Day 70: logo design process

 

Here's a montage of my process in figuring out a nice signable logo/sigil. I got married to my husband 3 years ago and hadn't stopped signing my work with my maiden name or plain print initials. It struck me a kind of stupid, since my work isn't well known enough for me to cling to a name I've always found awkward to sign.

So I started doodling. I went through more literal letterforms with accent strokes, realized it felt too fluffy to do that, I wanted something easier, more efficient than what I'd been working with before. I didn't want clunky, forced and stylized, I wanted clean and simple. I played with combining letter forms into a little picture, and the five-stroke owl emerged.



I can even have him "stand" on the date, if I choose. And, it was a simple jump from the pen-stroke owl to a more formal version I can use for vector graphics if I want to sign those.



So, there's my owl.

Days 67, 98, 69: Sketchbook Catchup

 

Untitled (2007)
postcard sunset view, doodled in my sketchbook for fun and played with in Paint Shop Pro.

 

Feet (2007) Pencil sketch

 

Study of my son (2007) Pencil sketch

There, we're all caught up. it's all quickie art, sketch book harvesting, but I wanted to get caught up, even if nobody reads this. Personal commitment and all that.

If you are trying to figure out your style, or where your style is going, draw. Draw what you see. Cartoon it, or draw from life. The first one up there is a cartoon sunset. the feet and the boy are drawn from life, but the boy is still a little stylized, a little not-true, just enough to be real at first glance.

That's my blather for the day.

Day 56: IF: Citrus

 

Limonade (2007) Digital. Mouse-drawn in Illustrator.

Another late-ish entry into Illustration Friday. Intended as a spot illo, to the theme "Citrus."

day 54: Sky

 

Sky (2007) Digital photograph, retouched and manipulated in Photoshop

days 47 and 48: Sketchbook

 

Ink study of baby (2007) ink on sketch paper, no pencils.

 

Girl's face (2007) inked and colored sketch of a girl's face

Two small drawings from my sketchbook.

PSA: weekends I think I'll be posting both days at once, so I can spend time away from the computer.

day 46: studies

(2007) colored pencil on paper.

Two small figure studies of my younger son.

Days 40 and 41: Portrait and Nimbus

 

Portrait (1989) Pencil on paper.

If you were a young woman during the mid-1980's, you may well guess who this young man is. If not, well, the hair is pretty typical of pop musicians of the time. It's one of my best pencil portraits. Still.




Nimbus (2007) Work in progress - current state is a digital painting, incorporating some source photographic elements. Worked in Adobe Photoshop over a scan of the pen and ink study.

An angel, or a djinn, or some other winged, supernatural being.

For the hell of it.

IllustrationFriday: Day 39: Milo?

 

Milo? (2007) Digital. Family snapshot, cropped, re-edged and digitally edited in Photoshop, with added text.

The Illustration Friday theme this week is "Remember." This piece, which I have been working on variations of for a couple of years, is the perfect thing. There were two previous versions (in 2002, I think), but this time I started from the original snapshot and reworked towards the real feel I wanted, which was something evocative of the golden cast of good childhood memories.

There really was a puppy named Milo, but I don't know if this was him. He (and his other dog family members) beloged to my aunt and uncle, who were forever fixing up this enormous old house of theirs. We lived nearby and my uncle was pretty close to his sisters (my mom and aunts), and he was really a great influence to have in my life, since my mom was a single parent at the time. The snapshot was taken in early or mid 1975, I would have been about 4, before I went into kindergarten in the fall. Most of the dogs, my aunt, my cousins and the house, were still around into my teens. My uncle wasn't - he died on my sister's birthday the year after this was taken.

I don't know if he took this picture or if my aunt took it. I don't really care which dog it was. It's a little bit of a lost time, and that's why I keep it.

Day 35: Nikon Eyes

The Girl With the Nikon Eyes (1997?, 2007) Original: pen and ink with later coloring using gouaches on bristol board. Digital version: Scanned, filtered for increased focal impact. Not retouched otherwise.

This may actually be an older work - I didn't date it, it may be as old as 1991 or 1992, in pen and ink form. I know I colored it around 1996 or 7. In any case, I was reading quite a bit of cyberpunk of some stripe or other at the time, and was particularly taken with the idea of camera-implants in place of eyes. I was also fond of anime. Still am.

The original image was okay, but not focused on the subject enough, and I was never able to really make it work, even when I gave in and colored it. The coloring helped, but not enough. The digital editing finally did the trick, though it took several iterations and layering of focalized blur and lighting effects to make it pop the way it's always been supposed to.

Days 33 and 34: tablet sketches

So, I spent the weekend digging around in boxes at Mom's and finally located my stylus. It was cunningly hidden in the bookshelf box for my copy of Adobe Illustrator. I'm so happy to have it back, but it's been so long I may have to relearn using it. A stylus is a thing between mousedrawing and using a pencil on paper, a bit of both and a little disconcerting to get used to. These are what I came up with today that was worth saving:

 

Wry Girl (2007) wacom tablet and Adobe Illustrator, stock brushes.
She's really very Lynda Barry. I didn't figure that out until I was done, but there she is. Maybe I was channeling or something... This is my first sketch with my tablet since getting it unpacked after a year.



Hope (2007) Adobe Illustrator, stock brushes, sketch from photograph with my good old Wacom ArtZII.

This is a quickie, illustration version of the IF subject theme for last week. My photographic version, really the first part of the process, is day 31. I thought I'd go ahead and finish what I started, even if the week is over, so here's what was in my head to begin with.

day 32: Irreconcilable Differences

 

Irreconcilable Differences (2007) Digital, mouse drawn in Adobe Illustrator.

My entry for Illustration Friday this week. The theme is Polar, and I got this strong feeling of "polar opposites" in human relationships and this is the quick result. Two people, so different in personality and views that they cannot even face each other. They are shown with simple lines, and backs turned, color and line expressing their essential difference.

Day 31: Gifts of Fortune

 

Gifts of Fortune (2007) Digital photograph, no manipulation. No flash, black and white.

This was meant to be my Illustration Friday entry for last week, but it took me all week to get just the right image. I wanted to do it using traditional photography techniques, or as close as I might be able to come with a digital camera. The theme last week was Fortune, and my feeling about it was to do with the power of family being a profound demonstration of fortune in my life. My second child took four tries, and I consider him a gift - even though both children are treasures, it was much more difficult to achieve that gift the second time, and I had given up trying when we finally got him.

He's my good fortune.

Also, you will note that this is a day late. I took about 4 dozen images last night and only got it posted today. My apologies, today's will be up shortly.

Day 25: Penny

 

Penny (2007) Digital, Adobe Illustrator.

First - the inspiration is a ferret we live with (it's impossible to own something that habitually escapes). They are very calligraphic creatures, they almost seem to have been designed with brushes in mind. Odd, as their hair would certainly make a good artist's brush.

In any case, as I have spent a good bit of my time doing both pen and brush calligraphy, I have wanted to try and capture that essential mustelid line, which is so liquid, moreso even than Steinlen's cats. This would be my first attempt, consider it a figure study. It's all done with vector lines in Illustrator, mouse guided, as the stylus is still in parts unknown (I ought to just order a replacement).

If I ever get my sumi-e brushes unpacked, I'll try a real brushwork portrait of her. I'd be ashamed if I did not. Pixel pushing is a skill that still feels like cheating to me, no matter how hard it is and no matter that my hand still guides the tools. Maybe it's the "undo" feature that makes it feel that way.

Illustration Friday: Spring

 

Spring (2007) Digital painting, incorporating collage elements from original reference photographs. Photoshop 5, mouse, and digital camera.

I'm leaping into Illustration Friday wholeheartedly, if a little late this week. The theme is green - and I think I captured what I think of when I think of green.

The seedling is a basil seedling in my kitchen garden. I was going for a feeling of deep, bourgeoning greenness and life, as we usually have here in late April or May. I'm thinking I might have got it, though the skies are all early April.

I did all the masking/drawing/painting with my mouse, as my tablet stylus is AWOL (I love moving). I only used a few filters - fresco, high pass, and gaussian blur. All else is done with the basic photo retouching tools, and a couple of brushes. The tree is real, but doesn't look anything like that, the leaves are parsley, made into brushes, and the statice on the ground is the pink-frosted top of my redbud tree, or at least it started that way. The clouds were photographed today -4 photos-, and layered and cloned and smudged around until they were right.