Copyright is no small matter and ofr one artist it's HUGE right now. I'm not talking about some tiny little inkjet print off of someone's art glued into an art journal in a free youtube video, I'm talking wholesale ripoff of an entire line of piece's being sold at rock bottom prices. Yeah. The fire pit guy is being ripped off. big time and taken to court for his copy write.

Now that is truly bullshit.

The even bigger picture here in this issue is that  it opens up a whole can of worms for every artist. If you can be taken to court to release your copyright so that hacks can imitate you what happens next? Why even bother?

When I wrote about copyright before this is what I meant about an issue. When someone who reproduces your work, allows other to think that they are you, and reproduces your work poorly. Case in point.

I went to a major folk festival some years ago. My friend bought a beautiful cut candle holder- cut with some sort of torch. It was beautiful and phenomenal. It was expensive but the detail was amazing and it cast beautiful shadows. Last summer i went to a craft festival and saw something similar, at about half the price. I had really loved the piece L. had bought so I looked close. It was pretty poorly executed. At first I figured the artist was churning them out. I looked at the 2 people behind the booth. 2 youngish college age kids. Not the slightly older lady and man who were at the other festival. I declined to buy the item, though I'd been lusting after the original for some years, but I certainly didn't want to support these kids at hacking at the originals work.

I implore you, if you give a shit at all about REAL copyright infringement head over to John Tunger's website and pledge a donation to help him. Head to the donation page and pledge. Even if you pledge only $1, help this artist fight the infringement.

Here's how I'm going to help. I will donate the proceeds from the sales of my next 5 book sales (over next 11 days) to the fund. So head to my Artfire account, use my current discount code buy some books and I'll take the profit and donate it to Tunger. We can make some money to help real copyright infringment and stop a terrifying precedent from being set.

Honey Bees
Originally uploaded by pejnolan

3 color block print, while it's not in a journal it's fantastic. I've seen some block prints in journals and I wonder how best to adapt it to a journal

Censored by the Queen of Merde
Originally uploaded by lessherger.

This is image is being put out there with a creative commons license. You like it, download it, print it, use it in your art journal or blog or youtube video. All I ask is that you give me, LessHerger or ComfortableShoesStudio.com credit for it’s creation. With either a link to flickr or my blog.

Censored by the Queen of Merde
Originally uploaded by lessherger

This image is being put out there with a creative commons license. You like it, download it, print it, use it in your art journal or blog or youtube video. All I ask is that you give me, LessHerger or ComfortableShoesStudio.com credit for it's creation, with either a link to flickr or my blog.

With this hot button issue being in the forefront I thought I'd search out some websites with real information.

• Art Support Copyright Page– has a lot of links to other good sites.
• Copyright Myths– 11 copyright myths
• Art Law– Need a lawyer? Need a form? Get more info here. They even have an 800 #
• Art & Copyright-  Great info
• Art & Your Rights– More good info
• Art Copyright Infringement– again more info and action 800#
• Art and Business makes some good points about reproduction

Here's my take on the whole thing. If I see someone using my work online I will email them or call them and ask them to stop, if I feel it's an infringement or disparaging of my work. If I think it's okay I'll ask them to give me credit. (Say someone does a super cool work but printed off one of my images and used it as a background- awesome.) Most of the time good deal. Until you get into the realm of hurting my bottom line. Fact of the matter is I make books. I sell books. It's part of my livelihood. I've been doing it for a long time and there will always be imitators. I used to do a particular style using eyelets. A fellow binder bought one of my books and started to reproduce it. She didn't give me any credit. I asked her to give me credit and she refused. She wrote to me "Great minds think alike." I thought it was lame. Then I found out she was taking the style of binding that I designed and developed and not only selling the work but teaching the technique. Double LAME. I asked her to stop. She didn't. I could have had legal recourse to take her to court, after all she was hurting my bottom line. I was pissed I was angry and I was fuming. Then I began to think of what to do.

I turned it in my favor. I began to promote my work as the original. I gave links to my original pieces in my photobucket account and DX account (both now defunct) and basically said my work was often reproduced but always the first. You know what? MY sales rocketed. That year I had my best sales year ever. It worked for me. The moral of this story is that though sometimes the actions of others will put the taste of BILE in your throat you occasionally need to swallow it down and think outside the box and work it to your advantage. Acting like a fool and being a bully never really helps.

Over the years I've developed a more reasoned approach to the copying of my work. Sure I sell books that I make. But over all I think that ART is about empowerment and creativity. IF you don't want to or can't buy my books I'll even help you find the right tutorials to make your own. Hell on the left side of this page you'll find a link for just that. Because here's the deal: I want everyone to art journal. I think that art journaling is awesome. I want everyone to feel the way I do about it and I want everyone to try it out. If you don't want to art journal then I want you to journal. I don't care what your style is. I don't care if you want to scrapbook with paint. I don't care if you want to watercolor and write in tiny little scrawling handwriting. I don't care if you want to slather acrylic on so thick your pages stick together and your journal becomes one big block of paint. I don't care if you glue in so much ephemera that your book won't close. Seriously I want you to be empowered to create. That is the message of Comfortable Shoes Studio.

So I've uploaded a few new art journal videos over the last few days. It's been a deluge of them, it's fitting as it's been raining like crazy here and I've been stuck inside. I also found out that my digital camcorder that I bought almost 2 years ago is VERY compatible with my newer computer. It was hell to use with my old computer but it seems the Vaio and the JVC play well together. Windows movie maker is faster and works better on the Vaio as well. SO it makes making and uploading videos that much faster.

This is a journal progress page:

An old art journal from 2001, never shared online before:

A journal made for me by a friend. Love this journal. It's a perfect size.

Expect more videos more often from me.I'm hoping to do some more instructional videos now that I can work this camera and have it interact easily with my computer.

THis is meant to be funny and since I have an odd sense of humor others may not find it so but here goes. To commemorate the 2009 Online Art Journaling Controversy I've put a 20% off coupon code good for the next 10 days in my artfire shop Put eh code word: drama in at check to get your discount.

 Below you'll find a list of art journaling technique videos available for FREE on youtube, Vimeo and Blip.

This is a list of peeps I' think make videos without too much bull shit. You won't need to fast forward through half the video to get to the techniques being shown, listen to minutes of inane babbling before you get to the real thing your there for. IN no particular order and with commentary:

• MIllande. Her videos kick serious butt. She focuses straight away on technique. It's all how to and what to do with a serious focus on real techniques and not expecting you to create in her exact style. Information without BS. She does do classes but she does a ton on youtube.
• Willowing. Some BS but a lot of video of her making art. A lot of videos of her making art in journals. She shows her techniques. She also does online classes.
• SamanthaKira. She's occasionally a little long winded and occasionally she gets into scrapbook mode but her videos are filled with technique and little to no BS.
• TheOneMinuteMUse The one minute muse has videos that are all about 1 minute in length to give you some ideas to start creating.
• GaryReef gary reef is not technically an art journaler but he has hundreds of videos up on youtube all about art and making art, and he makes some of them in his underwear. 
• ArtCentrix Not cute art. Love that. No BS either. The techniques are pretty clearly detailed and shot.
• TheArtJournal. No BS here either, just video of the artist working

If you have any links to a youtuber without the bull shit leave a comment and I can add it to the list. I"m going to make this a "page" that will be links on the left of my blog all the time.

Scarlet ibis
Originally uploaded by b(e);

Love this, writing, images, color. It puts a smile on my face.