Stay Tuned – New Look Coming!

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Leslie Sigal Javorek | Leave a comment

Posted by: Leslie Sigal Javorek • Date: Thurs. Nov 19, 2009 5:03 am am

I’ve been busy as the proverbial beaver over the last week working on cleaning up the general look of my blog for a more cohesive look that’s easy on the eyes and focuses attention without jangling one’s nerves. I’ve been working out the kinks and converting past postings on a non-public blog in order to be the least disruptive as possible. It’s now in good enough shape to transfer over and I hope to complete that process within the next 24 hours.

I look forward to getting some feedback from my readers on the “new look” after the update is completed. Whether it be praise or constructive criticism, your comments are always welcome.

As stated when I first started publishing this blog, it is a work in progress that will continue to evolve as my skills, interests, and audience continue to grow.

Halloween Folk-Art Avatars

Posted on October 24, 2009 by Leslie Sigal Javorek | 1 Comment

Posted by: Leslie Sigal Javorek • Date: Sat, Oct 24, 2009 7:55 pm

Halloween has always had a special place in my heart: from the “Peter Pan” costume my Mom made for me, to sneaking out to go trick-or-treating on “Beggar’s Night” with my best friend, Janie; to meeting the man who I eventually married at a party given by a bunch of art school students who came into the drug store I worked at and on the spur of the moment, invited me (a total stranger); to making all kinds of fun costumes for our son when he was little. In our previous home, we used to get a hundred or more kids coming to the door. The 4-to-10 year old kids were always the most fun as they were just so enthusiastic. The last ten years we’ve lived on a street where only one family has school-aged children and there are no street lamps, so no one comes around. Costume parties with adults can be okay but it’s just not the same or as much fun as dressing up and dishing out goodies to a new generation of little ghosts, superheros, princesses and the like.

For your own Trick-or-Treat pleasure, I’ve created a new batch of spooky, fun avatars inspired by the folk-art styling popular in Mexico for their “Day of the Dead” celebrations, Kachina Dolls that are an important part of the Zuni and Hopi tribes; and West African tatoos. I arrived on these subjects in a very round-about way that is an interesting story in itself and what I learned was really fascinating and in many ways, quite unexpected. I’m not up to going into it now but promise to follow-up and share some of the highlights with you in a day or two. In the meantime, Enjoy!

Free Clip-Art / Icons of the Day

The following image is a reduced size preview of the nine (9) separate 512 X 512px images in .png format included in the linked-to zipped file. To download the set, simply right-click (or control-click) on the preview to save the image(s) of your choice to your desktop. As always, usage of any of the images offered in the “Free Clip-Art / Icons of the Day” section are free for your personal use, subject to the limitations of my Creative Commons Non-Commercial – Attribution – No Derivatives – Share Alike- 3.0 license. (See sidebar for Terms of Use) For commercial or any other use, please contact me for directly.

If I Were A Zuni (preview of zipped file)
If I Were A Zuni (preview of .zip file)

Declaration of Principles & Russet Icons

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Leslie Sigal Javorek | 1 Comment

Posted by: Leslie Sigal Javorek • Date: Mon, Oct 19, 2009 1:58 am

The main difference between having my blog vs. uploading my icons and clip art to websites which host digital galleries and downloads is the opportunity to share a bit of the inspiration behind my art. I do this, first, to make it a little more interesting and to widen the scope of the potential viewers, and secondly, to hopefully get some dialog going or at least people thinking about subjects or points of view they may not have considered before or done anything about.

If I have any specific agenda at all to proselytize, it is to keep an open-mind; that honesty and integrity are the most valuable assets anyone can strive for (and the ONLY assets that anyone can actually “own”) and that each and every human being has the ability and responsibility to make a positive difference with their lives that goes beyond their purely personal interests.

That message is simultaneously ridiculously simple and impossible to quantify, impossible to define for somebody else. Yet, I truly believe that if we each live our lives with these goals at the forefront, we’ll recognize the opportunities to prove (not just say) what we stand for and substantiate the value of our lives. Whether you’ll be the one to invent a life-saving device on the level of a lightning-rod or be the one person who took the time to be kind to the kid everyone makes fun of, it all adds to a better world that would not have had a chance if you hadn’t looked outside of yourself, seen a need, asked yourself, first, “What if that were me?” and then “How can I help?”.

Ironically, this lovely, grand-sounding “Declaration of Principles” started out as an admission that the set of icons that I’m introducing tonight actually have no deep inspirational or even slightly interesting story behind them – merely a color and texture theme that I started to play with. I tried to retroactively come up with a pseudo-inspiration by doing a web-search on the name of both the color and series, “Russet”, which lead me to a number of both surprising and interesting topics (ranging from a hot copyright controversy about “Russet Noon”; a new iPhone App to read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short-story “The Russet Witch” (which strikes me as a fodder for a Coen Brothers movie); a bizarre interview with Paula Abdul conducted by a Russet Potato and the methods for making russet fabric for uniforms during the Civil War). But as I’ve already confessed, there were no lofty thoughts behind this series, just a color that I find peaceful and reassuring.

Free Icons of the Day

The following images are either full or reduced size previews. Simply right-click (or control-click) on the preview to save the image(s) of your choice to your desktop. (Unless otherwise noted, downloads are 512px X 512px in .png format). As always, usage of any of the images offered on this blog are free for your personal use while subject to the limitations of my Creative Commons Non-Commercial – Attribution – No Derivatives – Share Alike- 3.0 license. (See sidebar for details)