There is too much to do, and not enough time to do it. I’ve been trying to get work done on the Really Big Project, but this week has proven to be much too busy. It would figure that now that I have alternative work to do, the editors have finally realized that having a illustrator on staff is a useful resource.
Ton’s of requests for illustrations this week, and more to come.
While I appreciate actually having to do my job, I feel like its left me behind where I should be.
I’ve managed to get a little done today, and I will probably work on the RBP into the night (such is working freelance). However, tomorrow afternoon I leave for a regional conference in Windsor. So that pretty much cancels out the weekend.
On the upside, I really seem to be getting into the swing of things.
I’ve run out of ink for my favourite pen, and I haven’t gotten the chance to run out and get another (especially since the variety I use just so happens to be a rare and unpredictable thing to hunt down) so there’s been no more sketching, but there has been a lot more experimenting with gradients and transparencies in Adobe Illustrator.
I seem to be at a spot where the infamous disadvantages of 3D rendering simply aren’t important anymore. I’m just looking for a way to apply clean and minimal texture to something, without resorting to fiddly Photoshop filters and brushes. I’m very happy with the way this stuff is turning out.
The Birdie got printed in the paper this week, but there was no space for the Fishie. They were both originally in black and white, but I colourized them. I also turned the bird into a robin in celebration of the fact that today, though rainy, actually makes me feel like spring has arrived.
I’ve been putting off mentioning it for fear of scaring it away. But I think it’s safe to say that the warmer months are upon us.
Woah, and the sun just suddenly came out to confirm my suspicions.
Alas, I am stuck inside by the cold glow of my laptop screen.
Back to work I go.
I am currently working very hard on a number of things, Very Big Project included. Today shall be busy as well as I have to work out an ed-comic of some kind (we put out the paper once a week, usually on Monday, but we bumped it back this week to give us a bit of a holiday), and go in to layout the comics page, and help out some editors with the illustrations I have promised them.
In the meantime I have found the following intriguing:
The new Beck video, it’s typographilicious,
Imaginative fairy cards by Tord Boonjte (he of the pretty paper cut-out trend),
The illustrations of Lori Joy Smith,
The beautiful info-graphics (bet you thought that was an oxymoron) of Annie Bisset,
Going to see Sin City this weekend,
And Cameron Diaz, believe it or not.
And also, happy birthday to a certain special worm out there. He will never be pigeonholed again.
I am a chronic avoider of sketching. I have to be pushed into doing it. This is why I am trying to participate in Illustration Friday every week, it gets me working. Not that working out illustrations on the computer is really the problem.
It’s getting a real pen on real paper.
I don’t lack confidence, or inspiration. I just don’t draw.
I occasionally feel guilty when talking to fellow artists who have spent their days, their entire lives, with their nose stuck in a sketchbook. I get a little rusty from not being in constant practice, but for the most part I’m not bad at all.
The way I rationalize it is that I am an observer, rather than a recorder.
I am the type of person who will sit and look at something for a very long time, soak it all in, before I start work on it. I pay attention to the things around me, the colours, the shapes, the light, the surfaces.
I’ve heard that that’s the way the ancient Japanese painters worked. They would contemplate something for a very long time, years even, before picking up an implement. That is how they created such precise, graphic and minimal images. They had studied there surroundings for so long they could condense things down to the most absolutely necessary detail.
I think it also has something to do with my near-sightedness.
Which sounds odd, but I’ve also heard somewhere that being near or far sighted can have an very real effect on the type of art a individual produces.
I believe it, because I am very focused on the foreground, the small details, people and objects. Which makes sense if you think that when I take off my glasses, that’s all I can see.
Working on this Very Big Project means that I have to literally go back to the drawing board.
And the weird thing is… I’m enjoying it. Doodles, storyboards, sketching and re-sketching the same elements over and over again until I’ve perfected them… I don’t mind it at all. And best of all I can actually see improvement in the confidence of my lines and shapes over a few pages.
I may just have to change my tune about this whole drawing thing.
Watching The Incredibles DVD is a great way to ignite some more complex thinking about art, illustration and creativity. Especially when it’s needed personally (what with huge projects looming and all). The way those wacky Pixar people take every small detail into consideration is, well, incredible.
I have just begun to really want to take things like lighting and characterization into consideration, even just in my small illustrations, and to see an entire team of people work on those things on something as huge as an entire movie is kinda breathtaking for someone as creatively inclined as me.
It makes me feel inadequate in the most childlike, wondrous kinda way. Simply watching these people work away at these impossible things so casually and elegantly makes it seem feasible for me to achieve personally.
I love playing around with Photoshop to see what will happen, so I kinda drool when I see that they have their own software department that exists simply to solve problems and build tools for them. If software is needed, they can build it. “You need more fluid 3D rendering? Sure, I’m on that. The ability to light a animated scene as if it were a soundstage? You got it. Long, realistic looking, flowing hair? As of today it’s the computer animation holy grail, but if I can get my guys on it we should have something by tomorrow.”
If only.
It makes me very, very, jealous of people like Mr. Tirade himself. Lucky freakin duck.
I’m officially starting work on a very big project. It’s kind of daunting and all encompassing, I’m not always sure where to start.
I was playing around with the concept of coming up with my own typefaces for though, and drew up this:
It’s sort of a roughly inspired by the work of Hoefler and Frere-Jones (who most Mac users will be familiar with from their beautiful Hoefler typeface). It’s an attempt at a retro, vernacular, titling, sans-serif. I’ve thrown it in some graphic mockups for the project, and I think it looks pretty hot. I just need to figure out how the heck to turn it into a real-live, honest to goodness font. There are very few font editors out there, and all of them cost money. I would love to ownFontlab, as it seems to be the best program out there, and it would work on my Mac – but I think I’m gonna have to settle for Font Creator which does not work on Macs but costs 400 dollars less as it has a free 30 day trial.
I know I’m no Jonathan Hoefler, but I just want the text in my art to be as personal as the art itself, but be a little cleaner and more consistent than my normal scrawl.
Is that really too much to ask? It seems for less than 500 dollars it might be.
Also, I’ve got the cat addicted to smoked turkey. Is that weird? She won’t touch canned salmon, or cheese, or cat snax, or wet cat food… but she tries to eat our sandwiches when they have smoked turkey in them. She’ll occasionally eat ground beef and fresh salmon, but she freaks out for smoked turkey. She’s not your average picky eater, she’s practically human in her choices. I’m gonna use it against her though, and train her to actually come when I call her with little meaty bribes.
I re-worked that last Illustration Friday entry a bit more. I really wasn’t happy with it. It was calling me out.
I went back to the original Illustrator file and tweaked it a whole bunch. I carefully meshed in complex gradients and added a whack of transparency’s to give it an almost photographic look. I’m impressed that I did it all in Illustrator.
Not quite a 3D rendering, but I hate the way those look anyways. They are impressive from a technical standpoint, but they manage to suck the life right out of even inanimate objects not to mention what it does to living things.
I’m very pleased with this now. It is, yet again, a bit of a departure from my normal more cartoony style, and a lot more time intensive due to the huge file sizes and dozens of tiny pieces. So I don’t think it’s something I’ll do often.
It’s just nice to prove I can toss out something realistic looking.
That’s not usually required at the paper, since we print very low resolution on newsprint. A simple vector cartoon is usually what will look the nicest in print.
My little brother went home yesterday. He whined about being bored while he was here but I know he had fun goofing off with Liam, and playing with the cat.
We had a almost entirely pet free home while we were growing up (except for a few carnival prize goldfish that lasted a few weeks, and a unsociable gerbil that we mostly ignored) so any friendly animal is a novelty for us.
However, I have a mounting stack of work to get to.
I love being busy with illustrations to do, but I need to get to it.
I am very happy that penelope is now posting the illustration friday topics on friday, so I can work on them on the weekend. This way, I actually spend my time doing something constructive on the weekends, and I don’t let it interfere with my real work.
This is my “bloom.”
I went with a diffent style this week.
I’ve always had trouble painting flowers realisticly for some reason.
They always come out too fuzzy and soft.
So to replicate paint, I tried out that vector/photoshop combo that’s so popular.
I made the flowers in illustrator, and gave them some pretty gradients. Then I opened up photoshop and texturized it with a filter or two. Then I went in with the paint brush and the blur tool to loosen it up a little.
I am happy that I was able to replicate my painting style digitally, but I still managed to make the darn things fuzzy and soft.
This is why I stick to vector cartoons… Oh well, it’s pretty anyways.
At the moment about a gallon of steak and Guinness stew is simmering on the stove, My little brother is visiting and playing Gamecube footie with Liam, I can hear the sounds of debauchery in the making traveling down the block from the many bars up the street in the downtown, and the cat is hiding in the closet (it’s understandable really).
Living in the core of a university town tonight means something akin to being in New Orleans on Mardi Gras.
Me and (the rather obviously Irish named) boyfriend can’t avoid it, so we’re making the best of it stewing meat, drinking ale, and inviting people over to play EA Soccer. Those who haven’t passed out already, that is.
I will warn you though, if you come to my house, and wear green, you will be shot on site. I will drink beer, but I will not tolerate dressing up like a leprechaun.
I’m early for Illustration Friday this week. Inspiration is coming to me easily today for some reason. The topic is “fragile.”
What’s more fragile than an egg in a falling tea-cup? It’s not as personal as it could be, but I’m happy with it’s simplicity and quirkyness, as well as my hot, comic book style, aerodynamic swooshes.
I cannot wait for the Toronto Comics Art Festival. Check out that guest list. It looks like it’s gonna be mega-cool.
Yes I know that by definition comic-cons aren’t allowed to be cool.
This is barely a comic-con. First of all it is a festival not a convention. Big difference. There’s an inherent rough and ready DIYness to word festival. Second of all, it’s not just Comics, It’s Comics art. This is arty and therefore cool. Check out that guest list. Do you see anyone from Star-Trek on it? No, I didn’t think so (but seriously, check out that guest list, its amazing).
Besides the festivals run by the best Indie comic book store in Toronto, The Beguiling. Indie=cool. Ask Kevin Smith. Oops, wrong example. Maybe Indie=uber-nerd. I don’t know, I’m confused now.
All I know is that I am going to be there, if only to ask Darwyn Cooke if he wanted to die when he saw what they did to Catwoman.
Of course my only disappointment with this whole thing, is the lack of female artists coming, and in fact in the whole Indie comics scene. I know nerdom by definition usually indicates a lack of females, but it would seem to me that independent comics should be swarming with girls, who more naturally gravitate to arts, crafts and personal expression.
My friend Vivian’s little sister created her own website yesterday, and it brings me hope that in future we will have more talented female comic artists. It is also, masterfully cute.
It’s quite amazing really, for a fourteen-year-old using nothing but paint, but beyond the naive artistry young Gillian displays a burgeoning wicked wit. If you were ever a fourteen-year-old girl, you will automatically recognize the emotions, and wish you were detached enough at the time to be as sarcastic.
By the way, apparently they call boyfriends husbands now – a little precocious, but definitely cuter than that whole “friends with benefits” story that’s floating around the media right now.
So far, it’s been a fun weekend of Bowling, and Ikea-ing. Today we’re looking to rest, especially after Liam spent the day taking photos at the OUA Basketball finals (we lost, but to the best team in the country).
I can never walk away from Ikea without purchasing something. It’s deadly. Even when I walk in thinking “there’s nothing I need, and this stuff can be so cheap and flimsy,” I walk out all gaga in love with something.
This time, I bought some little jars for spices, which I actually-really-truly (I mean it) was sorely in need of, and a few other organizational boxes and tins… and I bought this…
which I really can not say I needed at all.
That picture would be of my number one cutest-thing-in-the-world, playing with my brand-new number two cutest-thing-in-the-world.
I’ve had my eye on those glowing rechargeable candela thingies for a while now, but they are very expensive and made of toxic plastic.
That blue glowy guy up there however was Ikea-cheap. He is made of one of the greatest substances on the earth: gummy, squishy silicon-rubber and his glow comes from one of those tiny, long-life LEDs you’ve been hearing so much about.
It’s technically a nightlight for kids (which it would probably work very well as) but I’m gonna use it as environmentally friendly mood lighting. The darn thing charges up from a power adapter, then is removable and lasts 6 hours! You bop it on the head to turn it on and off.
There’s a whole family of them too, with different shapes and colours, but I got the last blue one.
Stupid Ikea. Brings out the materialist in me (not that that’s difficult).
Creepy find of the week: Barbie dolls they made, but should not have.
There’s this one, as if Barbie dolls weren’t emaciated to begin with.
There’s this, which I like to call 45-year-old, fashion-victim-mommy Barbie.
Theres this, which I hope doesn’t need an explanation, but might I say… eww?
This was a bad idea as a movie, and an even worse idea as a doll.
There’s WASP Hamptons-holiday Barbie. Really.
And then there’s this. Horrifying really. I hate to see actual people carry around living creatures like accessories but “Mommy, can my Barbie treat her doggie like a Vuitton bag too!”
Would go well with the Juicy Couture Barbie, if I know my Starbucks clientele, at all.
This is not even counting all the lingerie Barbies.
I know these things are for adult collectors… but it doesn’t make it any less weird.
I do have to say though, at this point the fabulousness ratio of my life to Barbie’s is like 1/1 000 000
This weeks Illustration Friday subject was “ancient.”
It sounded trickier than “jazz,” but a steady trickle of ideas turned it into one of the more satisfying projects I’ve recently undertaken.
I started out with a classic Grecian urn, but got bored of black and terra-cotta, so I turned it into (the equally ancient) Chinese celadon. Then I stuck a bunny on it.
The Liam had work to do yesterday, and I didn’t, so I spent the day crafting. So it’s time for my first official adventures in crafting post.
I walked over to the bead store (since its only a few blocks away) and picked up a few things. They have some amazing stuff there, especially if you’re looking for unique and special things. They had the most beautiful blood-red, fresh-water-pearls, and a lot of huge, chunky, precious-stone beads (in colours of jade and quartz I didn’t even know existed).
I found the pliers and tiger-tail at Wal-Mart. I know, I know, they’re evil and all… but where else am I gonna find cheap pink pliers?. I haven’t seen tiger-tail in large quantities anywhere else, and it was dirt-cheap too. I do try to avoid the Wal-Marting, but hey, at least I’m not a McSuburban who should know and can afford better.
So after way too much deliberating and hemming and hawing over colours and placement, I came up with this:
Pretty, huh? It’s choker length, and is gonna look awesome on. The pink flowers are made of this gorgeous strawberry quartz that has a slight inner gold sparkle to it. The yellow/green beads are some funky kind of jade. The blues and greens are (I believe) just glass, and I used chrome crimping beads to keep them in their place. The very best part is that it is as cheap and pretty as something I’d find at H&M or Le Chateau (a mostly Canadian store that has cute accessories) but it’s made by myself from unique quality pieces instead of sweat shop labour and plastic. I think that more than makes up for the Wal-Mart infraction.
Today has been a non-icky day.
A terribly exciting day, actually. I have my first official client, and my first official project to work on, and I am super-super excited.
It sounds like its going to be a lot of fun to work on too, and give me a lot of good experience in exacly the kind of fields I want experience in.
I think I’m gonna keep it mostly under wraps, the specifics anyway. Just because of the nature of it. It will work out better in the long run if it’s a big suprise for its intended audience. Although I plan on sharing my trials of working with a demanding client for the very first time, and how well forced creativity on a deadline goes.
Bleck.
Icky day. My brand new sewing machine is broken out of the box, and has me desperately wanting this or even better yet this right away. Both suit my need for practicality, and gosh-darn prettiness (the sears model even comes in pink! Pink!).
My ed-comic turned out fairly well, though it will require some explanation if you don’t actually go to my university.
You see, it was our student union election last week, and there was a bit of a kafuffle. Long story short, they still don’t know who the president is for next year, and won’t until the lawyers get done.
Now, the thing is, our current president is about to complete his unprecedented 2nd term in office. He has also spent about 8 consequtive years at the school so far… basically the comic wrote itself.
The illustration in that last post reminded me of an image I made this christmas.
I decided to go the handmade route for my little brother and sisters present, so I made images specifically for them, and turned them into t-shirts. There is that flying, flaming v guitar for my rocker little brother,
and my sisters favourite feathered friend, in my sisters favourite pastel colour scheme.
A bunch of people have been asking about them, so I decided to put them up here so they could see. I used dark fabric iron on transfer paper, and it worked really well, looked just like a proffesional t-shirt (but I’m not sure about how well they washed afterwards, you’d have to ask my siblings).
This illustration is my very first foray into illustration friday. I’m not sure I got it done in time to actually submit it to the site, but I’m just proud I actually got around to participating so I don’t think I care.
This weeks subject was jazz, so I did a bit of an ode to my favourite kind: mid-century be-bop.
In other words the classic trio (think Charlie Brown): piano, bass and drums.
Turns out there is the most beautiful old bead store right in town. I had heard of it, been told of it, even passed by it, but thought that a bead store in this town could never possibly live up to its potential. I was wrong. It has everything anyone could possibly need to bead. It also gave my boyfriend the opportunity to wander around saying to himself:
“Beads!”
“Bees?”
“Beads.”
“Beads!?”
“G.O.B.’s not on board.”
So despite the fact that he had to be surrounded by mountains of sparkly girly stuff, I can assure you he was more than entertained.
I think a crafting party: the bedazzled sequel is in order, with a field trip to the bead store. Make sure to get your permission slips signed!
Turns out my favourite little nerd pop band from Chicago has a new guitarist/slash/weblog (not to mention a much awaited 2nd album coming out in July). Mucho excited am I. Although the blog is just the same old, same old “I’m just a goofy indie kid learning the ways of rock stardom – aren’t fangirls creepy – OMG the lead just split his pants LOL” kinda stuff you’d expect from a hip kid in a big label band with a serious case of irony.
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