all scan settings are not equal

A woodpecker was at the suet feeder outside our front window this morning, so I took a photo and sketched off of the screen on my digital camera then scanned it.  I tried color document, color photo, black and white photo, etc, all the way through. Color document turned out really light, color photo got all the details without the smudges on the paper, and black and white photo was the best, but I didn't want the pure accuracy of the smudges, so I took the color photo scan into photoshop to play with.

Tree Cozy!

I saw this yesterday and thought is was terrific! Check out Carol Hummel's website to see what other things she has done. She started out as a graphic designer, and continued on from there.

There are just no limits to what can be creatively accomplished. It encourages me to think in a place where I have no limits, to sketch first before I start to get things into finished form on my computer screen. It's always such a temptation to jump into the computer stage and try to figure it out as I go along, but the end result is always more creative if I'll take the time to thoroughly explore a concept on paper.

a story

I drew the picture, Teagen made up a story to go along with it. I can't wait to see what happens!

This is what this page says:

Karen and Susan hurried to catch up, the wind pushing them along until all three stood looking out over a rickety wooden suspension bridge hung between their monolith and a narrow rock pillar. A weatherworn sign stood staked in the ground before the bridge reading, “one at a time please.”
Across the bridge, perched atop the grassy top of the rock sat a cottage with a benevolent plume of wood smoke puffing out of its crooked brick chimney. Without waiting to discuss Karen started across.

Ninja Warrior Day

Brochure, Poster, and Ad for Ninja Warrior Day at the Nike campus rock gym.

i like it! pink martini christmas cd design

Mike King of Crash Design in Portland has created a really fun CD cover for Pink Martini. The cover has three layers of a cutout Christmas village over a retro-pink snowflaked sky, and is topped by a plastic cover sheet with more snowflakes and the title. The CD unfolds to reveal more of the snowy Christmas town and it's inhabitants as well as the main attraction, the CD. Inside, a 20 page sadle-stitched booklet contains more illustrations and the same handwritten font to title the lyrics to each of the 14 tracks. It's really fun and inspires a graphic designer to take an imaginative stab to create something new and fresh - it's always worth it.

twas the season

Hey, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, I can still post pictures of pumpkins until next Thursday! The first one is drawn with my trusty Pilot G-2 0.38, and the second with a cheap mechanical pencil. Both drawings were scanned, and then opened and colored in photoshop. (I love playing with the flow and opacity of colors) I googled an image of pumpkins and then sampled it to get a palette of colors to work with - that's always kinda fun.

trees

A few days at the beach and time for a few thoughts to get drawn out.

coriander

A rough pencil drawing scanned and opened in illustrator with disappointing results - too light, too much detail lost. Then opened in photoshop camera raw and adjusted, then reopened in illustrator, live traced and expanded. Next step might be to paint it in either photoshop or illustrator, but not today.

Father Tim, who are you?

I've been re-reading the Mitford series lately and was once again dismayed when I moved from book 3 with it's wonderful illustrations, and was jolted into the stiff and lifeless renderings in book 4. --Am I being a bit harsh? Probably only because I see too much of my own tendencies in the second style to my own. I tend to get too careful when I'm drawing something that "matters" - too precise, too exact, fill in too many details and it just robs the life out of my subject. Look at the glasses (shudder) and although the details are more and less pronounced, the characters are drawn with the same impersonality as the furniture -- -oh yes I have been there before.

The loose gestures in the original drawings share a feel as well as a subject matter. These are characters who have feelings and convey a sense that they are open-ended and need to be further discovered. There is a time and a place for all styles of drawing, but this comparison gives me a fresh reason to loosen up and draw with feeling.

Note: I've always loved the cover illustrations on the books which are the work of Donna Kay Nelson. While trying to find out information about this illustrator I found this website that has information about illustrators and small images of their covers. Jacketflap.com It wasn't helpful as far as finding out about her life, but it was a resource to link me with a history and range of her published work. Linked in said her location was in Illinois, so I'm supposing that she is the same Donna Kae Nelson at this website that is not up and running yet, but does show some great imaginative examples of her work.
-It's unclear who did the illustrations in the first three books, and I'm commenting on style not artist bashing, so have chosen not to include the name of the artist in the 4th book.

the magician's tree - days 1 2 & 3

the snow flake


the ice bear


and the little grey bird with the golden wings


I'm working on making a new version of a family Christmas book I made many years ago. I'm working off of the original illustrations putting it together in Indesign, and using my own handwriting font.

comfort tea

Ahhhh, my morning tea, or at least the evidence of. The original scan, live traced into illustrator, blob brush painted. So many options with live trace to choose from. I'm finding that the "blur" is useful though. Takes out just enough of the roughness that the lines are softer and more joined rather than that fake irregular jagged boxy look.

Scissors

What to draw, let's draw scissors this morning - and just for fun I did different versions of the same scissors. The originals were scanned into Illustrator, live traced, and colored with the trusty blob brush.