January 2007 Archives

This is an unpublished sample I did a few years back, while working on "Little Scraggly Hair," written by Lynn Cullen, pub'd by Holiday House, 2003.
This was made at the point where I am trying to figure out what kind of style to use. Every picture book has a different flavor. I am always feeling out different styles in the beginning stages of working on a pic book, so I can best honor the story's personality. I like the dirty pencil line look of this piece, I think it goes well with the text. I especially like the relationship of the woman to the zebra. Unfortunately there is a nasty water stain traveling right through her face and across the top. I photoshopped most of it out....

This is John's old girl, Mel, sketched from his photoblog. Sketching her reminds me of an idea I have had for a long time. I drive around these rolling hills and often see my favorite neighboring animal friends, fenced in here and there. There's a terrific old billy goat down a dirt road I walk. And a gorgeous palomino up the road. I have a soft spot for draft horses. But my real loves, the ones I am dying to draw, are the gnarly ones. The horses with the underbites, the goats and cows with the matted hair, the bony, the unattractive. The ones who's stories are all over their faces. Maybe this sketchbook could be my outlet for that. I guess it's time to carry my camera around with me....

This is the old girl on "Swimmer's Rock" in southern Maine a few years ago.

This is our dear Daisy who has patiently weathered the hurricane kittens. It was a little bit rough in the beginning. The kittens would get too curious and Daisy would snap and charge at them. They finally learned some respect. Now, they rub up against her and play with her tail, run in between her legs, and follow her around. She isn't really as into them as they are into her, but she tolerates them, and then looks up at me with the most amazing eyes. As if to say, "I'll do this for YOU, but it ain't easy..."
Dear dog.
Speaking of dear dogs, my friend John has been helping me with this blog.

I couldn't resist trying to color them. I am sure I like the black and white better, but I am a student of Photoshop and Illustrator, and I am bound and determined to learn these tools.
I am enrolled in a computer illustration class, starting next week. I am so excited to get more info, and find ways to use these programs in my work. I have so much to learn!

My little friends are spread across my drawing table for this pose. What you don't see are all the dirty little paw prints all over everything on top of that table. While they are still not quite a year old, they take up quite a bit of space. I am usually pushing them over this way or that, or just giving up and putting my work in my lap.
They are brother and sister, discovered by a family friend in a dumpster in Connecticut before they found their way to our home. We love our kitties.

Here are the original drawing and the played with drawing. I opened the original this time in Illustrator. I selected it and ordered the "Live Trace" command. It took forever. I really wanted to color it, but it was in a black and white mode(I haven't figured out why), and because everything took forever,(the file is HUGE), I gave up trying to change it to color and ended up with that gray tone. Then I thought, "OOOOO, nice! I'll throw it into photo shop and use white brush strokes on top of the gray! fun!

Then, I opened the drawing in photoshop and added some gray tones....

Using various brushes with different opacities, I can play around with the original drawing.
I am enjoying trying to find ways to keep my digital art "warm." I have often found lots of digitally created art to be very slick and sometimes too cold for my taste. I am not a slick illustrator in any media, so, it is my challenge to find ways to keep my art looking like it is hand done.

So, here's an interesting challenge...
As I am ever learning these digital media, (so far Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator), and I am very new to them also, I am wanting to experiment with them on this blog. Below is a line drawing of my daughter, done at the dinner table tonight. I scanned it into my computer ...

This is the reverse scratchboard drawing I was talking about on the last entry. But I noticed that it has PIXEL problems....ARGHHHHHH!

Well, here we are in 2007.

I spent the day drawing and reading. What a nice day.
Someday soon I will learn how to post a picture. I am working on my ink style on reverse scratch board. Just line, no gray tones. On this certain kind of clay coated paper, I can use ink and scrape it off too. So it has a black on white AND White on black look to it. It's very fun...will post something soon.