Squidoo's Rocket Moms

Session 3 of Squidoo’s Rocket Moms ended yesterday and, as far as I know, everybody managed to do the eight lenses to graduate and earn their Rocket Moms graduation badge.

The session lasted for eight weeks and the requirement for graduation was to make eight lenses that fitted the weekly assignment. The assignment was only disclosed on Sunday of each week so that gave us seven days to complete it. Of course, Squidoo is a part time activity for most people and things happen in their lives which sometimes mean they don’t have the time to finish a lens in a week but a member can still graduate as long as she has completed eight lenses by the end of the session.

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Art and Design Group

I run an Art and Design Group on Squidoo. I clearly set out the criteria for membership right at the top of the page. A lens must have relevant content and not be just copied from Wikipedia and it should be well illustrated.  It mustn’t be just a prolonged plug  for a Clickbank product.

This doesn’t seem difficult to understand but so many people either don’t understand or they don’t bother to read the criteria.

Over the last week I’ve looked at about a dozen lenses that have applied to join the group. Most of them had very little or nothing at all to do with art or design. The lensmasters  must have thought that, because they had some pictures on them, they automatically qualified. Others were just plugging their Zazzle stores where they were selling stuff with designs they had done themselves. In some cases, this would be fair enough. Unfortunately, the ones I’ve seen recently have all been very derivative. They have also done two or three designs, then shown what seems like an endless list of products, all using these same few designs on them.

Having said all that, there are some great lenses in the group. Take a look at this one, Cheryl Craig, Aboriginal Artist to see some great art  by an artist who is descended from the Wiradjuri people in Australia.

Now have a look at these brilliant chess sets, designed and sculpted by Frankie, the lensmaster who has written about them. Then there is The Louvre: Essential, Little Known Tourist Tips which was chosen as Lens of the Day last year. The lensmaster, Margo Arrowsmith, uses her personal experience to give prospective visitors to the Louvre tips for getting the most out of their visit.

There are also several tutorials on different techniques. You can go through step by step instructions on drawing birds complete with detailed feathers using coloured pencils or doing an airbrush drawing of a wolf.

These are just a few of the brilliant lenses in the Art and Design Group. It’s obvious that some people who apply to join, not only do not read the criteria for membership but don’t even bother to check out any of the lenses or they would see that their own were not acceptable.