8" x 8". Drawn in graphite pencil with some color pencil.

Thanks to Joy Smith, the director of FieldHaven for providing the reference photo I used for my drawing of Noah.

Trying something new here - I learned about TipJoy on Twitter (where I'm annran5) and thought I'd start offering the option to tip my favorite charities when I post about them. So here goes: if you'd like to leave a tip for FieldHaven (as little as 25 cents would be appreciated) click here.

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Festive Critters

I decided on the spur of the moment to head out to nearby Loomis this afternoon. I really wasn't in the mood to clean house (I rarely am!) and instead of the stormy day I expected, it was sunny and nice. My destination was a fund-raising photo event put on by a local rescue.

Four of their animals were there for photo opps. Of course, Santa was there too!













Seeing the critters in festive attire made me realize I still had to take photos of our dog for this year's Christmas card. So here's Magpie in Santa hat and holiday scarf.





And speaking of scarves, I got this one from FieldHaven Feline Rescue - part of their "Louiseware" collection for dogs & cats. Scarf sales benefit the kitties at FieldHaven.

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New Pet Friends

Human friends of mine have new pets that I met recently - thought I'd share photos of them here.

One of the new pets is Zoya, a beautiful African grey parrot. Zoya belongs to Oliver's owner (see previous post for Oliver's portrait), and I met her last week when I delivered the portrait.






And this is Tootsie, a 4 month old German shepherd, the latest addition to another friend's family. They've had her a week and a half and I met her yesterday. She's all black, long, lean & leggy and has an excellent temperament.

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Oliver & Holiday Art

My latest commissioned portrait is Oliver the orange tabby. Instead of the typical "head shot" portrait, I decided to include more of his body in this painting. That white "belt" of his caught my eye and the look he was giving the mouse toy while I was taking photos was something I wanted to capture. In reality, Oliver was getting quite bored with the photo shoot and wasn't in the mood to play with the mouse, but I was fortunate to get a couple of reference photos of him staring at the toy.


The original painting is 8x10 in watercolor on Yupo.

And now for the Holiday Art:
It's after Thanksgiving, and time to offer some Holiday/Christmas art on a couple of on-line sites. Honest, I waited until the day after Thanksgiving to list these things - it drives me crazy the way Christmas merchandise comes out earlier and earlier every year!

I have cards in my Etsy shop - 4 different images (reproductions of my paintings) that come in sets of 5 for $19. They're blank inside and come with a white envelope. Sure, they're a bit more expensive than mass produced cards, but each one is printed, cut and folded by me!

Click on the image below to view/purchase cards.


You'll find the same images on a variety of merchandise, including porcelain ornaments, magnets, mugs & t-shirts in my CafePress shop.

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