More Fun on Mixel

OK admission. I am addicted to Mixel now. It's totally taken up all my FB time (thank you). And the chitchat is minimal. Mostly you just make stuff sort of together. Now the warning. Anything you upload becomes public property. I am mostly just adding a few detail images and nonart snapshots to the process. But I love the cropping and layering soooomuch. And I am printing some of these on fabric, too.

I have figured out how to use the software to  make collages (fun-- crop with your finger or a sylus from any of your own photos or web images or images other Mixel users have contributed) without making images public or getting involved in the public arena of this software. You do have to have an account (no longer only possible with a FB account) but you do not have to post to "the world." After making a Mixel, just go to the upper left corner and take a photo -- saves to your ipad. Then DELETE the image. 

Still Mulling, but Mixel Makes Me Giggle

I'm still mulling over my journaling  choices for the new year, and here it is Jan. 2 already.  I think I will sort it out soon, at least by the time I figure out to remember writing 2012 on my checks, datebooks, etc. (Since I don't write that many checks anymore (do you?) it may take me a while for that task to settle into a new date, though.)

Meanwhile, I did find a fun tool that is almost as interesting as cut-paper, old magazine collage making journaling -MIXEL, an iPad app that is a very simple, free-form cropping and layering collage tool with a social media twist --  Which is the downside actually, since any image you use in a collage, even cropped, becomes freely available as an entire image, and usable by any other Mixel user. 

I am not highly protective of my art images since I long ago realized that anyone who wants to steal an idea or image from work of mine could do so pretty easily. My attitude towards art that I make, whether the reaction is scorn (I don't like that work... who does she think she is making fused quilts?) or theft (they must like it, huh?), is similar to that of composer/lyricist Cole Porter -- "there's thousands of more where that one came from."

BUT, you do need to realize that if you sign on for Mixel, and use your photos, or pictures of art, or other computer generated or accessed images, those become "free" content for other users to rearrange, add to or otherwise appropriate.  And it's intentional, being an app that the inventors think of as a kind of round-robin, remixing visual conversation.

I'm enjoying it, uploading consciously, and having fun with the visual remixing I see. I hope to get better at the process, but the photos above and below are some of my first tries. So my first couple of days of journaling have been online and totally word-free. I am saving them in a EVERNOTE notebook, called JANUARY JOURNAL, so I guess this is a start!