[ Detail of 88teeth’s revamped “Manoid” ] Longtime friend and fellow-DLa member ThaneC recently has updated his personal/portfolio site, eightyeightteeth.com. ThaneC’s site has been completely redesigned and reorganized, featuring easy navigation and generous presentation of core content. Every page is overflowing with creative juice — thumbnail galleries of artistic works, digital photos, and custom wallpapers are a pleasure to browse. Full-size versions of each creative piece “pop-up” upon command. ThaneC’s unpretentious wit and artistic sincerity furnish each page with insightful commentary and inside information concerning each delicious offering. Designed according to the principles of modern web design, ThaneC’s site now employs the efficiency and flexibility of HTML and CSS, rounded out with a touch of unobtrusive JavaScript to make it all sweet.

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Star Burst Check out the slick online digital flower maker at zefrank.com.

LiTha-Paint Quality web-based vector drawing in effect. Check out LiTha-Paint, a promising new online vector drawing tool. The software is currently in alpha, yet is already full-featured and easy to use. LiTha-Paint steps beyond the paltry selection of Flash/VML/SVG online drawing tools, providing versatility and universality via HTML and JavaScript. Perhaps all this Web 2.0 business is worthwhile after all..

Update: Unfortunately, LiTha-Paint crashed due to lack of funds (welcome to the club). However, this particular post has now served its purpose by providing insight (via the comments section) into the wonderful world of mikons.com, a very inspiring online vector graphic site that enables users to create visual symbols and share them with a growing network of other vector artists. In their own words:

Welcome to Mikons.com, a new form of self-expression that connects people through visual symbols (personal tags). Our mission is to give you a fun and easy way to create these symbols that tell your story, let you decide how you want to share them, and use them to connect with people anywhere in the world.

Update [ January 10th, 2007 ]: Well, apparently LiTha-Paint is back in action and looking better than ever. Apparently, they found a way to make it happen — good for them! With any luck, this will be the last time I have to edit this post ;)

I have been drawing and sketching for over thirty years. The process of setting up for art, developing ideas, and letting the pens flow, really gets my juices flowing. Once that flow hits, and the music fades, hours disappear, manifesting imagination. This process is so familiar as to happen automatically, as a natural consequence of internal inspiration, artistic creativity, and the desire to express the subjective experience of my subconscious mind.

Another important aspect of exercising a creative lifestyle involves the observation and study of the natural world. Drawing from nature, or the practice of representational translationalism, serves this purpose well, as the concentration and discipline required to objectively witness and record visual experiences heightens the degree to which awareness and observation feed visual understanding. It is this comprehension of the visual world that enables the artist to effectively manipulate artistic elements to successfully convey the intended expression of creativity.

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