A Vibrant Liebster Award for Elephant’s Picture Book!
Thank you to http://iarxiv.com for nominating me for the Liebster Award. I am grateful to you for selecting me. I truly appreciate your encouragement! It is my pleasure everyday to see your beautiful drawings and keep up with the around-the-world adventures of Piggy and Puggy. Yours is a beautiful blog that never fails to make me smile and sometimes sigh. [To catch up on the fun go to http://iarxiv.com/the-porcines/ .]
The Liebster Award is given to new blogs with fewer than 200 followers. The 11 blogs I nominated (listed below) are fresh and unique. I guarantee when you take a look you will be intrigued by what you find.
I was pleased to be nominated for the Liebster Award and I am honored to be nominating other people. As part of accepting the award a nominee answers 11 questions. Mine is an 11-part answer to one important question:
“ELEPHANT, WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM READING FAIRY TALES?”
(1) Don’t go into the forest – any forest at any time – especially alone.
(2) Don’t go into the home (hovel, hut, castle, or burrow) of a stranger – especially the home of a crone, witch, hag (land or sea), giant, ogre, beast, elf, or fairy.
(3) Don’t get into coaches with strangers; you will not be taken home as you hope. Instead, you will be taken on a long ride to an undesirable destination (e.g., a land entirely underground, a weirdo’s castle in the sky, a land so far away you can’t find your way home, etc.).
(4) Your parents may do you wrong, but your stepparent will definitely do you a mischief.
(5) Avoid royalty, any character with a bad attitude, unrepentant murderers, and any character you notice right from the start “disturbs” you.
(6) If you begin to lose track of time, your sense of hearing or your vision becomes distorted, you are likely falling under a spell – leave the area immediately!
(7) Beware of anyone who is lonely – they will likely entrap you and keep you as their unhappy companion for all eternity.
(8) If an animal is talking to you using a human language you should probably move along. In addition, don’t follow any suggestions offered by talking animals. (Note: If you follow the advice in item (1) and don’t go into the forest you are less likely to meet talking animals – befriend them at you own risk).
(9) Via enchanted powers you may be made into a talking animal or beast. This is unpleasant, but if you wait until your future spouse cuts off your head, kisses your ugly self or accomplishes a task, you will probably get to be human again and marry a good looking although slightly dim witted prince or princess.
(10) The size of a character in a fairy tale is a good indication of how clever it is. Giants are usually angry and dangerous but easily outsmarted. Small characters (e.g., elves, fairies, gnomes, tiny humans, etc.) are smarter than you are. Avoid trying to outsmart a smooth talking little character. Avoid committing to any verbal agreement with the diminutive, and exit their sphere of influence as soon as possible.
(11) Be nice – because even if you become the victim in a fairy tale, nice people are the only ones who stand a chance of having a happy ending!
My 11 Wonderful Liebster Award Nominees!
All the blogs nominated are published by creative people; they are interesting and worth following. Take a look and see why I am so enthusiastic about my nominees. Congratulations to all of you!
http://papercutillustrations.wordpress.com/
http://jodyojody.wordpress.com/
http://killkaties.wordpress.com/
http://andyreedturner.wordpress.com/
http://firstnightdesign.wordpress.com/
http://avrilejean.wordpress.com/
http://claudiacruzart.wordpress.com/
I would like to nominate every blog I follow. Many of you have lots of fans and too many followers, or you have won the award already! But if you 
wanted to be nominated and I left you out it is only because I was limited.
Nominees need to answer 11 questions, nominate 11 blogs they want others to enjoy, and ask their nominees 11 questions. You should notify your nominees, show the award and maybe say something about yourself. That is all I know – check around for the more explicit rules if you need them.
Nominees – if you accept – follow the rules as well as you can. Have fun! As for the 11 questions from me, ask yourself 11 questions you would like to answer!
Once again, http://iarxiv.com thank you for nominating me. Thank you to everyone who follows my blog or who has taken time to comment or given me a like or a look!
My best to everyone,
Elephant
PS Claudia Cruz, I can’t figure out how to notify you!
Elephant's Picture Book 
Thank you for such kinds words about my blog. Piggy and Puggy snort their approval!
You have put down some sound advice from the world of fairytales (which also translates into advice about the ‘real’ world). I wonder what those stories would be like if all characters were ‘sensible’?
I’m slowly checking out your nominee list — it’s a good selection 🙂
Hello,
A wave of the trotter back to you! Too true – without the drama what would a fairy tale be?
Elephant
Thats so colorful!
Thanks. I like the pink award logo, but I couldn’t resist!
Elephant
Thanks for stopping by and liking so many posts! I appreciate it.
I like what I like!
Thanks For the thanks and for visiting.
Elephant
Elephant
Thank you for nominating me for this award. I appreciate the encouragement and kind words about my artwork.
My pleasure!
Elephant
I AM AMAZED at how many people have used part or all of my Liebster Award artwork. I did alter someone else’s Liebster logo – the basic form – which I turned into 12 altered logos + one enhanced color logo – but what happened after that is a good study in where images end up! I officially would like to thank all the Liebster Award logo artists who came before me – I did more than copy your work, but I did “take” your image without knowing who you were – something I can’t say for the people after me!
Elephant
Love your answers. I would add…beware of artist’s studios…
Thank you! Nobody has liked my answers before.
I added the comment about the trail of use after I Googled the Liebster Award and was shocked that so many people picked off all or part of the color alterations I made! Wow! I took the logo thoughtlessly to begin with so I really did something similar – I did take the logo someone else designed – it is the only thing I have posted without giving details about its origin. My thinking (or lack of thinking) was that it was sort of generic – now I am generic too. I’m glad my work is so useful to others – especially at the happy point in time when they are given the award, but it is a lesson. I would like to acknowledge the logos designer – where are you?
Thanks again,
Elephant
LOL! I wasn’t being cryptic or critical about the Liebster Award logo…wasn’t even thinking about that! I was thinking about my own studio since I am an artist, and how it could be as bad as a dark forest if ventured into!
Honestly I think folks get a *bit* bonkers about copyright sometimes – I mean honestly the original logo had been floating around for a long time…
I didn’t get what you were writing about! But I had to judge by the post you commented on, and I wrote that comment about the award most recently. Maybe I regret it a bit – so it was on my mind (not yours). Artists don’t frighten me, but if they live in a forest I will have to bow out of a visit to their studio. Since I wrote that list of don’t (they are all don’ts I think?), I am amazed just how much I really do believe in them – I find myself giving myself fairy tale advice sometimes!
Despite your disinterest in the Liebster Award, I will abuse you with a bit more of my thinking on it – so skip this part if you want – In essence what bothers me is not the logo itself, the length of time it has been around, being bonkers or any of that, it is the copyright law itself and the casual way we all abuse it. People have the strangest ideas about what is permissible under the various intellectual property laws. In general, I can say almost categorically we are all WRONG about copyright law – yes, what you think and what I think is likely wrong (and that goes for other people who read this too). So despite what is done by me and all the billions of other people abusing the law – we are still doing the wrong thing in good company with a clear conscience believing or pretending it is just fine. In fairy tales this is a set up for getting into trouble!
Thanks for letting me know I was lost in the forest regarding your post!
Elephant
Great blog!
Thank you very much!
Elephant
I’m so late to the party! But thank you, I’m so honored! I think your #10 is eye-openingly wise.
So there you go! If you like this would you be the one and only person I asked to use my artwork – well maybe that is too much – just seems nice after all this time and my notions about the award and artwork!
Have fun!
Elephant
Yes yes yes! Did I use the wrong award illustration? I’d love to put up anything you’ve done!
Please use my artwork. I like to be asked and have the opportunity to say YES. It is silly, but I think my artwork was sort of okay (at least the people who used and abused it thought so).
How nice all around. First, that you want the award. Second, use that artwork! Let’s have fun long after the “fact.” Nice that you just missed the award and all way back when. Wow, that is something I would do!
I have gotten many awards since this one – so nice of people to think of me. It is lovely to be nominated for awards. But I don’t want to put them on my blog for the super silly reason that they take up space. I just like posting my pics and I want them to be as big as possible. I am sure I could find a template that would let me do this. Someday I will figure all this out. For now – Who cares!!!
It would be very nice for you to accept the award and use my Liebster artwork – nice to come full circle with this!
Happy here,
Elephant
So wait, does that mean that the one I put up is not the one you designed? Still unclear, sorry!
I didn’t know where to put my nominations- I know it’s not a big deal, but like you, I didn’t want to share the space of my blog posts. My design is kind of streamlined with only book posts and I didn’t want to mess with that, though I shoved the awards on the side. Now I’m wondering if it’s silly to have just created a separate page- narcissistic. Anyhow, let me know if I have the wrong one up, perhaps send me the correct one and I’ll fix it. Thanks!
This looks great! Perfect. Keep it simple. You have the award logo up already the way you like it and you don’t want to make a messy post so . . . maybe the nominations can wait? I can’t remember the “rules” but I don’t think people follow them – I didn’t put the logo on my site. I think you should enjoy the award and put things together in a way that pleases you.
Enjoy,
Elephant
Elephant
My! Here it is November 2013 and my artwork is all over the place! This is like a weed.
If you used this image, I assume you liked it, but I would really like to know how you found it and why decided to use. What do you think when people then use what you used? Do you feel they should mention where they got the image? From you? Does it bother you?
Elephant