BUSCHENEY

Two recent journal entries regarding the unusual relationship between George Bush and Dick Cheney. (President DiGeckorge BusCheney)

One is almost straight off of a newspaper photo and the other from memory.

Orphan Works Bill

First of all, I want to apologize to those who have contacted me about teaching. I have had a busy schedule of late and not had the time to finalize the outlines for the classes. Please bear with me and I will try to get to this next week. Thank you to all who expressed an interest.

I want to take a few moments to talk about the Orphan Works Bill that was hotlined through the Senate on Friday. It is unfortunate that this has happened, but not the end of the debate. The House has yet to vote on the bill and there is still time to act.

For those not familiar with this bill, please go to this link http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

This is a quote about "hotlining": "In order for a bill to be hotlined, the Senate Majority Leader and Minority Leader must agree to pass it by unanimous consent, without a roll-call vote. The two leaders then inform Members of this agreement using special hotlines installed in each office and give Members a specified amount of time to object – in some cases as little as 15 minutes. If no objection is registered, the bill is passed."
- Roll Call, Sept 17, 2007

Here's how I see this issue. I am firmly against the bill and hope that it does not pass. I understand why it was written, but it is a pointless bill. Here's why:

Say that you are in a public place and find an object, let's just use a set of keys for this example. They are new keys, but have no identifying marks on them. Under the new bill, these would be orphaned and you would have the right to take them after a substantive search for the owner. What constitutes substantive is undefined. It could be asking the next person who comes along if they are their keys.

The point is, they are not yours, and you have no right to them. That the owner is unknown is beside the point, they are not yours.

Now, say that you come upon the same keys and they are old, let's say, more than 75 years old. If this is the case, then they are no longer owned by anyone because the law that governs their ownership means: life plus 75 years. If this is the case, they are considered to be in the public domain, and even if you know who the owner is, you can most likely use them as you see fit.

So, if an image is less than 75 years old, whether the owner is known or not, registered or not, it is not orphaned. The owner is unknown, but it has an owner. It is not yours, you cannot use it whether you can find the owner or not.

Thanks for reading.

Bill

Collage and Painting

These are some paintings I did in a journal a few years back, and a portrait of the Afro Cuban All Stars for the Playboy Jazz Festival.

The piece below came about while developing the background for the Jazz Festival collage. Though the piece above solved the problem of showing the entire group and put them in a setting of old photos on a wall, I like the random, sketchiness of the experiment and the off centered design better than the finish.

The piece with the green flame is the result of shifting colors and altering channels in Photoshop to come up with color variations. I'll post the original of this soon to show how far it got in tone and color.

Online Classes

I am going to be offering online classes in Illustration, Photoshop, and Painting Techniques. If you are interested in a specific topic, more information on schedules or fees, or in signing up, please contact me at the link below.

Many thanks,

Bill

Contact

Unpublished Book Cover

Since I posted the photos I took of Katherine Streeter's dolls, I thought I'd post the cover they were used in. This is a piece I did as a cover for White Wolf Books a few years ago. The author was William Browning Spencer and I had the honor of illustrating four of his books, three of which were published by White Wolf. This one was scheduled, but wasn't. It was a fun job nonetheless, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading Mr. Spencer's stories. My favorite was Zod Wallop.

Women are Heroes

This is an amazingly powerful and beautiful project. Please take a look. Women Are Heroes

Dolls

Some photos I took some time back of illustrator Katherine Streeter's beautiful dolls for a book cover. I couldn't have done it without her help.

El Greco and Velazquez

If you are in the Raleigh/Durham area between now and November 9, 2008, take a trip to the Nasher Museum and see the show, "El Greco to Velazquez." here is a link: Nasher Velazquez painted the above piece when he was about 18 or 19.

America

Recent journal drawing done while listening to "Horse With No Name" by America.

Monotype

This is a monotype of my cat, Oliver. A monotype is a single print made by painting on a flat plate, usually with oil based paint or ink and then laying an absorbent piece of paper on top and printing the image using an etching press or hand burnishing the image onto the paper. Another way of making a monotype is to lay a thin piece of paper over a plate that is covered in ink or paint and then draw with a pencil or some other type of stylus on the back of the paper, causing parts of it to come into contact with the plate and thus printing the image. This piece was made using the latter method. If I am industrious, I can pull, or print about 40 to 60 prints in a day with this method.