I’m playing with slideshows for Color-Your-Own.com for our new front page. Isn’t this one cool?
Too much fun…
Added by request, a a pet rat coloring page and added just for fun, an Orca (Killer Whale) Coloring Page.
Enjoy!
Summer Fey Foovay
Happy Canada Day to our neighbors to the north! I’m a bit early, but I wanted to get it up in time for you to find it! I also thoroughly enjoyed drawing the Mountie - I always wanted an excuse to do that 
Enjoy!
Summer Fey Foovay
Three new pages, and a new section for Holidays added today!
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Of course, all three of those could be used any time or for several different holidays and celebrations - or just because you are in a patriotic mood!
Enjoy the July 4th coloring pages and have a great holiday, too!
Summer Fey Foovay
Today I am asking you to please help me, and other artists who share their work with you on the Internet.
There is a bill making it’s way through Congress. Bill #2913, the so-called “Orphan Works” bill. This bill would allow any company to use artwork without compensating the artist if they have made a “due diligence” effort (which is not defined in the bill) to locate the artist.
What this means is this. Your child colors one of my coloring pages. She does such a lovely job, you scan it and put it up on your blog. A couple of people see it and like it so much they copy the image and put it on their webpage or blog without crediting the source. A company exec sees it. He likes it, too. But no one gave credit, so he doesn’t know whose art it is. Oh well. The company puts it on a million t-shirts. No one, not me, not you, hot your child, gets a dime for the art.
I also do clip art. I ask for credit, but not everyone remembers and I’m not going to go around knocking heads over it. So someone likes, say, my drawings of boxer dogs. She puts one on her MySpace page. Again, a company exec sees it. He might even write her and ask who the artist was, but she doesn’t remember. Out go a million boxer dog stickers with my art. I don’t get a dime.
Your artistic 12 year old son draws a neat dragon. He scans it and shares it on his Deviant Art page, but as advised by his wise parents, he doesn’t have any personal identifiable info on his account. Again, a company exec sees it. He can’t identify or contact the artist (your well protected son). Oh well. A few thousand posters are sold with the dragon your son drew. No one gets paid for the art.
What can you or I do if that happens? Not much. Try to hire a lawyer who can fight against a big corps law firm, when there are a million loopholes left in the law. Not much chance we’d win.
I am trying to make a living, however humble, with my art. I provide coloring pages and clip art free to individuals, families, non-profit organizations, and often even other small business people like myself. Even the smallest royalty would be a great windfall of income to me. Or if you want one of my boxer dogs on a sticker, you can buy it through my own little Zazzle store where at least I do get a small royalty.
Never mind me, the bottom line is artists deserve to be paid for the use of their work - just like you deserve to be paid for the hours you put in at your job, whatever it may be. We do not deserve to be punished for sharing our work freely by allowing big corps to make a profit without paying us a dime for our contribution to it. How big is that contribution? Do you buy a t-shirt with a boxer dog on it because you like the picture of the boxer dog, or because you wanted any old t-shirt that size?
So, please, help me, help other artists. Take one minute from your day today and sign this petition. Take maybe an hour (it took me 30 minutes this morning) to write your congress members (You can find out who they are, and how to contact them here) and ask them to vote against this bill. Most of them have no idea what it is really about, or what the implications are for artists. You can read more about the bill here and a more detailed report with further links here. Or a really scary (for me as an artist) detailed article on what this bill will allow is here
Thank you so much for your time, and for your help. I’ll be spending a couple of hours on this today, sharing these links at all my blogs and social sites, and then I can get down to drawing some new coloring pages for you.
Summer Fey Foovay
I had the most wonderful morning. In my email box were two messages from people who use and enjoy the coloring pages at Color-Your-Own.com. One was a teacher who uses them in her classes, and the other a storyteller who is going to be using some of them in a storytelling to children learning english. It always makes me so happy to hear that people are using and enjoying the coloring pages.
A few days ago I saw a news story about a Przewalski Horse who had undergone a reverse vasectomy. The surgery was successful and it is hoped he will soon be bred to a suitable mare. The Przewalski is our last truly wild horse, and was pronounced extinct in the wild in 1970. However, there was a small population surviving in zoos and parks around the world. Through careful breeding this unique animal has been keep alive, and is now being reintroduced into the wild in Mongolia.
I have a real soft spot for wild horses of all kinds, and so this inspired me to do a few coloring pages of the Przewalski Horses. Perhaps they will inspire others to help preserve this important species.
Enjoy - and remember I am always open to requests and I love to hear from you!
Summer Fey Foovay
McMurray Hatchery has a number of great childrens books 10% off this week. There is the Barnyard Games and Puzzles, and a Barnyard Sticker and Coloring book, as well as a number of books on the care of various livestock. gardening, and other goodies for your kids who love animals.
I have been having some problems staying connected to the Internet this week - but I hope to be back later today with some new coloring pages for you!
Summer Fey Foovay
I am wrestling ISP demons today, so I’m not sure if we will have new coloring pages at Color-Your-Own or not. However, I just opened my email today and saw this in my Dover sampler newsletter. This “50 favorite birds” coloring book is under $4 right now! No affiliation, just that I am a bird watcher and this is a very nice book at a steal of a price - especially if you are wanting to get your kids interested in birding.
Speaking of which, I have a bird song contest going on over at my birding and nature blog, Naturalist Notebook. You could win a fully loaded iPod and Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds. The contest ends Tuesday, June 24th.
Hopefully I will be back later today with new coloring pages, but we will just have to kind of wait and see how the rest of the day goes.
Summer Fey Foovay
I just picked some things I felt like doing today. There is a longhaired cat with a marvelous droll expression for one coloring page,
and then two shorthaired kitties asleep in a basket coloring page. About time I added more cats, I know.
I also added this little fairy who looks like she is in quite a hurry with her butterfly drawn water lily chariot! She will be great fun to color!
Thanks for visiting. More coloring pages tomorrow! Don’t be too shy to ask for anything special you’d like!
Summer Fey Foovay