Author Archives: katecous

Playing with colour

My favorite thing about this painting is the simple colour palette. I have four tubes of paint out–and in retrospect, I think I could have skipped using the turquoise on the siding.

So far, I’ve used only a smidge of white (to match shade while correcting errors), and no black at all. I’d like it to pop a little more, which I think means I need to do more opaque and semi-opaque layers to contrast with the underlying blue…What do you think?

The Gap

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.

“A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met.

“It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

-Ira Glass

What is a Snail’s Fury?

I decided recently to update this terribly neglected and underused website with more of my creative endeavors, with the vague thought that perhaps collecting my disparate projects together might display some kind of direction and progress and inspire future efforts.

While I was refreshing the site’s design, WordPress asked me if I would like to add a logo. In a fit of whimsy, I grabbed one of my favorite drawings, spent a bit of time removing the background to convert it into a PNG, and- TA DA- made my personal logo, my “brand,” a snail.

In the interests of retroactively justifying this impulsive decision, I present you with the following poem.

Considering the Snail

The snail pushes through a green

night, for the grass is heavy

with water and meets over

the bright path he makes, where rain

has darkened the earth’s dark. He

moves in a wood of desire,

pale antlers barely stirring

as he hunts. I cannot tell

what power is at work, drenched there

with purpose, knowing nothing.

What is a snail’s fury? All

I think is that if later

I parted the blades above

the tunnel and saw the thin

trail of broken white across

litter, I would never have

imagined the slow passion

to that deliberate progress.

Thom Gunn, “Considering the Snail” from Selected Poems.

Some humor on the topic of SEO spam

Some humor on the topic of SEO spam

I found this amusing. Even reputable companies have been caught out by unscrupulous “black hat” backlinking services which promise quick delivery of thousands of incoming links. Unfortunately, this is the result—spammy solicitations and low-quality, often computer-generated verbiage detracting from everyone’s experience of the Internet.

In SEO, as in most things, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. The “secret” to SEO is no secret at all: produce high quality content that people will want to read, and get it out where your target audience will see it.  A reputable SEO service can help you create a strategy, identify resources, and tailor your content more effectively, but be wary of anyone who promises you instant front page ranking!