& NOW FOR A SHORT DIGRETION INTO POLITICORELIGIOUS HISTORY

Greetings, weary traveler! Welcome to another edition of the exciting new blog everyone's talking about! Oh wait. No, welcome to Azule Blue Dragon instead. Well, I have been hard at work, making cards, friends on facebook, and trouble in general. My facebook fanpage; known as bluedragon connections, if you aren't near a link, has 85 fans so far, but I went from getting a four star rating to zero to one. People click "like" and then don't interact anymore than that. That doesn't bother me, but I still have made only two sales on cards and I have to figure out a way to market my cards to people who are looking for them.

Well, I just keep moving forward; or as fish savant Dory would say, "just keep swimming." I post at least once a day on all three facebook walls, make new cards, examine what I think makes other people's cards good or interesting, and researching new subjects and marketing strategies.
I'm exploring the various theories on "search engine optimization", which is why I've done all the things I've done so far, but clearly more needs to be done.

More interesting to me is the new cards I've made. A few utilize a new painting I created combining my favorite deep space object: the cone nebula, with pictures I found of witches celebrating Halloween, which they call "Samhain" pronounced "Sowen". When I was younger, I became interested in this phenomena and did some research. I had a real "through the looking glass moment" when I realized that real witches don't worship the devil. The religion, now known as "Wicca", predates Christianity. When Constantine; a Roman Emperor, converted to Christianity, Christianity took on many aspects of Roman Culture; centralized authority, and conquering the world. To this end, whenever opposition was found that couldn't be overcome with a sword, God was used as a weapon. In this way non Christians were made to convert to Christianity or be killed, usually after torture. To justify this, the deities of other religions were made to be the devil, and the followers of these other religions were said to be devil worshipers. That would be like making a Hindu or Buddhist out to be devil worshippers today (which some people do) The funny thing is witches don't even worship a male god; they worship a Mother Goddess. Her consort is the "Horned God", and the patriarchal early Christians mistook him as the main Deity of the wiccans. They said he was the devil. This is one of the primary sources for the modern view of the appearance of the devil.

Anyway, I try to have respect for all religions (including Christianity) but I feel the need to explain my affinity for the Wiccans.
In fact, I have also made cards utilizing prayers from the Catholic Rite of Mass. Specifically "Gloria" & "Sanctus".


Finally, I have crafted an ink and brush rendering in Sanskrit of the word "yoga". The word means "Union with God" and, being indo-european etymologically speaking shares the same root as the word "yoke" in English. I hope to create many more cards using Sanskrit calligraphy.

JUST MY TYPE!

I'm thinking of changing the name of this blog to "Bad Blogger" because of how remiss my posting is. Anyway; here with another installation of the latest news from bluedragon greeting cards is your intrepid reporter. When last we saw our hero, he was pining for an application to put on his netbook that would allow him to add type to his greeting cards. The website that publishes the cards provides a format for an inner message; but the image on the front of the card must be uploaded as it will appear on the card. Every computer has a word processor of some kind, but the website requires that images be uploaded as jpegs.
Well, "Mission accomplished" as one of our former presidents was wont to say. I purchased PRINT ARTIST SILVER. It is perfect for my purposes. My netbook doesn't have a CD ROM drive however, and as you may be aware, most programs come on CDs to be loaded onto computers. So, I put it on my PC, and split it into two "thumb drives" leaving off a ton of clip art that I don't need and don't have room for.
I immediately set to putting type on lots of images. It takes longer than I thought, and I had to overcome a couple of hurdles along the way, but the end result is exactly what I needed.
NEW: FAN PAGE ON FACEBOOK!
I also started a fan page on face book. Become a fan today! Actually, first I started a whole new account just to promote my greeting cards! I went to the greeting card universe page on facebook and friended about 200 people on the fan list. this is a slow process as it takes me back to the first person on the list after each request which of course has two windows to approve before proceeding.

I've been spending a lot of time working on these two pages, so I haven't done much else. My next move is to start those Halloween cards and more fairy cards. I'm gathering images and ideas to work from right now!

Another Blue Blog?

This then is the premier posting of my newest blog. Unlike my blue heaven ,which is a mix of art, and fiction writing or my blue heaven at open salon, which is primarily political cartoons; this one will be dedicated to the creation of greeting cards at blue dragon. Since the focus on these greeting cards is turning toward recovery (12 step programs) I will also be talking about that. The purpose is to appeal to people interested in recovery as well as the thought that goes into making my greeting cards. I'm going to be honest; it is recommended that to be successful in online businesses, blogging about your business and things related to it can boost your business. So that's what I'm after. I will try to make sure that there are easy links to my other blogs here and elsewhere so that everything is connected. I'm trying for connectivity plus segregation. I don't want to insult people interested in recovery with my political cartoons, and I want people who want to read my writing to be able to do so without wading through a lot of others stuff. (By the way, I'm also posting my writing at: WEbook, where I hope to submit it for publication.
The above picture was painted a few years back, before I got sober actually. It was created on the balcony of the apartment where I was living with my girlfriend. We moved the TV out there so we could smoke cigarettes and whatever else while watching movies we rented. We basically lived on the balcony rain or shine; warm weather or cold. It was actually pretty cool, because she had a lot of plants out there and it was beautiful most of the time. Now that image is available as a mother's day card as well as in my general collection. It will also be available as a recovery card. At first, I wanted to have each card have a unique image and greeting, but they actually recommend using the same image multiple times... again; more exposure.
I'm nervous about talking about recovery in an open forum, and I realize that I haven't really talked about it yet. There is the added possibility that something I say might help someone else who is struggling. That would make it worth it to me. It's funny, I wasn't embarrassed when I was "out there" using, why am I wary of talking about being sober? I've been sober for 5 years now and it's possible that I have something useful to share. I hope you get something out of it.