Today I am asking you to please help me, and other artists who share their work with you on the Internet.

There is a bill making it’s way through Congress. Bill #2913, the so-called “Orphan Works” bill. This bill would allow any company to use artwork without compensating the artist if they have made a “due diligence” effort (which is not defined in the bill) to locate the artist.

What this means is this. Your child colors one of my coloring pages. She does such a lovely job, you scan it and put it up on your blog. A couple of people see it and like it so much they copy the image and put it on their webpage or blog without crediting the source. A company exec sees it. He likes it, too. But no one gave credit, so he doesn’t know whose art it is. Oh well. The company puts it on a million t-shirts. No one, not me, not you, hot your child, gets a dime for the art.

I also do clip art. I ask for credit, but not everyone remembers and I’m not going to go around knocking heads over it. So someone likes, say, my drawings of boxer dogs. She puts one on her MySpace page. Again, a company exec sees it. He might even write her and ask who the artist was, but she doesn’t remember. Out go a million boxer dog stickers with my art. I don’t get a dime.

Your artistic 12 year old son draws a neat dragon. He scans it and shares it on his Deviant Art page, but as advised by his wise parents, he doesn’t have any personal identifiable info on his account. Again, a company exec sees it. He can’t identify or contact the artist (your well protected son). Oh well. A few thousand posters are sold with the dragon your son drew. No one gets paid for the art.

What can you or I do if that happens? Not much. Try to hire a lawyer who can fight against a big corps law firm, when there are a million loopholes left in the law. Not much chance we’d win.

I am trying to make a living, however humble, with my art. I provide coloring pages and clip art free to individuals, families, non-profit organizations, and often even other small business people like myself. Even the smallest royalty would be a great windfall of income to me. Or if you want one of my boxer dogs on a sticker, you can buy it through my own little Zazzle store where at least I do get a small royalty.

Never mind me, the bottom line is artists deserve to be paid for the use of their work - just like you deserve to be paid for the hours you put in at your job, whatever it may be. We do not deserve to be punished for sharing our work freely by allowing big corps to make a profit without paying us a dime for our contribution to it. How big is that contribution? Do you buy a t-shirt with a boxer dog on it because you like the picture of the boxer dog, or because you wanted any old t-shirt that size?

So, please, help me, help other artists. Take one minute from your day today and sign this petition. Take maybe an hour (it took me 30 minutes this morning) to write your congress members (You can find out who they are, and how to contact them here) and ask them to vote against this bill. Most of them have no idea what it is really about, or what the implications are for artists. You can read more about the bill here and a more detailed report with further links here. Or a really scary (for me as an artist) detailed article on what this bill will allow is here

Thank you so much for your time, and for your help. I’ll be spending a couple of hours on this today, sharing these links at all my blogs and social sites, and then I can get down to drawing some new coloring pages for you.

Summer Fey Foovay

A buddy sour horse during a trail ride can be aggravating, as well as potentially dangerous. If the lead horses takes off, your horse could follow, taking you somewhere you and your horse can’t handle, or maybe at a speed you are not comfortable with. Many horses find it difficult to resist the temptation to take off with the others. It is a natural instinct for them to follow the herd. This is how horses in the wild avoided danger. If one horse goes to break away the others say, "Something must be up; I will go along and ask questions later." Although you can hardly blame them for their behavior, you don’t have to just live with it, either. I’m going to tell you about a fun little game I play at all my horse-and-rider clinics which can help with this problem.

"The game," as I call it, is especially great for kids. I always use it for the 4H clinics I conduct. It is really simple, yet before they realize it, the kids have spent a lot of time in the saddle. Obviously, the more time spent in the saddle, the better rider they will become.

You’ll need a fairly large arena to play. The actual arena they will later be showing in will be perfect. All the riders get in a single-file line around the arena. Everyone goes around the arena at a nice controlled walk. On my cue, the lead horse will begin to trot. They will trot all the way around until they reach the back of the line. At this time, and no sooner, the next horse — or the new lead horse — will begin their trot. After everyone is successfully controlling their horse, you can move to phase two. Phase two, if you haven’t guessed, is exactly the same, except all the horses will procede in a trot and the lead horse will LOPE to the back of the line. That’s it.

Right now The Game may seem too simple to be of any use. As easy as it sounds, you would be surprised how many horses have a hard time with this. Especially if you get several anxious horses all together, their nervous energy is very contagious. If these are 4H or show horses, this is an valuable tool to get your horse used to riding in close quarters with several other horses. For the horse that may get startled by something coming up behind them, this is great practice for them, too.

So the next time your 4H group gets together or just you and some friends, give The Game a try. You could end up having many hours of fun in the saddle, while teaching your horse the self-control needed to make your next show or even trail ride more enjoyable.

One of the most import things to consider in the health of your horse is her hooves. Are you absolutely sure you are doing everything you can to care for your horse’s hooves? Go to http://www.cowboyhorsetraining.com for a Free report. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Wess_Hicks

Finding the right medication for horses is a tricky business, taking into consideration the possible side effects and for racehorses, making sure that the drugs taken would not affect the horse’s performance in the race. However, the challenge definitely does not end there. Getting the drugs into the horse’s mouth (and making it stay in) is a different matter altogether.

Besides having to maneuver the 1,000-pound body to get a pill inside the horse’s throat, you’ll have to deal with the possibility of having that same pill spewed back at you in a less distinguishable (and practically unusable) form. Of course, the chances of this happening depend on expertise at handling horses and in experience at giving medication.

Seasoned ‘horsekeepers’ have come up with all sorts of ways on administering medicine to their horses. These different methods are ‘tested and tried’ but not foolproof. Giving medicine to a horse is much like coaxing a child (only, a much stronger one with a longer mouth). Thus, the approach that works best for one horse may not be effective at all for another or merely to a certain extent, like only during the first try.

One of the easiest (but most likely to fail) approach would be to mix the medication with the horse’s usual food. If this works for your horse, then you’re pretty fortunate. But if mixing the pills with grain, applesauce or molasses does not do the job, one might revert to the age-old syringe. Truly reminiscent of dealing with an unruly preschooler, pumping the fluid medicine into the horse’s mouth and holding it shut until the medicine is swallowed is not a comfortable task. It requires strength and patience as the horse will not make it easy.

An alternative to the syringe is something more friendly looking a plastic mustard dispenser. It won’t guarantee that all of the liquid medication would stay inside that equine mouth but it would get it all in, after all a condiment bottle is more appealing rather than threatening.

Some horse owners also testify that pills dissolved in strawberry Kool-Aid juice or vanilla yogurt make irresistible concoctions. It appears that just like us, these medicine-repellent creatures have certain indulgences. Once we discover what makes them forget their repulsion to medicine, it’s an easy ride from there.

It is not only the horse’s health that should be considered when giving it medication. One should be careful in handling drugs that may have adverse effects when ingested by humans. Another technique in horse medication is to crush the pill into powder and placing it directly on the horse’s tongue. Airborne particles that might be inhaled while preparing the powder may be harmful. But (phenylbutazone, equivalent to aspirin), in particular, causes aplastic anemia in humans.

Ultimately, horse medication also involves training and discipline. No matter how stubborn the horse is, it can eventually be trained to receive medication with little fuss. Making the drugs look and taste good requires more time and effort but is fulfilling too!