What Kind of Dad would I be if I didn't brag about my kids once in a while, in a public forum? I'll start with my youngest; Levi. At the risk of embarrassing him, he is a kid who is as modest as he is talented, and at the risk of sitting all my readers down and water boarding them with a two hour slide show of the middle school talent show, here goes:
Check out this website I am putting together for him. Right now, it features some of his artwork. He has a bunch more that still need to be posted. We are working on that. Feel free to take any of this work as an avatar. I think the "peeps" water color makes an excellent twitter profile pic. Eventually, I'll get these set up for an easy one click transfer, but until then you'll have to figure it out.
His "Tribesman" designs are an original concept. I like the look of these. These would make a great avatar as well, or a logo for a line of clothes. His other stuff is inspired by Tim Burton. Levi is a huge fan, and knows quite a bit about Mr. Burton's work and career, He looks up to him very much. Johnny Depp is his favorite actor...Levi can do a pretty good impression of him from Pirates of the Caribbean. He does the "Why kill them when you could just let them get married and be miserable for the rest of their lives" spiel. It's a goof.
Levi is also an excellent piano player. He has some music videos on YouTube that I want to re-do and post on this blog I'm putting together for him. He has an excellent instructor that is taking full advantage of Levi's "motivated to learn and practice" disposition, and he is shaping him into one of his best students. Thanks Tim! Check out Tim Anderson's Web site:
Tim was recently teaching Levi about intellectual property. Levi was working at his own rendition of Ave Maria. It turns out that this "church song" has become popular with the video game crowd as it is featured in the game: Hit Man. Tim explained that he can do anything he wants with that song because it is "public domain" meaning that no one owns or controls the rights to use or perform this material.
This is important stuff to know. I have a lot to learn about it myself. For instance, the pictures you see on Levi's blog are all original. Even the ones of Jack Skellington that are not hand drawn are photos that Levi took using a model. He went online and found a really cool, professional pose-able model of Jack Skellington with interchangeable heads. It cost him over $80.00 of birthday cash.
Some of his hand drawn pictures are from Sweeney Todd and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He did an awesome one of Keith Ledger as the Joker...Another great pic with avatar potential. The question is: Is Levi violating any copy right laws by creating and posting these? Even though he is giving them away for free? What if he made money from them, e.g. made prints and sold them, or posted them as avatars for free on his blog where he also got a little AdSense revenue.
Anyone having any knowledge on this, and willing to school us, would be greatly appreciated!Just use the comments to tell us what's what. Okay, slide show over. Now, let me show you my stamp collection!
