some refreshing reality; you are an artist

Just hours after complaining about girls using Audrey out of context as "thinspiration," I find an article today that interviews teen girls and their opinions on the weight obsession. The entire article is good, and one girl actually quotes Audrey as justification for accepting yourself as you are! It doesn't get any better than that. To read the whole article, click here.

Next up is an article about women today, and their lack of lady-like appeal. Some may even be offended at this article, since it is written by a man and therefore might be viewed as sexist or misogynistic, but it was all a matter of circumstance. He was watching Audrey in Breakfast at Tiffany's, and during that viewing came across . . . well, let's say someone not so genteel. It led him on a tangent wondering what has changed in women in roughly 50 years, and if it really is all for the better. To read more, go here.

Last up for today: have you searched for Audrey on eBay auctions lately? Don't do it regularly, it's very habit forming! Trust me. :) But if you have been on lately, you might have noticed a rash of pop art wall hangings of her that are selling from about $12-20, depending on size. They're big and look like something Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein would have made. I just wanted to warn you all: DON'T BUY THEM! Sure, they look cool, and you may even really want one or three to have around your home. But please DON'T waste your money on these. Why? Because you can make them yourself, for free!

You see, there's this free program called Rasterbator. Unfortunate name, but what can you do? Anyway, you can use it either online, or download the whole thing, and both ways are free. All you do is enter in any picture on your hard drive, choose how big you want to make the picture (from 1 page to 500, maybe even more), whether you want it in its original colour, black & white, or in a selected monochrome, and Rasterbator will generate your page(s) in PDF format to print out and hang. Some people frame each page or a line of pages to make cool juxtapositions and make their collages look a little more artsy, some just tape them straight to the wall. Either way, it makes you an instant pop artist and all you have to pay for is the paper to print it on (and ink cartridges, if you print enough). For example, I just made two versions of the same picture (one sheet version): click here.* This was used with the photo's natural colours, as you can see. All I have to do is tell my photo program to fit this onto one page, print, and I have art! The extra gap at the bottom of the picture is just what would be white space at the bottom of the sheet of paper it would print on, since the photo is square and my paper isn't.

Now see how it looks in monochrome: click here.* Now do you see why it's ridiculous to pay so much for a few sheets of printed paper? Anyone can do this! In fact, I used this program to decorate my whole apartment (barring one framed Italian Funny Face poster). I must warn you though, it's highly addicting once you get the hang of it.

P.S. Feel free to download the two pictures above to print and try them out for yourself. Just click on them to see them full-sized, so you get a high quality print out.

*edit: Due to complaints that the large quality pictures were slowing down the page too much, I've changed them to text links. Clicking on the links will take you to a full, high quality picture that you may download directly and use.