Tree and Kite

December 1, 2016December 1, 20163 Comments

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) is having a Postcard Illustration Contest. I created some images for the competition. They are supposed to be kite-themed. Here’s the first one.

A five frame comic book page telling the story of a tree and a kite. A kite is abandoned, stuck in the limbs of a tree. The tree notices it and shakes it loose. Then it picks it up and flies it. This makes the tree happy.

Happy Donut Day!

June 6, 2014Leave a comment

Happy Donut Day!

Boy Leaning on Wall

August 11, 2013August 11, 20132 Comments

Boy Leaning on Wall 500 Just a little sketchy guy drawn in Photoshop to look like marker on grey paper. Digital markers, but real grey paper. I scanned a sheet of grey Canson pastel paper to get this nice texture.

Illustration Friday: Children

June 13, 2013June 15, 20132 Comments

I realized I’ve never posted any realistic portraits of people to this blog. So, I created this just to show I can. It’s a portrait of my daughter Katie. It’s drawn in Photoshop using a photo I took a few weeks ago as reference. This is an actual digital drawing, not a Photoshop filter trick.

It also counts for this week’s Illustration Friday prompt of Children. Well, child, anyway.

Katie

Page 8 and 9

March 23, 2013March 23, 20131 Comment

Like a Sir!

March 21, 2013Leave a comment

So, I made a DeviantArt Fella months ago with Photoshop because I wanted to see how well I could mimic vector art. Well, now that I have Illustrator, I wanted to do one the proper way. So, I made this.

Oh, it also counts for Illustration Friday’s theme, which is eyeglasses.

like a sir

Kiss Me I’m Irish – Version 2

January 22, 20132 Comments

Irish Setter 3

I wasn’t entirely happy with the last one. I like this one better. It’s meant to be the cover on a greeting card. Next up: The interior spread! 🙂

I certainly hope the CS6 version of Illustrator is much better with fonts than the old version I got a hold of. As it is, I’m using Photoshop CS5 for the text, and Illustrator CS2 for the vector graphics. It IS better with vectors than the quasi-vector tool (paths) that Photoshop has, though. So, that’s something. I’m also learning how best to use each for different parts of the image. I may break down and buy the new version of Illustrator, but only if I start doing enough vector work for it to be worthwhile. In the meantime, I’m just using it as a learning experience.

Kiss Me, I’m Irish!

January 16, 2013Leave a comment

Irish Setter 3

So, I’m trying to learn Illustrator. Here’s today’s results. The fonts are Chaz, Ache-Condensed, and Brandywine-Extended. I didn’t make the fonts, but all the rest is mine.

I’m not really that happy with Illustrator. It’s supposed to be the thing to use for vector graphics and text, but I’m only liking the vector tools. The text tools aren’t really working well for me. I ended up saving the image to a PDF and opening it up in Photoshop to do the text. Now, the disappointing text tool performance might just be because it’s an old version of Illustrator. Or it might be because I’m still learning my way around. *shrug* Oh well, it’s good for me to learn it, anyway. 🙂

Photomanipulation: Butterfly on Flowers

October 24, 2012November 18, 20121 Comment

I was playing with Photoshop today and photomanipulated this. It should look like a realistic butterfly perched on a watercolor-ish flower cluster. What do you think?

The butterfly is a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta). I’m not sure what the flower is, but it’s one of those common landscaping flowers you see in planters and beds all over the place. I took this photo at a mini-golf course last summer in Sister Bay, Wisconsin.