After about 6 months of submitting designs for Minted challenges, I received an exciting email yesterday. My Doodle Flowers women’s stationery design has been chosen as a late editor’s pick! Finally I will have a design for sale on their site. I’ve spent the day working out the two alternate colorways along with the designs for the backside of the stationery sheets and the matching skinny address labels. I think they’ll be available for sale very soon!

With the warmer weather and the hacked website cleaned up, now seemed a good time for some more Spring cleaning. I’ve update the website with a clean look and new banners. Same goes for the Facebook page and the Etsy shop. It’s still a work in progress.

The last few weeks I’ve been working on a new Etsy shop which carries stock invitation designs, currently for weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs, that can be customized to suit the customer’s needs. Named for the cutest dog in the world, it’s Princess Pearl Paperie! I’m working on adding new designs slowly but surely. A hacked website (yes, someone violated this very website last week—the horror of it all!) has kept me away from creating new pieces. But, it’s all working now and has been updated, so I can get back to designing. For so long I’ve been asked about doing invitations and this seems like a more economical option for the customer, as well as a less stressful endeavor for me. Please take a look and share the new shop with your friends, and keep coming back to see the new goodies that are added.

My latest design submissions are here and waiting for you to vote for them. Click on each design below and you’ll be taken to that page. You need to have a Minted account to vote, but they have a beautiful product offering, and you can support me!

And, just in case you’re wondering about all of the challenges, I haven’t won anything yet, but I feel like I’m getting so much closer to a win. Only two of the challenges in which  I’ve participated have been announced. I’m still waiting to hear on five or maybe even six now. But, having the deadlines and parameters has been so motivating. And, whatever doesn’t make the Minted line will be available for purchase in my Etsy store. So, either way, it’s a win/win situation. I’ve also learned a great deal from looking at all of the other designers’ work, getting their feedback and pushing myself to try new and different things. Go vote! And, as soon as I get some good news, you’ll all be the first to know.

Next challenge—journals for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Graduation, and they’re due next week!

Looks Who's Turning Two

Birthday Olympics

Masterpiece Birthday

Look Who's Turning Two

Golf Classic

Dive Into the Fun

Tea Time

Watercolor Dream Home

Nest of My Own

Watercolor Floral Wreath

Patterned Wreath

A New Castle

Mosey on over to Minted.com and take a look at these and all of the other great designs. All you need to do is click on each image above, and you’ll be there. While you’re there, please cast some votes for me! Much appreciated!

Let’s start with this argument: “If you don’t want people to use it, then don’t put it on Google.” Sure, there are ways of keeping your images from being turned up by Google, but I don’t PUT it on Google—Google finds the images, and I want it to. In this digital age artists want people to see their work and the world wide web makes that easier to do than ever before. It’s the artist’s way of marketing and promoting themselves—making people aware of their work—networking—so that people who buy art, whether it’s for the original art or products or to be licensed, reproduction rights purchased and more, can find them to make those purchases or obtain permission. It’s free advertising! From Google Image Search, I am approached by people who want to buy my paintings or print reproductions, or to do freelance work for them. It has made self-promotion so much easier.

But it has also made stealing a cinch! And, using that art without permission—using it on a blog, website, printing it in a newsletter, brochure, on a t-shirt and selling at their own—those are all examples of stealing. As Google states on their Usage Rights page, “Anyone can browse the Web, but usage rights come into play if you’re looking for content that you can take and use above and beyond fair use. Site owners can use licenses to indicate if and how content on their sites can be reused.” Wikipedia defines fair use as “commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship.” This does not include copying my image to your computer to print in a program or place on your website for illustration. That’s why there are places you can buy clip art or stock illustration.

On my website at the bottom of every page you’ll find this “All content © 2005-2011 Laura Bolter Design and may not be used without permission.” It means that any art found on my website cannot be used without my permission. Period. So sometimes when doing a Google image search you find an image on a website, but the credit for the artist isn’t found. It is incumbent upon you to find the owner of the intellectual property before using it. One way to do that is with the Google image search feature itself.

When you click the little camera icon in the search bar you get this:

From here you can click to upload a copy of the image to your computer or paste a URL in the search bar. Searching from there, Google will give you image results with links that may take you to the intellectual property owner’s site, where you can then find out if they protect their images with a Creative Commons license or Copyright usage info, or contact information so you can ask for permission for your particular usage. But, if you can’t track down the owner, my advice would be not to use it. It just doesn’t belong to you.

Another way to do a search is with Google Advanced Image Search, which includes options for image searching with certain usage rights, including images marked specifically for reuse. However, Google also warns on their usage rights page, “Before reusing content that you’ve found, you should verify that its license is legitimate and check the exact terms of reuse stated in the license. For example, most licenses require that you give credit to the image creator when reusing an image. Google has no way of knowing whether the license is legitimate, so we aren’t making any representation that the content is actually or lawfully licensed.”

Now I’m not a lawyer, or even  (or close to being) an expert of this stuff. But, I continue to find unauthorized usages of my art—people even deliberately ripping me off my reproducing my art for sale and profit—and I just had to do a little something about it. So, please, if you’re so inclined, help spread the word, help me from having my work and the work of other artists stolen. And, if you are a person, lawyer or otherwise, who has more knowledge of this issue, please share it with me, and even more important, share it with everyone you know!

For more information, here are a few other websites to check out:

Creative Commons

Link With Love

U.S. Copyright Office

One more thought: 
Just as songwriters, singers, playwrights and other creatives are compensated each time their music is played on the radio or bought in the iTunes store, their play is produced, or movie played in a theater,etc., artists should be compensated for the use of their intellectual property. That is the way artists make their living and support their families. So often artists are asked to contribute their work to a cause, of have their art used for reproduction without compensation. And, just as others in the world chose their own causes to support or tzedekah to give, I and other artists do that too, with causes we choose or are dear to our hearts. We should not be expected to give our art away. Respect the work of artists as you would respect the work of anyone, whether they are the doctor you visit, the lawyer writes your will, the plumber who fixes your leaky pipes, and on and on… Our time and energy and art are no less valuable.

Okay. I’ll get off my soapbox now. Thanks for reading. Please share your thoughts.