Webpage Background: RGB Side

Today's offering is a webpage background graphic featuring a left side border of small blocks in red, green and blue, thus the name of "RGB." After I created the Color Block backgrounds in June I thought about other colors than pastels that I could make backgrounds out of. I came up with this, which are the three basic colors of the original CRT color monitors.

Plain and functional. That's what this background graphic is. If you like it after viewing the sample page, download the graphic to your hard drive following the directions on the page. You'll find the thumbnail image on page 5 of the side border backgrounds page. Just follow the log-in instructions.

 

Desktop Wallpaper: Skateboards

Late today (in some parts of the world), I uploaded six (yes!) different sizes of a desktop wallpaper featuring skateboards with the accompanying legs of the skateboarders. 

The original photo was provided by website member, mnp, at morguefile.com. I applied an impressionist painting effect using Corel Painter Essentials and Paint Shop Pro X. Pretty cool effects! 

Anyway, the desktop wallpapers are sized from 640x458 to 1440x129. The thumbnail page contains all of the links. Just choose the one that best fits your monitor's resolution. Each link opens in a new, download window whereupon you follow the directions on the page.


Go to Wallpapers Page 5 to begin your download now!

Color Block Border Web Page Backgrounds

Today, I've uploaded three web page background graphics, one side border and two top borders, in the same basic pastel color blocks on white. Each graphic has space between the page edge and the edge of the border to allow for menu items and small ads (side border) or menu items, header graphic or title text, and/ or banner ad (top border - 100 px and 150 px choices). While these graphics are made for page backgrounds, I don't see why they cannot be used as table backgrounds (large file size may be a limitation).


Check out the graphics at Arride Graphics!


Color Block Side Border
Color Block Top Borders

Graphics, At Last

Valentine's on my mind for these graphics. Today's offerings are two desktop wallpapers and one webpage background with a top border. All with hearts. For Valentine's Day and more.

All of the photos for these graphics came from one of my favorite sources, morguefile.com. The photographers are, by their user names, dieraecherin, taylorschlades, and sullivan. I used the photos of the first two photogs for the desktop wallpapers and used sullivan's photo for the top border webpage background. All are pretty cool and fun.

Check out the wallpapers on the fifth page of that section, and check out the page background on the fifth page of the top border backgrounds page.

Enjoy and happy Valentine's Day!

New Desktop Wallpaper: Fan's Eye View Behind Home Plate

Now that baseball is well into the 2009 season and has started interleague play, I decided to offer a baseball-themed desktop wallpaper to celebrate. I've played around with the original photograph, which I took some time ago, in Virtual Painter and sized it in four different resolutions (sizes) to fit most monitors, desktop and laptop computers alike.

The effect you see on the wallpaper is silkscreening on washi. It's easily done with Virtual Painter and any image or photograph. I think the effects are pretty cool and fun to work with.

View the thumnbnail and the full-size desktop wallpapers beginning with the fifth wallpapers page. Each size will open a new window from which you can download the wallpaper that fits your monitor's resolution. Remember, these images are not meant for web pages, including social networking profile pages, etc., and are blanket-covered by the Terms of Use.

New Desktop Wallpaper: Monarch Butterflies (and a Ladybug)

Last offering for March is a desktop wallpaper featuring a couple of monarch butterflies and a teeny red ladybug atop some plants (I think they're sage plants but I could be wrong -- I'm no gardener nor a botanist). The photograph comes from the morguefile.com and was taken by member beglib.

We're into over a week of spring now and I felt like doing something with some harbingers of spring, like butterflies. I haven't come across a photograph of a robin yet or other birds that have struck my fancy. I like the butterflies. There's usually a ton of them swarming to Pacific Grove, California, on their migrations to and from Mexico. Read more about them at wikipedia.org.

As usual, the wallpapers come in four sizes to fit most monitor resolutions. Choose the link to the size you want to download and a new window opens up. Follow the directions for downloading the wallpaper either to your desktop (set as wallpaper) or to your downloads folder in your hard drive (save as...). The wallpapers are not meant to be used on webpages. The Terms of Use applies to the wallpapers you get from Arride Graphics. Please be sure to read it.

New! Side Border Page Background Graphic: Earthy

I can't let March pass by without offering at least one graphic. Today's graphic is a little reminiscent of the Southwest U.S. and of Arts and Crafts/ Art Deco styles, all in earthy colors. This was inspired by my visit to Phoenix and architect Frank Lloyd Wright's summer home at Taliesin West before taking in a couple of games at Spring Training camp (baseball).

The side border background is 2000 pixels wide and 100 pixels high, enough to cover most monitor resolutions before repeating the side border. Clicking the thumbnail image on the page opens a new window, after you enter the username and password provided. Follow the download instructions on the page. You can use this on any web page without charge but must linkback and credit Arride Graphics as part of the agreement to use it. Read the Terms of Use, please!

Download "Earthy" here.

New Desktop: Wallpaper: Waterfall

Every winter I go through the same thing -- I get tired of gray skies and rain, even when it (rain) is a good thing. Like last month's desktop wallpaper offering, this one is green and wet and fresh but hopeful of the coming spring.

I have on my desktop a wallpaper from the National Geographic website. National Geographic publications are known for their fantastic photographs and photographers. This one I have is of a cascading stream with moss-covered, overhanging trees and branches, some with icicles even. If not a winter scene, it is probably early spring. The photograph is by Nick Feller, an amateur photographer who contributed the image on their Your Shot (now called My Shot) page in December 2007.

While I love that image, I wanted one sans the icicles. So I scoured a couple of my favorite stock photo sites for something similar. I finally settled on the image you see on the wallpaper. It comes from ImageAfter.com. I'm not sure of the attribution because the download page really doesn't state who took the photograph. Anyway, rather than keeping the wallpaper to myself, I decided to offer it to you as well.

I paired the photo with an apt quote by Anne Morrow Lindbergh from Quoteland.com. The font I used is Lucida Calligraphy.

To view and download the desktop wallpaper, go to the fifth wallpapers page. There are four sizes to choose from. Download the size that most closely corresponds to your monitor's resolution. And remember, these are not meant for use on webpages.

New Desktop Wallpaper: Flowers and Rain

Here in California we're finding out that we may be facing a drought this summer due to the scarce snowfall in the Sierra Nevada mountains this winter. We rely on the runoff from the snowpack to fill our reservoirs, if not the rains. So with that on my mind, and me being tired of the cold, I look to spring flowers to cheer us up with this latest desktop wallpaper.

The flower and rain photograph comes from my favorite source, morguefile.com, and it was created by delboysafa whose real name is Derek Nutley. The quote I chose for the desktop wallpaper is by Rachel Carson which I got from The Quote Garden.

The wallpapers come in four sizes (resolutions) and can be downloaded on the fifth desktop wallpapers page. Choose the size that closely corresponds to your monitor's resolution and save the wallpaper from the popup download window. Save it to your desktop directly or save it to your downloads folder in your hard drive. Brief directions are on the popup download window.

Snowfall Side and Top Border Web Page Backgrounds

I've finally created a side border snowy background graphic for your web pages and a top border with the same graphic. The difference here is I'm experimenting with Cascading Style Sheets this time for the page layouts. Check them out!

This is pretty exciting for me because I've been thinking about getting away from tables-based web pages. While I'll still offer backgrounds and sets using tables for layouts, I will be basing sample pages more and more toward CSS layouts. So right now I'm working on changing my own web site to a CSS layout, for the most part. That means I won't have time to offer any more new graphics for this year.

Wow! Can you believe 2008 is almost ending?

Well, here are the links to the pages for "Snowfall":

• Side Border Background
• Top Border Background

Hope you enjoy using either one or both of these backgrounds. Finally, here's wishing you a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Happy Kwanzaa!

Coordinated Web Page Graphic Set and Desktop Wallpaper

This latest graphic set and desktop wallpaper are created from a photo I took a few summers ago of some koi fish swimming in a resort hotel's garden pond. The photo was treated to some artistic, silkscreen rendering with Paint Shop Pro. It gives the resulting image an abstract look without rendering the fish unrecognizable.

Initially, I made this photo into a web page graphics set with a top header for my own use. Then when I decided to distribute this at Arride Graphics, I wondered if the entire altered photo would look nice as a desktop wallpaper. I think it does. So there you go!

To view and download the web page graphic set, please go to the Top Headers page.

To view and download the desktop wallpaper in one of four sizes, go to page five of the Wallpapers section.

These two graphic offerings complete my releases for the month of October.

Start at the main page to see what other graphics are offered at Arride Graphics.

Arachnophobic: A Top Border Background

Here's a new top border background suitable for the upcoming Halloween Friday, a personal page or maybe a science page about spiders. The spiders sit at about the 100 pixel line from the top but still provide plenty of space for your header information, such as your website's name or maybe even a small banner ad. The graphic's total size is 100X3000 pixels so there's a lot of space for your content before the spider border repeats itself.

Interested? Well then, go to the fourth page of the Top Border backgrounds to find the thumbnail for the download. You'll need the username and password info found on that page to get to the download page. The download link opens a new window.

Shades of Gray Background Tiles

Today I'm releasing some background tiles in shades of gray to complete (maybe) the first page of the solid color tiles. The four existing tiles were a bit lonely without more grays. So I added four more.

Hopefully, someone will find some use for these tiles.

To view and download the new tiles, go to page 1 of the solid color tiles section.

Also, in light of my missing releases in September, I'll offer a new/ old set and a new desktop wallpaper this month. Boy, is it hard to get back into the swing of things after returning home from vacation!

Check out some existing webpage backgrounds, too, in the Halloween spirit on the following pages:

• Side Border Page 5 - jack o' lanterns, 2 styles
  
• Top Border Page 2 - skeletons
• Top Border Page 3 - jack o' lantern
• Top Border Page 4 - cats on a fence
  

New Desktop Wallpaper!

As promised earlier this week, a new graphic in the form of desktop wallpapers are here to decorate your computer monitor. I whipped this one up from a photograph I took of nasturtium flowers in my garden. Sometimes I fiddle with photographs using Virtual Painter in Paint Shop Pro, but this time I left it untouched. So what you see is what I took.

A little bit of info about nasturtiums: these are orange flowers, but they come in other colors, too. I also had some in a light yellow or cream color. Nasturtium is also known as tropaeolum. The young leaves, flowers and unripe seed pods are edible, having a peppery flavor like watercress, and can be used in salads for color.* They're really easy to grow and re-seed themselves. Unfortunately, for me anyway, snails and slugs love to eat them, too, so I had to remove them to avoid having to deal with those slimy critters; nevermind eating any of the flowers after they've nibbled on them. Yuck!

The desktop wallpapers come in four sizes to fit monitors in most of the common resolutions my visitors use. So go to the fifth wallpapers page to download one of them. Remember, they must be saved to your desktop or your computer's hard drive, or set as wallpaper directly. They're not meant to be used as web page backgrounds.

* Information on nasturtiums: Sunset Western Garden Book, 1995

Cool New Patterned Background Tiles!

I don't know why these weren't offered back in 2005 when I made them, but here they are now. (Kind of like finding clothes in the back of your closet you forgot you had.) These are freeform, patterned background tiles to use on your web pages or your desktop for a very wild look. Count 'em: 12.

Like the ones on the page and the pages before it, these were created using Sausage Software's Reptile. Some colors were tweaked from the original patterns; others were cropped. All of the names are mine and I've written the tile name below each download sample. As for three of the tiles, I don't remember why I named them as I named them. So those will remain enigmatic.

Go on and check out the background tiles now, located on the "B" and "C" pages of the Freeform Designs page.

New Balloonz Web Page Graphic Set!

I missed my self-imposed June deadline for releasing something new, and I feel a wee bit bad about that. But not so much because I've been enjoying baseball in the meantime.

On to the new graphics: This latest set is called "Balloonz." It's a double-border looking set composed of three graphics to use in a table to create the look. It's a fun set suitable for a child's web page or web site, a birthday web page for any age, or any fun page or site you can think of. The set comes with the three table graphics and three more background tiles to use as you wish in your page design. Accessories include two bullets, two page header graphics and a page divider.

In a break from the past, you can now download individual pieces of the set from a separate page or you can download the zip file as before. All graphics for this set, whether obtained from the download page or the zip file, must be saved to your computer's hard drive or your transloader space, if you're a WebTV user. There is no direct-linking or hot-linking allowed.

So now, go to the preview page for this set on the Double Border Sets page. Enjoy using this set!

Updates

In the coming month or so, my web host will be migrating accounts to new servers located at a different data center, mine included. There may be disruptions of accessibility to this site.[Arride Graphics] I'm hoping it will be minimal.

My hand is feeling better but it is not completely healed. I will try to get out some graphics anyway between now and the end of June. This downtime has been nice in a way, because there's always something going on in life.

Hey Janet, What's Up?

You may have noticed that I haven't been offering any new graphics for over a month now. That is because I've got a repetitive stress injury to my wrist and hand. Making graphics requires extensive use of the mouse and I can't do that much right now, especially while wearing the brace. Very awkward.

So while I heal, there won't be anything new to offer. I can say that my hand seems to be getting better every day. Hopefully, I'll be ready to make more graphics within the next month or so. In the meantime, please check out the existing graphics. Maybe you need a new desktop wallpaper?

Thanks for your visit!

Background Tiles As Desktop Wallpapers, A Mini-Tutorial

If I judge correctly from how long some visitors stay on my site when they're searching for certain desktop wallpapers, I don't think they understand what desktop wallpapers are. In some instances, they are fixed-width images, e.g. 800x600 pixel photos or color graphics. In other instances, they are graphical tiles, mostly with seamless edges, in a variety of pixel sizes, e.g. 10x10 or 100x100 or 10x100, as examples. While I offer the fixed-width images as desktop wallpapers, you can use any of the web page background tiles on your desktop also. It's how you set the graphic on your desktop that allows the image to cover it.

The fixed width image, should you go ahead and install it immediately, is set as a Stretched image (Windows). Because you set it that way, you have to be sure you download the correct size for the resolution you've set your monitor. For example, if you're using the resolution of 1024x768, you download the desktop wallpaper sized at 1024x768. You can also use the option of Center, if you've downloaded the correct size. (Theoretically, you can use a size larger than your monitor's resolution, but you end up losing some of the image -- right and bottom sides -- in doing so.)

The other option is to Tile the image. Obviously, with a fixed-width image, it makes no sense to tile it since it covers the entire desktop anyway. This is the option you choose when you use a background tile. Instructing the computer to tile the image on your desktop will cover it all. Check it out. If you tell the computer to center the background tile, all you'll see is this lonely tile in the middle of your desktop. If you stretch it, watch out! It will be so huge and out of focus, maybe even funny-looking. (The screenshot doesn't do the real look justice. Believe me it looks bad.) Tiling the tile makes sense and is the best way to go. Additionally, the best thing about background tiles is you don't have to worry about knowing your monitor's resolution.

Centered, a 100x100 pixel tile

Stretched and fuzzy

Tiled

Words of caution: If the small, single tile looks good, it does not necessarily translate into a good-looking desktop wallpaper. It may end up looking too busy. Try them out. You can always change it easily, unlike wallpaper you put on house walls.

How do you set your image on your desktop? With Windows, you right-click on the image until a menu pops up and select "Set As Desktop..." Then in the next popup window, select the Position and change the color, if necessary. Finally, press the "Set Desktop Background" button. You're done!

For Mac users, click on the link to view the desktop image. Click and hold the mouse cursor over the image and drag it to your desktop. The image will be copied and saved. (The browser window may have to be resized in order to see and reach the desktop so the image can be dragged and dropped.) Next, open the appearance control panel ( Main Apple Menu drop down menu -> Control Panels -> Appearance) When the appearance control panel window opens, click on the "desktop" tab. Drag the saved image from the desktop into the appearance desktop window. Choose how you want the image to be displayed (i.e. position automatically, center on screen, tile...) then click on "Set Desktop".

Here are the Desktop Wallpapers and Background Tiles pages at Arride Graphics:

Wallpapers 1 - space images
Wallpapers 2 - more space images
Wallpapers 3 - variety of images
Wallpapers 4 - more variety of images
Background Tiles - color and patterned

Have fun!

New Top Border Web Page Background: Green Jewels

Top border backgrounds are pretty popular nowadays, if I can judge from the number of visitors here searching for them. I'll continue to make and offer them in a variety of patterns and colors as the demand dictates. Today, I'm offering two, similar top border backgrounds - Green Jewels - made with an emerald bead tube and Virtual Painter in Paint Shop Pro 7.

The beads line the bottom of the green, textured top border. One background graphic has a large bead and a tiny bead, giving the graphic a bit of presence. The other background graphic has a small bead and a tiny bead, a much more subdued yet still elegant look. The choice is yours. Both graphics are shown on sample pages from which you can download the graphic, and the instructions are right on the page.

You can find the thumbnail images on page four of the top edge or border backgrounds page. Each thumbnail image will open a new window with the sample pages. Have fun choosing!