Here in upstate NY, Spring is taking it’s sweet time in getting here. I thought I’d encourage it’s arrival with a fresh new wallpaper! Enjoy~

Click the image to view and dowload full size

Thanks to the ice and snow storm here yesterday, I was without Internet for almost 20 hours. (Cable TV and phone were out too!) What a strange day it was here. Needless to say, I got some reading done, and even though I had a wallpaper all planned for St. Patrick’s Day, I made some more. Call it a winter storm bonus, since I didn’t need Internet to play in Photoshop.

To view the desktop wallpapers from the St. Patrick’s day collection, simply click the thumbnails below. If you’d like to download them to use on your computer’s desktop, right click the images below and choose to open in a new tab. This will display the full size image that you can then right click to save to your desktop, or file on your computer. I hope you enjoy these St. Patrick’s Day themed desktop wallpapers!

[View with PicLens]

There are also a couple of St. Patrick’s Day wallpapers in my DeviantArt Gallery from last year, if you’d like to add to your collection.

While I was catching up on some blogging work last night, I caught something in my Twitter stream that intrigued me enough to click.

“@subdued7: I don't usually like lists, but these 10 lessons for designers by John C Jay are quite good - http://t.co/pil25S8”

February 23, 2011 2:32 am via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

@mark_forrester

Mark Forrester

This ‘list’ inspired me to make a desktop wallpaper.

Why?

Well, I went and checked the original source of the ‘list’, and caught myself thinking that I’d like to print it out so I could frame it. I like having inspirational sayings around to keep me grounded in reality and focused on my goals.

My favorite lesson from John C Jay’s list is number 8:

Instinct and intuition are all-powerful. Learn to trust them.

Here’s a preview of the Wallpaper on my Desktop. Notice the weather gadget. It’s all of 3 degrees! Brr!

1366x768 High Resolution Desktop Wallpaper

To download the High Res full size version, click on over to my new forums, I’ve posted it here.

Oh yeah, I started a forum for my friends, clients and social networking buddies. It’s all of two days old, and since I’m still organizing and posting the initial content, it’s in what I like to call a “soft launch” mode. Go on over and become one of the first members to join… it’s not every day you get in on the ground floor of a forum family!

Few things follow you through childhood, right up through adulthood. One thing that hasn’t changed for me is my love for that sarcastic furry fatty, Garfield. I’ve owned his “Mondays Suck” posters, coffee mugs and t-shirts because I’m a believer… Mondays do suck. Well, they used to.

I admit to having a slightly unique perspective, because I’m fortunate enough to be able to work from home… on weekdays and weekends. As a result, having to return to “the office” on Monday morning doesn’t hit me as hard as it may hit you.

This morning wasn’t much different than other Monday mornings for me. I got up, made coffee, and sat down at my brand new computer (Thanks, hubby! Happy Valentine’s Day!) and proceeded to check my social networking sites to see what everyone was up to. This is my equivalent to meeting co-workers at the break room table for that mandatory first cup of coffee.

Chatter on Twitter about WordPress developments over the weekend, Facebook posts with all new fresh content to devour… I realized that Mondays didn’t suck anymore. With interaction between my online peers, clients and friends, I realized that Monday has turned into a feeling of enthusiasm for a new week beginning.

I’m enjoying the constant stream of new friends I meet through my social networks, and am happy to have started participating in LinkedIn and StumbleUpon more. The only reason I can think of now why Mondays might suck is because there just aren’t enough hours in the day to consume all the rich and helpful content I’m finding!

A new, Wenchy Valentine’s Day Wallpaper

To celebrate Monday not sucking, I made another Valentine’s Day wallpaper. Enjoy the Wenchy goodness! Oh, and if you’re offended by artistically implied nudity, you’re gonna wanna skip this one.

Click the image above to view full size 1366x768

Update 2/15/2011 12:52am

Well, Valentine’s Day is over. Sorry you missed the bonus desktop wallpaper in time for the holiday! There’s still a couple of weeks use in my original Valentine’s Day themed Desktop Calendar though! Consider signing up for my ‘occassional’ ShareLetter so you don’t miss out on timely surprises!

As we deal with one of the biggest snow and ice storms we’ve seen in years, I found myself occupying my time by playing in Photoshop. I came up with a few new Wallpapers with a winter theme. I’m calling this my “purple phase”. LOL

Click the images below to view full size… then, right click to “save as”.

Purple Snow Flakes

Ice Block Winter Wonderland

Winter Fairy Dust

Enjoy, and feel free to share!

Once again, I needed to change my desktop wallpaper, so I threw a little something together and decided to share. I’ve only made the one size, 1280×768. If you’d like me to offer a low res, or different size just comment below. Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

High Resolution Valentine's Day Wallpaper - click above, then right click "save as" to download

Click the above image to view the full size.

To download, right click the full size image and choose “Save As…”.
*Brushes used were found here.

Update: I couldn’t stop playing in Photoshop, so here’s another!

Click the above image to view full size. Right click to "Save As..."

It’s that time of year again, and before the holiday frenzy takes over, I thought now would be a good time to post this year’s Christmas wallpaper, courtesy of GingerWench.com! I’ve only made it in my own resolution of 1280X768, but will gladly entertain requests for different sizes, simply leave a comment here with your desired resolution (screen size) and I will update this post with the results!

Click the preview below to download the full size wallpaper (there is a high resolution PNG, and a lower resolution JPG to choose from), and have a healthy, happy holiday season!

Click the image above to download the high resolution 1280 X 768 Christmas Calendar Desktop Wallpaper (949 KB)

Click the image above to download the 1280 X 768 Low Res Christmas Calendar Desktop Wallpaper (272 KB)

* Right Click the full size image and choose “Set as Desktop Background”

Finding myself with some free time tonight, I decided to put together a few of the newest wallpapers from DeviantArt, to make a holiday screensaver on my office PC. I simply save them to a new folder, and point the “My Pictures” screensaver setting in XP to that folder so that it cycles through whatever I have in there. I’ve included just a few of the new art pieces I found submitted to DeviantArt in the last few days. If I find the inspiration, perhaps I’ll make one of my own too! Enjoy them, and have a Happy (and safe) Halloween.

The Great Pumpkin by =hypoxic on deviantART

Halloween Kitten by ~vladstudio on deviantART

Pumpkin Castle by *MiG-05 on deviantART

Hosting the Halloween Party by ~Valkarious on deviantART

The Ghost of Summer II by ~Shimmertree on deviantART

Evil Candy Corn Wallpaper by *VampireJaku on deviantART

Halloween ’09 by =Benjigarner on deviantART

Halloween by ~raez1312 on deviantART

After all the years I’ve been working with PhotoShop, I’m still learning the keyboard shortcuts. I’m always amazed at how many steps they can really save, and with my wrist being in a brace the last few days from working so much every click or mouse movement saved means less pain.

A tutorial sent out on Twitter by @DesignNewz spurred on a play session in PhotoShop tonight. I learned some great keyboard shortcuts in it. My result is shown below (click to view full size)… check out the “Fill Text with Images in PhotoShop” tutorial, and comment here with your results, I’d love to see them!

As I was conducting some SEO research today, I found an announcement of a digital art contest I won (placed) in several years ago. I got a kick out of seeing the Star Trek photo manipulation I did way back when I was still using PaintShopPro! LOL

Yes. I know. But I’ll never be a red shirt!

I also found a ton of my old articles, written way back when I was focused on Business Coaching. I’ll be busy updating those to reflect current trends in topics such as Branding, Social Networking, Web Design, and Marketing your business on the Internet. (I hate to even type those words knowing that sploggers, and spammers are going to find me now… one of the main reasons I took my Design business “Private” years ago.)

Since I’m clearly focused on the Digital Art side of Web Design these days, don’t be surprised to see articles focusing on that topic as well. If I can find some of my old PSP tutorials, I’ll post those as well.

It was amusing to see that this site is ranked #1 on Google for the search term “Custom Design and Digital Art”. I guess all that ‘silly SEO’ stuff I do works whether I’m paying attention or not! I laughed with a client of mine earlier today about how my personal sites suffer due to how busy they keep me with their projects.

Maybe they don’t suffer as much as I thought!