The good news is that digital references take up so much less space than paper ones. The bad news is that for reasons that make no sense at all they seem to be harder to find and access.

I’m using PureRef now, an application recommended by Maggie Jenner-Bennett, and I do love being able to make a file that has all my eye images for example. It’s a little funky but being able to make my screen easily be a bunch of images that I need and move them around is pretty great. It doesn’t always scale well when I start to get a lot on each topic, so I’m tending to make one for each project.

The secondary challenge I have is making safe space for my computer to show these references when I’m working at messy things like painting and sculpting, while my computer or iPad goes to sleep, having them large and in front of me and yet safe from my messy paws. :-)

I have a variety of references, not just for painting, but also for performance and tackmaking, and some of them overlap.

  • diminutive_design
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    9 days ago

    Documentation is the worst to organize. I put a table in my database for it but I haven’t done much in the way of moving beyond that. I’ll investigate the app you’ve mentioned here.

    Another idea is to put the text into Excel so you can output to a Word mail merge. I use Avery label templates inside Word and stick the outputted labels onto index cards (I don’t use lamination or anything fancy anymore because if I do, I’m sure to want to change it lol). You can output photos through a mail merge if you put the path to the photo into the merge source (Excel), supposedly. I haven’t tried that yet but I would be surprised if it didn’t work.

    • elaineOPMA
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      9 days ago

      For show documentation, most of my documents now are google docs, and I’m printing them. I am keeping them in a looseleaf binder that has sheet protectors, and then grouping by class - so all my dressage documentation is in one plastic sheet protector and I can order them by the classlist for that show.

      That reminds me, I have a laminator now, I can make them more fancy.

      Labels with merge, I really should do that since most of the shows I’m attending are 3x5 card shows. I should have mercy on myself and print them instead of scribbling them.

      But for ordinary and value documentation, like say so my family can figure out what all this stuff is if they need to, lol. Or even so I can remember it. That is completely disorganized and they will be cursing my name unless I get on that.