The world’s greatest numpty

No, I cannot figure out how to embed this in my website. That’s why I put it here.

While I’m tentatively trying to outsource some of my support work, one thing I’m stuck doing is my website. Furthermore, it has to be done in HTML. I am married to a programmer and my daughter is a programmer. There are no plug-and-play websites allowed in this house.

I sent an email to my kid that read, “I suppose I could clone this page by saving-as, right?” Boy, did that get a reaction!

One nice thing about working on my website was asking for students to let me share their work. This is by Nancy Woogen.

One nice thing about working on my website was asking 2015 workshop students to let me share their work. This is by Nancy Woogen.

My website was originally created using font tags. Now my kid tells me they are “deprecated” in HTML5. No way am I going back and fixing the old ones, which means I’m creating a pretty mish-mosh. Eventually it will fail and someone will have to go in and standardize it. I’m imagining their comments now, speaking of “deprecation”.

“Deprecate” in human English means to belittle, but in software it seems to mean something like, “it still works but only a numpty would do it.” On the off-chance that I was still trainable, my husband printed off an HTML5 cheat sheet for me—in two-point type. This time of year he loves to point out that I’m older than him.

And this is by Corinne Avery.

And this is by Corinne Avery.

However, my daughter also saved me a lot of time. I was trying to figure out how to make an online registration form for my workshop using HTML. That’s a little tricker than “stick that painting here,” because you hope to send the information somewhere when the form is filled out.

“Try Google Forms instead,” she suggested. Now for the first time, you can register for my workshop online. (I still haven’t figured out about secure credit card transactions.)

Ellen Joyce Trayer let me use this painting of treetops.

Ellen Joyce Trayer let me use this painting of treetops.

One thing that doing the website forced me to do is look at my output over the past year. It was lower than usual. No surprise there. I worked nonstop from early September to Christmas readying this house for market.

But I was also struck by how anxious some of my plein air work from 2015 looked. I was preoccupied and overtired much of the year. Already, 2016 is better. I’m in my own home.

Meanwhile, I'm doing THIS.

Meanwhile, I’m doing this.

My website is more or less updated now. You can see it here. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated, but no deprecation, please.

Carol Douglas

About Carol Douglas

Carol L. Douglas is a painter who lives, works and teaches in Rockport, ME. Her annual workshop will again be held on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park, from August 6-11, 2017. Visit www.watch-me-paint.com/ for more information.