JFlah's Blunders

  Get a copy of Book One of the Curse of Royalty Series today at Smashwords (preferred)  or at Amazon Stay tuned for news. Next installment available by 2021. 

I have to admit I laughed crazy hard at this video when I saw it the first time and had just about the same reaction to it when I just re-watched it. Why, as designers and creatives, do we not value our time (the building blocks of our lives)? Why don't I value the creative talent and ability God's given? There's no way I would ask anyone to offer their services for free but I'm asked on a regular basis to do design for free or for crazy low rates. When will I do better? #saynotospec   Then there's this guy: Chris Do... talk about a person who knows how to think/talk/reason. Wish I could do that on the fly.

"Drayden's Queen," Book One in the Curse of Royalty Series by JA Fleming releases on Black Friday!!! Hi guys, I know some of you have been asking when the book is coming out. I finally have an answer. Drum roll, please. Curse of Royalty Book One will be released this November, just in time for Black Friday. If you're curious, visit smashwords today for a free sample . Don't wanna wait? Want a copy before the official release? I'm randomly giving away 10 pre-release copies of the e-book between now and the release date. Check out facebook during the week leading up to the release. I'm looking forward to this adventure and hope you are too. JAF [Prefer to purchase the ebook via Amazon? That option is coming.]

The youth minister came through and asked me to create something for an upcoming event and when I pitched my idea, he laughed and said, "Sure." So - here's what he got. I love my job! And, process (scanned sketch, colored it in photoshop): quick sketch to get me started... put some color on it in photoshop... And, voila! Pizza dude is at the pool party.

Had a blast creating this piece! There are lots of little pieces and shadows and such that was fun to figure out. Here's the two final versions and below that are bits and pieces used to create them: Final Bulletin Front - feet on box Final SD slide - no box Original feet didn't have legs in the pic so I found some random legs and put them on. Used surgical scrub green and a modern clean font for the title work. A co-worker took a photo of his feet with a toe tag I'd created for him tied to his toe. I didn't like the perspective, but liked the tag so I cut the tag out, reshaped it for the perspective I was going for, added shadows. Took another pic of a bow and added that and its shadows. Then I constructed the pine box from some wood pictures and then blurred it so it looked like it was far in the distance. Talk about fun! the original feet picture Co-Worker's feet photo Pic of the bow I took wood pic coworker took used to build ...

Tentative Cover Image for Volume One Last night, I had no words, so instead of beating my head against the wall, I created a cover I'm pretty happy with. Thoughts? Writing almost every day both during my lunch breaks, in the evenings, and on weekends in addition to a hairy busy job... I'm weary. I was so thankful I could rest last weekend, but I'm still dragging so I'm glad it's Friday. There's nothing quite like losing myself in creating the story, in editing what I've written and other such fun bits of writing; however, knowing writing a novel is time consuming, hard, and labor intensive versus actually living through it... well, you don't know what it's really like until you've done it yourself. I mean, I can't tell you guys how many versions I've gone through - versions meaning, drafts of things that include major changes/additions to the previous version.  I have certainly developed a respect for professional writers ...

It's May. That means I've been buried under photographs for weeks - first for High School Graduate Recognition and now for Parent/Child Dedication. I typically enjoy "fixing" them and naturally, some prove more of a challenge than others. Talk about FUN! Here's one example from this week that needed more than the cursory changes to fit our SD format. Original: Edited (see final above):

God's kindness to us is unfathomable. Praise/Honor/Glory to Him for who He is, for what He's done and going to do. This life He's given me, these talents, these people who surround me - I am so grateful for all of it. He's been so good to me. May I honor Him in all I think, say, and do.

It's funny how people think differently about things - here are basic ideas I offered for this week's sermon title slide: And here's what Pastor countered with from a google image search: I loved the idea of the hand reaching out from the pile of wadded papers with a help sign - and he wasn't opposed to it, so I was off. This is the first time I've been bold enough to ask for someone to help me with source pictures. Pastor did a great job and sent me come pictures but they weren't quite what I wanted so I took a few too. Pastor and my boss were hand models - used the sleeve from pastor's pics and the hand from my boss's pics, replaced the paper with a picture I took of some crumpled paper, took pics of wadded up paper, worked on shadows and balances and other such and ended up with this:   That awesome "help" font is Befn - don't remember now where I got it - might've been one of those stellar Mon...

Here are some progression images for the upcoming summer worship series. The lineup for this year is stellar! Last guest will be Bradley Knight - my boss's friend and prolific Christian choral music orchestra-tor/arranger.   First one is from a sketch but I didn't like it as much as the disintegration idea so I'm working in that direction now.  The guys didn't like the butterflies (although thematically they work great), so I'm working with diamonds for the disintegration mark for the series theme.

Curse of Royalty volume one - tentative cover mockup - jfleming 2017 Many who know me well are aware that I enjoy writing stories. God's gifted me with the ability to put those stories down, the time to develop that ability, and it's something I've enjoyed doing since I was a little girl. A few weeks ago, I spent my stay-cation finishing odds and ends after the flood at my house and putting the spit shine on volume one of a book I've been writing off and on for just over twenty years. Yeah - I know what you must be thinking - twenty years? What a loon. But really, I think the totality of what I've written could have been done in less than a year if I'd have had time to focus on it (and enough brain to devote to it). In 2010 I had written myself into a corner - took the story into a direction that I wasn't comfortable with. It was difficult, but after some research and some soul searching (and feed back from readers), I cut the unpalatable story line ...