As I get ready for the B/W&C show, opening on October 22 (that's less than 2 weeks away!), I've also taken it upon myself to redo the Ralph Art website (http://www.ralphart.com).
This started out just being a re-theming, but as I delved deeper into it, I found myself doing a number of more structural things; things that affect functionality and easy of use AND updating.
I'm moving to a new hosting provider: Namecheap.com - who despite their name provides (so far) excellent inexpensive hosting, name registration, and SSL certs. This appeals to the left-brain me who works as an IT systems analyst 40 hours a week.
Couple of things that I'm adding: using Flickr to host all the gallery images - this should speed up page loads for site visitors; and email updates, should you choose to opt in to that. I'm also using a different template which to my eye is cleaner and easier to navigate.
I'm hoping to have it up before the end of the week. Look for an announcement here and on my Facebook page.
Cheers!
Showing posts with label website. Show all posts
Showing posts with label website. Show all posts
Monday, October 10, 2016
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Short technical update
Quick note on a backend update I made to the Ralph Art Website, which is being hosted on OpenShift (www.openshift.com), which is a fabulous service for the more geekishly inclined of you out there.
As some of you know out there, during daylight hours I'm a systems analyst/defacto support engineer for a bunch of corporate websites. So I felt inclined to do some tweaks that will improve performance. This entailed the functional equivalent of moving from an efficiency apartment to a one-bedroom. It wasn't a far move, but I did have to pickup everything and move it.
Doing this also gave me an excuse to keep the old copy of the site for a test platform.
Anyway...enjoy!
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Ralph Art Website relaunched
Woo hoo! The new Ralph Art website is now officially live! I cut over the DNS for http://www.ralphart.com a little while ago, so now the redesigned site is the one you'll see when you go there.
If you are curious or bored, the old site, with all its warts and poor display on mobile devices, is still visible at http://old.ralphart.com. The last redesign (mostly just a reskinning) took place about 3 years ago (give or take). I'll probably leave it there for a while, for curiosity sake.
The new site has (in my opinion) a much improved organization, with lots of large images of art. For once I did not do the complete redesign myself, instead I started with a template and heavily customized it. This let me create a responsive, mobile device friendly site with a minimum of effort on my part. Yes, I have been known to be lazy.
Leave comments below if you feel so inclined or find a glaring mistake somewhere.
Thanks!
If you are curious or bored, the old site, with all its warts and poor display on mobile devices, is still visible at http://old.ralphart.com. The last redesign (mostly just a reskinning) took place about 3 years ago (give or take). I'll probably leave it there for a while, for curiosity sake.
The new site has (in my opinion) a much improved organization, with lots of large images of art. For once I did not do the complete redesign myself, instead I started with a template and heavily customized it. This let me create a responsive, mobile device friendly site with a minimum of effort on my part. Yes, I have been known to be lazy.
Leave comments below if you feel so inclined or find a glaring mistake somewhere.
Thanks!
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
The Portrait Project
A few years (quite a few, actually) I decided to start a project that I referred to (in my mind) as "One Hundred Portraits." After the first dozen or so, I decided it was just "the Portrait Project."
The goal was, loosely stated, to do a portrait of everyone I knew. Talk about a never-ending task. Regardless, I've completed around 50 (give or take).
Last fall my good friend Leo Wesson, who I've known and worked with for over 30 years, came over and shot a massive number of works on paper for me on his digital camera. Among the stuff he shot were most of the portraits. After much screwing around, I've finally posted my favorites on the Ralph Art website.
The pieces that comprise the project follow a fairly standard format: all are more or less mug-shots, and are on 22 x 30 rag paper. Not all are paintings; quite a few were done as drawings.
It's been fun, and I'm certainly not finished (I meet new people every day), but only a few people have seen them, and usually only a handful of the pieces at that. If you know me, you probably know quite a few of the people in these works.
A big thanks (again) to Leo, who made this possible.
Enjoy!
The goal was, loosely stated, to do a portrait of everyone I knew. Talk about a never-ending task. Regardless, I've completed around 50 (give or take).
Last fall my good friend Leo Wesson, who I've known and worked with for over 30 years, came over and shot a massive number of works on paper for me on his digital camera. Among the stuff he shot were most of the portraits. After much screwing around, I've finally posted my favorites on the Ralph Art website.
The pieces that comprise the project follow a fairly standard format: all are more or less mug-shots, and are on 22 x 30 rag paper. Not all are paintings; quite a few were done as drawings.
It's been fun, and I'm certainly not finished (I meet new people every day), but only a few people have seen them, and usually only a handful of the pieces at that. If you know me, you probably know quite a few of the people in these works.
A big thanks (again) to Leo, who made this possible.
Enjoy!
Monday, February 07, 2011
New drawings from the sketchbook series now online
I just updated the Sketchbook page on the Ralph Art website. New images are under the Cats, Children and Interior tabs. Most of these images date back to when John and Edward were very young (1986-1992).
Next: I've got a bunch of new digital photos of works on paper (thanks, Leo!) which I'll be processing over the next month or so. Includes lots of pieces from my ongoing portrait project.
Monday, February 22, 2010
First batch of sketchbook drawings now live
I just uploaded the first batch of sketchbook drawings to the Ralph Art Website. You'll find them under Art > Sketchbooks on the dropdown menu.
_1990.jpg)
So far I've scanned over 70 pages (though not all will be sent to the website). This first lot has 27 images, listed under the categories People, Places, Stuff. The next batch will include Children, Cats and Interiors. Given what I do, that almost covers it.
Since I do these primarily for my own amusement, most of these have never been seen before.
Enjoy!
_1990.jpg)
So far I've scanned over 70 pages (though not all will be sent to the website). This first lot has 27 images, listed under the categories People, Places, Stuff. The next batch will include Children, Cats and Interiors. Given what I do, that almost covers it.
Since I do these primarily for my own amusement, most of these have never been seen before.
Enjoy!
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Sketchbooks
As if I don't have enough to distract me, I've decided to scan a bunch of my old sketchbooks/drawing pads. Part of this is for a larger project, part of it is so I can post a section on the Ralph Art Website with images from the sketchbooks. Regardless, I currently have about 25 images scanned, corrected and sized. That's probably a third of what I've got.
Of course not all are fit for public display, but there you are. The majority of them are from about 15 - 20 years ago. Below is a sample drawing, done in Glasgow in 1985 at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.
_1985.jpg)
Of course not all are fit for public display, but there you are. The majority of them are from about 15 - 20 years ago. Below is a sample drawing, done in Glasgow in 1985 at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.
_1985.jpg)
Monday, February 15, 2010
New Mobile version of the Ralph Art Blog
I just finished and uploaded a mobile version of the Ralph Art Blog. It started out being an iPhone specific version but I've added additional simplified generic support to other devices as well. Be warned I'm continuing to tinker with it so things may change somewhat. The URL will not change.
If you are viewing with an iPhone, you can save it as a web app -- I've got an icon prepared.
To get to it, go to: http://mobile.ralphart.com
Enjoy!
If you are viewing with an iPhone, you can save it as a web app -- I've got an icon prepared.
To get to it, go to: http://mobile.ralphart.com
Enjoy!
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Coming soon: yet another facelift
It was only last fall that I gave the Ralph Art Website a facelift and I'm thinking about doing it again.
I've gotten a bit tired of the 1930's vibe that originally inspired the look -- primarily the big posterized view on the left side of the content. Initially I thought it looked sort of cool but now...not so much. It's also a big waste of space.
Some pages (primarily the home page) don't play nice with all browsers. The final factor is I want to be able to make it more mobile device friendly (currently looks like hell in my iPhone) which will entail a big cascading stylesheet revision. So it's back to the drawing board.
This time the redesign won't be quite as radical. I've decided I like the header I knocked out for the re-design of the Ralph Art Blog, so that will replace the current header. I'll also make the content area a little wider. Once I've done that I'm planning to make it so it looks better in mobile devices ("cell phones" for those of you who are not forced to use techno-buzz).
The iPhone version of the blog is close to completion (working on that this weekend) and I hope to have the main site done by next weekend. Unless I'm inspired to paint, and then who knows.
Keeping my fingers crossed.
I've gotten a bit tired of the 1930's vibe that originally inspired the look -- primarily the big posterized view on the left side of the content. Initially I thought it looked sort of cool but now...not so much. It's also a big waste of space.
Some pages (primarily the home page) don't play nice with all browsers. The final factor is I want to be able to make it more mobile device friendly (currently looks like hell in my iPhone) which will entail a big cascading stylesheet revision. So it's back to the drawing board.
This time the redesign won't be quite as radical. I've decided I like the header I knocked out for the re-design of the Ralph Art Blog, so that will replace the current header. I'll also make the content area a little wider. Once I've done that I'm planning to make it so it looks better in mobile devices ("cell phones" for those of you who are not forced to use techno-buzz).
The iPhone version of the blog is close to completion (working on that this weekend) and I hope to have the main site done by next weekend. Unless I'm inspired to paint, and then who knows.
Keeping my fingers crossed.
Monday, August 31, 2009
New oil painting and website update
I decided I was finished with the oil painting I'd been working on. You can see it below.
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People occasionally ask me how I know I'm finished. My stock answer is it's when I realize that there is nothing I can do that will improve the painting. Unfortunately I've continued well past that point in numerous paintings.
I also spent the greater part of this evening scanning old slides to go up on the Ralph Art website redesign. I'd tried this earlier with an old UMAX scanner I've had for too long. I ended up opting to use a much older Nikon LS 1000 slide scanner, which did a much better job.
Upon reflection, I've decided to do a rolling relaunch of the site, which means it may not be finished, but it will be finished enough. Part of this was predicated on the fact that the current site is largely unfinished and the new site is a vast improvement, especially when it comes to maintenance.
.jpg)
People occasionally ask me how I know I'm finished. My stock answer is it's when I realize that there is nothing I can do that will improve the painting. Unfortunately I've continued well past that point in numerous paintings.
I also spent the greater part of this evening scanning old slides to go up on the Ralph Art website redesign. I'd tried this earlier with an old UMAX scanner I've had for too long. I ended up opting to use a much older Nikon LS 1000 slide scanner, which did a much better job.
Upon reflection, I've decided to do a rolling relaunch of the site, which means it may not be finished, but it will be finished enough. Part of this was predicated on the fact that the current site is largely unfinished and the new site is a vast improvement, especially when it comes to maintenance.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
The updated Ralph Art Website - sneak preview
I've spent most of the weekend working on the updated design of the Ralph Art Website Project, which is, though functional, pretty dog-ugly in my estimation. Need an excuse? I was in a hurry when I switched web-hosting providers.
This one makes extensive use of the JQuery library, which lets me bolt on some functionality (menus, slideshows and the like) that would take me forever to code manually. As befits my station in life, I've made extensive use of CSS to control the look and feel of the site. No tables and spacer gifs!
I've gotten the basic shell coded out (along with the homepage). Now I've just got to create the rest of the pages for the shell. Simple, right? I've got a lot of scanning to do to feed the image bank of art.
My goal is to get this thing on line before Fall Gallery Night 2009. And yes, I'll have a handful of smaller pieces up during Arts Goggle.
And now your moment of Zen....
This one makes extensive use of the JQuery library, which lets me bolt on some functionality (menus, slideshows and the like) that would take me forever to code manually. As befits my station in life, I've made extensive use of CSS to control the look and feel of the site. No tables and spacer gifs!
I've gotten the basic shell coded out (along with the homepage). Now I've just got to create the rest of the pages for the shell. Simple, right? I've got a lot of scanning to do to feed the image bank of art.
My goal is to get this thing on line before Fall Gallery Night 2009. And yes, I'll have a handful of smaller pieces up during Arts Goggle.
And now your moment of Zen....
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