Digital Garden Gnome

Toucan

2011-12-12T15:32:00.002-05:00

Also from 'Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis et des Rolliers, suivie de celle des Toucans et des Barbus' by François Levaillant and Jacques Barraband.

Bird

2011-12-12T11:44:00.000-05:00

Sketch based on a bird from Biblioddyssey's recent post -- "They come from an 1806 two-volume work called 'Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis et des Rolliers, suivie de celle des Toucans et des Barbus' by François Levaillant and Jacques Barraband".

I did a sketch from the picture, then colored, then merged in a textured background (and messed with overall color). The hot new color for 2012, according to Pantone, is a bright organgey color.

A New Blog

2011-10-27T15:50:00.001-05:00

Apparently it has been six months since I posted here. I have been working quite a bit, but more on process than on completed stuff.

And I started a new blog a week ago. I know, crazy. It is purely about process -- about trying to learn to be a better artist and illustrator. I am blogging it mainly to try to get into the habit of regular posting (and making stuff to post on more regular basis also!).

http://schoolofdoodle.blogspot.com/

Leather Sketchbook

2011-04-27T19:28:00.005-05:00

I haven't been doing much of anything lately -- work is taking up about half my evenings and the other half I just want to watch tv (although I have been working on the monkey rug while I watch tv -- stay tuned because one day I might finish it and post a picture!). I made this sketchbook about three weeks ago.

Super simple construction -- it took longer to cut and fold and punch the signatures than it did to make the cover and bind it since the cover is just a trimmed piece of thick leather. The binding is a longstitch. It's a little uneven because the leather was so stiff and I was sewing through a slit rather than having open slots like in the small leather book I posted about earlier. The cover flap uses a screw post thing (it looks like a two headed screw) like a button. The button hole is still a little stiff so I mostly just unscrew the screwpost, open or close it, and then screw it back on.

Traveler's Guide to East Texas

2011-04-01T09:10:00.003-05:00

This is an accordion-bound small book. The pages are an abstraction of a map, painted in water color on Fabriano Bright 180lb paper. The text is stamped with black ink, and is intentionally a bit off-kilter. The covers are book board and yellow Thai Mulberry paper. This is the piece that I am submitting to the Adams County Art Council annual juried show.

It's a little different from what the ACAC show usually has, and it's actually getting pretty competitive so I am not sure what my chances are. I had originally planned on making a watercolor painting but while I worked on it all I could think of was what a cool book I could make from the image. I already had the boards cut and all the supplies I would need to make it into a book, and I had an idea for the covers, so at the last minute, after the painting was completed, I decided to do the book instead. It was hard to cut the painting -- one mistake and all the work was for nothing, and it's just weird to take a completed painting and chop it in half. But once I did it I knew I had made the right choice because I am happier with the book than I was with the painting.

The cool thing about accordion binding is that you can view the pages as if they are pages, or spread the whole thing out as if it were a single image.

The cover on this book is similar to the one on the blue chicken book -- I carved a design into the bookboard, then covered with a Thai mulberry paper.

Blue Sketchbook

2011-03-20T11:13:00.001-05:00

This is my first multiple signature book that I have made at home rather than in class. I made a few mistakes, but it's a good start. The decorative paper is a very rich, bright blue and the inside signatures are a nice heavy drawing paper. The chicken image was cut into the board cover before I covered it in the paper.

This one was bound using the longstitch method. I cut strips of flexible backing and covered them with the same blue decorative paper as the covers, then glue them to the inside of the cover. Then I added a nice green endpaper to the inside of the covers. If the book were any bigger this wouldn't work because these strips wouldn't be tough enough to support the weight of the signatures inside. I should have made the top strips align with the signatures because I think they might tear, but live and learn!

I did a kind of fake debossing method -- I cut the chicken design then peeled out layers of the bookboard until it was deep enough. After gluing down the paper, I burnished in the design a bit more. I'll use this method again but next time with a thicker paper (can press in harder) and a less busy design on the paper.

Little Books, Round Two!

2011-03-12T20:52:00.002-05:00

I took the next bookbinding class at Pyramid Atlantic. I can't say enough how much I enjoyed the classes, the studio, and the opportunity to just go do something for a change!

I made three books during the two classes:

The first used something called the longstitch binding, which sews the signatures together while wrapping the thread around strips of the cover. It has a soft leather cover (not leather covering board) and is about 2.5 by 4 inches.

The second uses a similar method to bind the signatures to the cover, but in this case the stitching goes over some leather hinges that I sewed onto a hard cover (decorative paper over board). It's about 3.5 by 5 inches in size.

The third one was actually the hardest to make. I was careful when covering the boards to get the paper to align well. This one uses the Coptic stitch method to bind the signatures together and to the cover. It uses two needles at once, and it kind of braids along the spine (poke up through a signature, then go back two signatures and poke through but to one side, then poke up the other needle, and back two and along the other side and so forth). It is very sturdy, allows the book to lay flat when open, and looks nice. My little row of braid is very wobbly and my signatures were uneven, but this was may favorite.

Little Books!

2011-01-31T11:47:00.004-05:00

Recently, I took an introductory bookbinding class. It was offered at this cool studio in the D.C. area (Pyramid Atlantic Art Center) and I just took the plunge and signed up. The drive down is normal rush-hour miserable, but the drive back takes only about an hour and fifteen minutes, so as a whole I didn't think it was too far. I had great fun, and learned some simple bindings. I signed up for the next class -- Intermediate Bookbinding -- where I will learn some multiple signature hard cover binding. I can't wait.

The first example here is a small accordion-bound book. I covered the hard board with decorative paper and then glued in the accordion-folded in pages.

These are Japanese stab-bound notebooks. It's a simple method that can be used to make simple books like these or can be used with much more complex sewing and embellished surfaces for a pretty fancy book.

My favorite was the pamphlet binding. These are little notebooks/sketchbooks that consist of one signature (group of nested pages) sewn through the middle. I made the two with red and robots during the class and the two chicken ones at home (using a chicken I originally used for a block print and a tiny heart stamper). Most of these use a folded cover to make the edges stronger. For the second one I made at home, I didn't fold the cover edges and instead I used a corner-rounder from Janelle's stash of scrapbook tools to make those nice neat corners. This one also has a thicker drawing paper in it rather than just regular printer bond.

Lots of fun!

Scooter

2010-11-08T09:53:00.002-05:00

Just a quick sketch of a scooter, based on a photo of a vintage Vespa. I am working on a small project that I will reveal more of later, but one of the things I need is a picture of a scooter towing a small blimp down the highway.

Chicken

2010-11-03T10:04:00.001-05:00

Just a chicken. I needed to install drivers for an old Wacom tablet and then had to make sure it worked!

Owls

2010-11-01T19:16:00.002-05:00

I didn't realize that it has been nearly 3 months since I have posted until I went to make this post. That's too long. Sorry for that, my loyal readers! I have been working on stuff. Most recently, I have been working on a series of three square drawings of owls as a gift for J. Each is foot square, drawn in ink and then watercolored.

An example of just the ink drawing (this is a cropped scan):

And one that is watercolored (again, the scanner is a little small to catch the whole thing, and I was too lazy to make multiple scans and stitch them, so it isn't a full view of what it looks like):

More Mixer

2010-08-12T08:30:00.002-05:00

I have been playing more with the mixer brusher. Painter is still better, but this is where Photoshop is better -- this image is only 95kb in size. Tiny.

ps -- I know the woman looks like she is a fresh zombie with green skin.

Photoshop Mixer Brush

2010-08-10T20:54:00.004-05:00

I played a bit with the new brush tools in Photoshop CS5 today. The mixer brush tool picks up color from the area you are "painting" in, and sorts of mixes and spreads it about with the color you have your brush set to. It is a pale imitation of the color mixing and brush capabilities of Painter, so I can't imagine myself using this in Photoshop. But if I didn't have Painter, I can see how the careful use of the mixer brush could add a new dimension to coloring in Photoshop. These are two different versions of the same thing -- a painted-over version of a photo. The light one is the original painted version and the dark one is tweaked for color. As always, click on the image to see a bigger one.

Lines

2010-08-03T18:19:00.003-05:00

I drew these a few days ago. I actually drew about two dozen different ones, these are just my favorites. I scanned them this evening and colored them in photoshop. I rearranged in the studio a little this weekend, so that the scanner is now set up, connected, and powered-- so scanning is quick now!

Block Prints

2010-07-28T08:39:00.003-05:00

I've been working on some block prints (linoleum). So far, two different versions of an owl. These will just be in editions of 10. The photo below I staged -- the stuff wasn't really this close together as I was experimenting with some proofs.

Arrival of a Steamboat at Dawson

2010-05-27T15:30:00.003-05:00

Very quick photoshop sketch based on a photo in the University of Washington's collection of Eric Hegg photos from 1897-1901. Part of his series of photos taken during the Klondike gold rush in the late 1890's.

Three things

2010-05-17T10:40:00.002-05:00

1. Owen made a comic book of his own -- Robot and Camel 2: Robot and Camel Meet Stickman. With the exception of the drawing of the robot and camel on the title page, Owen did everything else himself. It's very cool! You'll need to print it to read it, probably, since the pdf file is sideways.

2. The watercolor/ink drawing that I posted about earlier did get selected for the Adams county Art council annual show. Even just a few years ago this didn't mean all that much to me, but each year it gets slightly more selective. This year, there were 257 submissions by 95 artists. Only 50 items were selected for the show (which now takes place as part of the Gettysburg Festival and is hung in the gallery on campus), so I feel like that means something. I am getting it decently framed so it'll look professional. Feel free to come visit between June 18 and 27 and take a look!

3. Only three days left before the Klondike Bertha deadline! Even though there is not actually any chance the project will really hit its goal, all of you who pledged will still get a secret suprise of some sort.

Notebooks

2010-04-21T17:25:00.003-05:00

I am a notebook junkie. I love notebooks and sketchbooks. This is a small selection of what I own -- it doesn't include work notebooks, notebooks in other places in the house, or notebooks on the other shelf. Or really old notebooks. Many of the notebooks are mostly empty, because I htink I like the object more than actually using one. I found a blog today all about notebooks (it's called Notebook Stories). I love it. Makes me want to go buy some new notebooks!

Duck

2010-04-14T20:33:00.001-05:00

I want an iphone or ipod touch just so I can have the Brushes app and can make stuff like this all the time. But meanwhile my copy of Painter on my computer works well for quick little pictures.

Graphic Design

2010-04-14T12:39:00.006-05:00

While I don't have any real interest in being a graphic designer, I do occasional dabble in it. I have two recent attempts at creating a graphic identity of sorts for creative folks that I know.

First, many months ago I started working with my sister for a logo for her studio/gallery/art education space. She had a name she'd been using, but now she was renting a space and planning on moving forward. So with the name "Bird's Nest Studio" and not much else, I started working out some logo ideas for her. I think she was happy with the outcome. I adore her studio.

Here's the logo up close and personal:

Next, I worked on a logo for Janelle to use for a sock pattern she was developing with the intention to enter into a contest and make available via Ravelry. This one was much harder -- there are so many knitters, pattern designers, fiber stores etc. with knitting/yarn-related logos that it was impossible to come up with anything original. in the end, I just embraced unoriginality and went with some balls of yarn. I at least drew them myself. But the final pattern looked good, so I was happy enough with it. What you see below is badly pixelated (this is why I am not a graphic designer -- too much fiddly stuff to make stuff look right for the web) but the version that is used for the pattern is not.

Anybody else need a logo?

Klondike Bertha, or the Tale of a Girl Mining the Great Yukon River

2010-04-12T15:31:00.003-05:00

Ok folks, I am trying something very different. Go take a look.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1134260580/klondike-bertha

Doodle in color

2010-04-05T20:02:00.004-05:00

This is the same as the last thing I posted, only after I colored it. It's almost impossible to tell that it wasn't done digitally when you look at a small version of it, but when blow up you can see it was watercolor and ink. I used 6 colors, mainly because I figured that was enough for balance, and my watercolor palette only has six wells.

Here's a close up of one corner (it's pretty close to actual size):

Big Doodle

2010-04-01T12:42:00.002-05:00

This is a 1.5" by 2" segment of a much larger piece. The full one is about 11" by 17" and consists of many hundreds of small, icon-like objects. I originally planned to leave it black and white, but I have decided to add color. In the meantime, I scanned it so I could use photoshop to explore some color options.

Doodling

2010-03-31T15:50:00.003-05:00

I went to a conference last week, and it must have been pretty good since this is about all the doodles I have to show for my 3 days there.

Moon People

2010-03-01T16:39:00.001-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T08:54:00.003-05:00

This Valentine is for all my readers:

This is a scan of the one I made for J:

Watercolors are fun

2010-02-13T11:45:00.004-05:00

I have been making watercolor versions of some birds I drew last year, as well as some new birds. I really like the vibrance of watercolor, and I am slowly getting better at using it. Once I have laid down teh color, I go back in with a technical pen and some india ink to do the outlines and details. I am not getting much better at scanning -- these are kind of washed out and not as bright and vivid as the real ones. But you get the idea.

A small ostrich, about 5 inches tall:

This one is actually about 16 inches wide, but it's hard to show that here:

This condor is about 12" tall:

Doodles

2010-02-01T15:40:00.000-05:00

Just some doodles. Scanned in, colored in photoshop.

Dancing by the River in the Pale Sunrise

2010-01-26T11:23:00.000-05:00

More monsters

2010-01-20T10:33:00.001-05:00

I added three more monsters to my flickr site. You get to see only one here. This FORCES you to go to my flickr site if you want to see more!

Paper cut

2010-01-18T10:18:00.003-05:00

I have been working on some small monsters. I said I'd contribute a couple of small monster paintings to an event I attend every year, but the acrylic paintings were so lame I couldn't stand it. So I tried doing some in watercolor, and while they were better, they still weren't what I had in mind. So then I tried cut paper, and these I like. I have sketches for 14 monsters, so I am just going to plow through them all. I am not sure how to prepare the few that I am donating. I could mount them on small canvases (the thick-edged kind), and paint the edges. I could go ahead and mat/frame them. I could mount them on masonite or wood. Not sure yet.

Fish

2009-12-15T11:38:00.002-05:00

Just a fish.

Boy

2009-12-11T15:46:00.003-05:00

Not to toot my own horn too much, but I really like how this turned out. It was based on a photo, but not converted or anything -- I drew out the shapes. I am thinking about making another version of this one, but with actual cut-out paper.

Baby Monsters

2009-12-09T11:29:00.003-05:00

One of my lovely commenters mentioned the idea of baby monsters on polo shirts.

http://www.cafepress.com/skbirch

Doodles

2009-12-07T16:50:00.004-05:00

Last week I spent a day at a workshop on converting to an open-source learning management system. Much fun was had by all. I actually do a much better job of paying attention if I can doodle while I listen to people to talk. So two pages of doodles is most of what i have to show for my day.

I have hardly been posting...

2009-12-03T15:29:00.003-05:00

...lately. I spent my spare time in November writing a novel (middle-grade children's adventure story). A bad, horrid, repetitive, poorly written, confusing thing, but it's 50,000 words and I've never accomplished that before. I'll try again in a few months, this time looking a little more at quality than quantity.

Meanwhile, I have some artwork to finish for Christmas presents. I carved a new block for a small chicken print today over my lunch hour (or so), and tonight will do a run of prints. You may recall the original little chicken from a previous post. I'll post the new chickens once I am done.

Car

2009-11-04T09:43:00.000-05:00

This was just a little thing I made in Photoshop by playing around with textured backgrounds and some old car images I scanned from Life magazine ads.

Flock of Chickens

2009-11-02T10:36:00.003-05:00

Two of these are block prints (the block is made out of rubbery stuff, so I can't call it a linoprint or a wood block print) that I subsequently colored with watercolor. I liked how they turned out, so I need to make some other animal. Maybe a pig.

Two more ATC/ACEOs

2009-10-28T14:35:00.002-05:00

Both of these are watercolor. Koalabot looks a little creepy with the rivits and no smile, so I may make a new version of him. Kind of an Australia theme going on here -- anyone want to guess what city the map snippet is from?

Monster ATC/ACEO

2009-10-14T10:11:00.003-05:00

I uploaded a new set of images to my flikr site. A few examples here:

leaves

2009-10-12T10:04:00.003-05:00

Nothing fancy here. I scanned a couple of leaves that I picked up while walking to work (boy 2 is a gleaner and is constantly trying to fill his pockets or the wagon with bits of nature he finds on the ground). I ran a photoshop filter with minimal adjustments.

Small Art

2009-10-01T09:45:00.005-05:00

On Friday I am going to a local Artists' Trading Card Exchange. Basically, you make little pieces of art that are 2.5"x3.5" and then trade with other people. Some people are really really into it -- there are magazines and websites and all sorts of stuff just dedicated to ATCs. You are not supposed to sell ATCs, so somewhere along the line someone else make up the term "Art Card Editions and Originals" to describe 2.5"x3.5" works of art for sale. Anyway, while these are all intended for the trading on Friday, I am going to make some more cards similar to the color blob ones here and put them on my Etsy site. P.S. I finally made a Flickr site. But I posted the first bunch of these before I figured out how to make the pictures smaller. P.S.S. These look better in real life -- I need to get better at scanning and tweaking digital images so that my stuff looks better.

Robot and Camel

2009-09-18T10:28:00.003-05:00

I have been an infrequent poster, but I have been working on stuff. In addition to more birds, some birdhouses, some portraits (taken from my all-time favorite mugshot collection book), a paper robot for Owen, etc., etc., etc., I made my first complete comic book. It took a long time because at first I was trying to make a camel that looked good. But I was over-obsessing about the camel, so I made myself trace over the draft I had -- using pretty much a stick-figure version of a robot and a camel. The idea was to just finish it and move on to the next one. I had digitized it, cleaned it up, and made color version -- but then lost my hard drive so that was that. I stopped working on it for a while. Today I scanned it, cleaned up a few little spots, altered the size so that I could lay it out on a landscape-oriented 8.5"x11" page, laid it out, printed it, then took it to the copier to do a back-to-back copy. Copied it a few times, assembled, folded, and now I am done! All that took less than hour. Then I converted the original-sized scans to pdf to make a pdf version. It's all black-and-white, very simple, but IT's DONE!!!!

Click here to get the pdf of the whole thing.

Wordles

2009-09-03T10:26:00.006-05:00

Word clouds are supposed to help people visualize the content of anything with words. Wordle is a tool that lets you either point to some web location or simply enter text into a box and it will create a word cloud of the content. I love these, but not so much as a content visualization tool, but as explorations of typography, design, and poetry.

My blog here really doesn't make great wordles (it's more about the pcitures, anyway!), but I had fun making these.

Recent Pics

2009-08-12T18:16:00.005-05:00

I cleaned up and reorganized my studio. This included spray-painting an old microfilm cabinet that I bought 4 years ago and am only just now getting into the studio. Now it is full of stuff!

Also, some bird pictures. They are 2.5"x3.5"

Another woman

2009-07-01T09:45:00.003-05:00

Here's another. Any one want to venture a guess as to what historical figure this pic was drawn from?

Photoshop, Shorpy, and Bunny Roosevelt

2009-06-30T12:41:00.004-05:00

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Shorpy.com, I encourage you to take a peek --great daily postings of old photos. Sure, it's nothing you can't get directly from the Library of Congress photo archives, but who wants to slog through all that? I save anything that floats my boat as a reference image.

Today, I used a picture of Bunny Roosevelt from 1920 to draw a picture of a 1920s woman. I drew directly in photoshop, colored, then played with settings. I've been experimenting a lot lately in Photoshop and Illustrator, trying to find a style that I like and is time-efficient, in anticipation ofthe comic book I will one day make.

More birds

2009-06-28T19:48:00.014-05:00

Just some more of the birds. Low resolution versions of some quick scans. Before I use these for anything, I'd need to make them more black and white rather than so gray-scale.

Paper and Pen + Digital

2009-06-15T15:02:00.010-05:00

I love Photoshop and Illustrator, but I don't like drawing in them. Even with my digitizing tablet, I just don't have the same control over input as I do with paper and pencil. I'm not alone in this -- it seems like many (if not most) illustrators who have to work or want to work digitally still rely on paper, pencil, pen, and scanner to get their basic image ready for digital work. But then the really fun part of digital art can begin -- you can try so many different ways of coloring in the image, playing with textures and brushes and various ideas on how to really make the basic image better. You can do the same thing with paints and pencils and markers and such, but it would take a lot longer. Sometimes I use the digital tools only as middle step -- as a way to experiment and come up with the final coloring, etc. -- before making an actual painting. Sometimes I intend to have a digital finished product.

An example from my sketchbook:

1) I scanned a drawing

2) I cropped and sharpened it

3) I tried a varity of color treatments (some of these are unfinisiehd to save time, but you get the idea): translucent brushing, bucket-fill, blending with background texture, and vectoring in simple color blocks.

Sketchbook/Book

2009-06-11T20:07:00.003-05:00

My friend John K and I tried another daily journal concept this past Spring -- find an old hardback book somewhere and draw on the pages using words or concepts as a prompt for an idea of what to draw. He found us a couple of used Agatha Christie mysteries that were a good size and had nice paper, and off we went!

I'm done with mine now. I have to admit it was hard to do -- mostly in my book (Curtain) people sat around talking, so not much in the way of cool ideas. I did work on character, though. These are two examples: Poirot's temporary valet and some other guy who liked to watch birds and turned out to be the murderer.

Just a couple of things

2009-06-06T20:04:00.004-05:00

Ahhrrggg!

2009-05-28T10:29:00.003-05:00

On another note, I started up a new blog. It's just short reviews of all the kids books I read.

http://piratesghostsandorphans.blogspot.com/

Boy One

2009-05-05T22:12:00.006-05:00

I am practicing coloring on Photoshop. I couldn't really get his skin color right. He's super super pale, but was in shadow in the pic I was using.

One is colored in photoshop, the other was then converted to vector in Illustrator and played with.

It's midnight? What am I doing up so late?

Woman Posing

2009-05-04T21:28:00.002-05:00

This comes from a photo (shorpy.com -- way cool). Practicing Photoshop and Illustrator some more, but I am using a graphics tablet which gives me more control.

Castle, part 2

2009-04-28T15:04:00.007-05:00

In the end, I am not happy with any of my castles. So I made a new one. I figured I could call it work if I forced myself to figure out a new trick in Illustrator. I did -- I figured out "join" so that I could make half of something, copy, reflect and then get the two parts to meet up to form an enclosed space (enclosedspace being important for adding color).

Step 1: Find a castle picture for reference. Bring into photoshop. Using the brush tool, trace the parts I like, add some other stuff from my head. Intersting part is that I am only making the left side of the castle. Save. Bring into Illustrator. Convert to vector. Resize as needed. Copy and flip so I can see the whole castle. Fairly symmetrical! Now, add another layer and trace this image, this time in Illustator. Practice using the pen tool for this. Copy shapes and squeeze or stretch as needed -- saves lots of time. Make half of a shape, copy, flip, and join. Makes things look more even. Slowly create all the shapes. I am doing all of this with a red line so I can see it over the image I am tracing.

Step 2: Instead of being empty on the inside, give all the inside a color. I used white to start. Re-order all the parts so that they stack correctly. Change the line color to a black line.

Step 3: Fix a few details, like the missing windows on the right side. Change the line weight so that it is a thicker dark line. Add color. Add another layer for the background -- just a green and blue background.

At this point, it is not done, but this version works as a color/size/detail draft. When actually projected with an overhead up onto a huge canvas dropcloth, I'd use the black and white version. When actually painted the colors here would be the underpainting, and then details -- like the lines between stones would be added.

Set Design

2009-04-28T08:45:00.005-05:00

I don't know anything about set design for plays. Nothing. Zip zilch nada. Yet somehow I found myself enthusiastically volunteering to design and paint the castle backdrop for the version of Sleeping Beauty that my son is performing in later this summer. It's all because I had a drawing of a castle I made last year that I liked. So I felt compelled to say "I can do a castle, I have a castle!". Now in the end, another guy kind of elbowed his way into the project, which is fine -- it's too much for me to do myself in the time frame I have, so in the end, he's getting the canvas sheeting and will project and draw the outlines because he has a space large enough to hang the 12'x16' dropcloth and a projector that will do that, and I am sending the design to him, procuring the paint, and then we'll paint it together at the theater in a few weeks.

So I get home from this meeting, crank up my computer, and realize that my castle image is just not right. Too many colors, and it is taller than it is wide. Perhaps also a bit modern. I might point out that we had absolutely no art or stage direction form the director, so this whole set and props meeting was a bunch of people sitting around saying "hmm, I am just not sure what he'd like to see..." Seemed kind of unprofessional for the director to not be at the meeting. But I digress. So my castle sucks, is the bottom line. But I said I had a castle, so I needed to make a castle. So I spent the next two hours working on my castle in a an attempt to come up with some alternatives that might work. I needed something that has clean-ish lines for projecting and drawing, that would only require a few colors of paints and their mixed tints, and that would shout "Sleeping Beauty" to all in the audience.

This is the original castle, tweaked for size and with a background added:

These are some alternatives I played around with:

Any comments before I ship these off to the director to see what he thinks? I find myself leaning towards the silouette version, although the other one has the child-like feel I was also thinking about. I'm, just not sure so I guess I'll send them all along to the director.

Did I mention that Owen has to perform in Sleeping Beauty 6 times over two weeks? And that he is also in High School Musical 2, so he is performing in that 6 times during the same time span. Please, please, please don't let me turn into one of those theater moms.

Grandmamobile

2009-04-21T12:27:00.004-05:00

If I had to live in a car, one of these old 1960's era two-couches-on-wheels cars would be the way to go.

Scanner!

2009-04-16T11:05:00.003-05:00

I have been grumbling about wanting a scanner for some time, and I finally bought one! It took me just a few minutes to install the drivers, set the thing up, and run a test scan. It took longer for Photoshop to open than it did to set up the scanner.

Unfortunately, the thing has a pretty big footprint, but I figured out that it fits perfectly on the shelf above the computer area. It's not like we'll scan every day or anything, so pulling it down the the desk to do some scans shouldn't be any trouble.

This pleases me. I think I'll be able to post more stuff if I can scan it here rather than having to bring it to work and jockey for access to a scanner.

I pulled something out of a box of older drawings for my test scan.

Help me choose

2009-04-13T14:37:00.009-05:00

Help me choose. I need to pick one of these to submit to the Adams County Art Council annual show. My other submission is the bigger painting I posted earlier today. This collection here consists of all small things, but they are not in scale with each other. The cars are both 6"x12". The skinny abstracts are 2 or 3" by 10", and the landscape is actually 3"x5". The works on paper would be framed, probably in a black frame with a wide white mat. the two cars would be framed in a simple black frame. Try to picture them that way. Oh, and first person to respond gets one of these!

Painting

2009-04-13T13:55:00.002-05:00

I have been doing some work, although you wouldn't know from my output here. I should do more progress-so-far posts. I prefer here's-a-finished-thing posts, though.

Today I figured out how to stich 4 images into one. I scanned this painting, then used Photoshop's nifty merge tool to put them together. Literally two clicks and I went from 4 different smaller images to one big image that looks like I used a huge scanner to scan. The edges weren't perfect, but that was from the original scans, not the merging process. I cropped slightly to resolve it. The painting is 18" by 18".

Another try at the banner

2009-03-13T08:55:00.002-05:00

Any better? No paint this time, but I do feel that the gnome has a certain sense of accomplishment and self-satisfaction, after a long day's work with his brush...

New banner

2009-03-11T14:39:00.001-05:00

I'm playing around with my banner. I liked the new one until I actually posted it, but now I worry that the gnome looks like he is spraying the world with a firehose or, er, something. So feedback please?

Quantity, not quality

2009-03-04T13:38:00.010-05:00

I've been drawing quite a bit lately. I have three sketchbooks going right now. One is a small 5" square hardback sketchbook that I mostly practice brush inking in. One is an old copy of an Agatha Christie novel that I draw a picture on each page (just fronts) based on something in the text for each page. It's a little exercise I am doing with my friend John. His cartoons are better than mine, but I am having fun with it. My third book is a three-ring binder filled with hole-punched copy paper. This is where I have been doing the most work -- I just carry it around and do line drawings every chance I get. This one is about practicing seeing and drawing and about letting go of the idea that I can't draw. If a picture sucks, then so what, I flip the page and start the next one. A couple I have liked, most are crap, but it's getting easier every day. If I had a scanner, I'd post these more regularly, but I have to fight with the undergrads for the computers connected to scanners here at work, and today was the first day I got on one in a week. Maybe I'll do a little scanner research today.

Project

2009-02-15T20:30:00.004-05:00

I have been working on a project for the last week or two, and I have finally finished it. Well, I finished it Friday.

It's a little book! All nicely bound with endpapers and stuff. The poems are E.E.Cummings, and I illustrated them. i went back and forth on about five different ways of doing that (my first plan was all pop-up), but eventually did it all in Illustrator.

Fairy

2009-02-10T11:07:00.002-05:00

Fairies aren't normally high on my list of critters to try to draw, but I am working on something that needs a fairy.

Snow and Trees

2009-02-06T15:38:00.002-05:00

What I was doing at 10:13 am today

2009-02-04T16:08:00.001-05:00

Truck

2009-02-03T15:44:00.003-05:00

vs.

January

2009-02-02T14:49:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year!

2009-01-08T13:44:00.003-05:00

After the flurry of finishing up various arts and crafts for Christmas presents, I haven't been doing much. I cleaned out the studio last week -- I mean really cleaned it up and got rid of a ton of junk and put away a bunch of canvases. J asked me what kind of projects I had planned. I really couldn't describe what I have planned, because aside from a couple of specific things (such as a new painting to go over the bed), what I have planned is more a process or idea than an actual "thing."

I think to sum it up, my main project for this year is to do more, and get better at it. I spend more time thinking about really cool projects than actually doing really cool projects. I got two books for Christmas (thanks sweetie!) that I am going to use to help me with this. One is about writing and one is about comics. I have lots of books about writing and lots of books about comics, but there’s something about these two that I think will really help.

The first is What It Is by Lynda Barry (a supercool cartoonist). I can’t even begin to describe how wonderfully amazing this book is. I first saw it at a friend’s house and I came very close to stealing it. It took a lot of willpower to put it on my Christmas wish list rather than going out and buying it right then. So, it’s a book made entirely from beautifully collaged pages that combine cartoons, drawings, paintings, text, old magazine stuff, snippets of a 1940’s era elementary school teacher’s personal papers, and so forth. Part of it is like an autobiographic psychedelic essay about creativity and part of it is a presentation of the activities and guidance she provides in her writing workshops. So for all its technicolor wackiness, it has some great step-by-step activities that focus on learning to write in a way that evokes strong images (both for the writer and reader). I love it. So I am going to work through each activity.

The second book is Drawing Words and Writing Pictures by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden. It’s a book about making comics, but it’s a textbook based on the courses they teach. So rather than just nice theoretical discussions or specific “how-to” stuff (most books do one or the other), it has fifteen chapters that have information and then specific assignments. Each chapter builds on the prior one, so by the very end of the book, if you have done all the assignments, you’ll have a comic. If I have been successful in my attempt to get through the Lynda Barry book, I should have a story to use as I learn more about turning a story into a good comic.

So that’s the plan. What I haven’t decided yet is whether or not I want to post this process as I work through it. Maybe the comic stuff. Maybe some sketchbook stuff. Like all good wannabe artists, my new year’s resolution isn’t to lose weight; it’s to keep up a daily sketchbook…

Monsters

2009-01-02T20:17:00.002-05:00

J and I made these for my niece. I designed them, J sewed the bodies, I embellished them, J figured out how to make them connect together (using a magnetic snap -- perfect for a 16 month old). It was fun to work on. They are made out of wool felt (except for the eys and mouth, which are regular craft felt) and they are very soft.

Another portrait

2008-12-16T16:51:00.004-05:00

In the interest of full disclosure, most of these portraits are pictures that I base off of photos. In some cases it is a straight trace in photoshop (although they are hand traced rather than auto-traced in any way).

Why grade, when I can draw robots?

2008-12-16T10:33:00.003-05:00

Another

2008-12-03T22:31:00.001-05:00

This will be my second to last robot ornament post. K and K, yes, one of you gets this one. The other gets the next one. It will be random when the time comes to ship.

I found hooks.

More of these critters

2008-11-24T20:31:00.004-05:00

Made two more of these this weekend. They already have a home, but I'll make some more this coming Sunday. One robot will be bequeathed upon the first person to comment with words for "Rudolph the Red Nosed Robot".

Another one

2008-11-21T09:46:00.002-05:00

Just another of these. I need to hook up my graphics tablet to do these --mice kind of suck as drawing tools, at least for me.

Just a picture

2008-11-20T14:35:00.003-05:00

Playing around with a crayon-like brush in Photoshop.

Studio

2008-11-18T23:20:00.005-05:00

Many of you have seen the studio space in my house. I use up about two/thirds of the room, while J. uses the other third. I can't keep it quite neat enough to actually use the space as effectively as I could, but it pleases me to know that I have the materials to just about anything I want.

Some paintings. All but one of these is mine. I keep one of my sister's in plain sight because I like the style and keep thinking how to incorporate the technique into my own.

Painting area. I don't have an easel up right now since I have been mostly working small. There are two barely-begun paintings on the table in the corner.

There's a table under there. Really.

Robot

2008-11-17T20:41:00.002-05:00

Ok, this is just a prototype. The painting on the front is sloppy and incomplete. I have been working on the idea of robot ornaments. These are just little blocks of wood that I sanded the edges on and painted metallic gray. Screws for arms and legs and such. I'll make a better one tommorow, but right now I have to do other stuff.

p.s. although skeletons and robots have NOTHING in common, I was compelled to put this up after seeing a skeleton my sister made (http://birds-nest-studio.blogspot.com/) and posted on her blog. It is the COOLEST skeleton ever.

Alapaca

2008-11-13T10:35:00.003-05:00

I am writing a childrens/middlegrade/young adult novel (not sure which yet -- I guess I'll have to decide -- it'll determine whether or not I leave the words "holy crap" in a scene where a whle explodes). Just for the exercize of accomplishing something. It has an alpaca in it, but I am starting to think the Alapca wil have to fall by the wayside as a prominent character. Alpacas don't swim very well, and the whole book is set at sea.

But I did draw an alpaca in Photoshop!

Sketchbooks, continued

2008-11-11T13:47:00.011-05:00

Steven said in the comments to "post them all!" (in reference to all my sketchbook junk). I don't think I'll do that. I don't have a scanner, although I am seriously considering getting one if I can find one that will fit in the one spot I can imagine fitting it on our crowded desk. I am home today with a drippy gooey pinkeye ear infected 4 year old. I just put him down for a much-needed (by me!) nap. So with the hour or two I have in front of me (when I should be grading or cleaning something), I decided to take pictures from one of my sketchbooks and make a post. The focus isn't great so you'll probably have to click to get a bigger image to read the captions. These are all from my first cartoon-a-day sketchbook that I did from summer 2007 through sometime around Christmas that year. There are a bunch, so be patient while they load.

Sketchbooks

2008-11-07T10:38:00.006-05:00

I have a lot of sketchbooks. Dozens. Mostly only partly filled. I always have these lofty ideas for creating beautiful works of art with them (or even just keeping up with them and filling them), and then the reality of a sketchbook kicks in -- most of the stuff is garbage. But I have a thing for the actual sketchbook itself -- I just love them and keep buying them.

So I was motivated to do this post from two different sources. First, my friend John lamented on the same sketchbooks-full-of-crap problem but decided to post a some stuff anyway. John and I have tried the cartoon-a-day sketchbook format a few times with varying sucess (I'm about 30 cartoons behind on my current one, but I WILL catch up). Anyway, he posted some stuff last week. Or maybe earlier, and then some more recently. Anyway, take a look. The second motivation came from a site I stumbled upon -- a collection of images from Moleskins. I'd link to it, but now the link is dead and I am sad. Lots of these collections out there, and I've seen work like this many times, butthis was areally good collection (basically just flikr sites with "moleskin and art" as tags). But for some reason I started thinking that I could take all my partially filled-in sketchbooks, put them in order, and just finish each one. It'd be a weird mismach of what I working on a year ago, 5 years ago, etc. and right now and into the future.

I'll get to that soon. I am busy this month writing a middle-grade adventure novel about a boy who lives on a huge submarine and takes care of alpacas but gets shot out the garbage tube and lost in the ocean and then found and then must find his way back to his sub but there are baddie-types that want to find his sub also. Hijinks ensue (zoinks! jinkies!).

So for now, three scans from a Moleskin watercolor 3'x5.5' book. It's got 11 pages drawn on, three pages ripped out, and 16 blank pages left.

Obama, Part II

2008-10-31T20:13:00.009-05:00

I had a miserable night. Who knew spray painting was so physically demanding? Holding the spray can and pressing the nozzle down as hard as a could for nearly three hours wreaked havoc on my hand and forearm. My thumb and index finger tips are still numb.

Turns out this is mostly due to bad supplies. I bought spray paint that cost a buck a can. As a result, flow was uneven and small and there wasn't much in each can. Today I went back to the store and got better paint plus a couple of these things you fit over the top of a can so you can have more of a two-finger trigger to spray. Made a huge difference. Plus, the new paint had a much bigger fanned out spray area. Tonight I am mostly complaining about how sore my hamstrings and butt are from leaning over for so long.

Today I got started around 3:30 and wrapped up around 5:30. I had Owen with me, and he helped a little but mostly I wanted to keep him away from the fumes. Turns out that cheap spray paint also seems to smell worse and fly up into the air more. I had hardly any trouble breathing at all with the Krylon!

So, some blue first. I bought new blue since I thought what I had was too dark. Not enough, though, so I ended up finishing with the cheap blue. It looked fine in the end.

So all done with the red and blue, I then re-applied some white so it would look better. And that's that! I did hang a big light in the tree pointing down on the whole thing so you can see it in the dark. I need to mess with that a little more so it shows more, but otherwise I am done!

Summary stats: about 6 hours of time, 7 cans of white (6 cheap, 1 good), 4 cans of blue (2 cheap, 2 good), 7 cans of red (4 cheap, 3 good)

p.s. We did Trick-or-Treating in another neighborhood tonight with friends. I made sure we left a huge bag of candy out for people to take. When we got home, no candy left, but also no eggs or other vandalism! This afternoon probably 8 people honked or waved or yelled positive stuff out their car windows while I was working in it. Excellent!

Obama, Part I

2008-10-30T19:04:00.010-05:00

This morning I went to an Obama rally. I have never been to a political rally before, and I have to admit it was fun. The Governor (Rendell) spoke well and passionately, and by the time it was all done I had decided to follow through on my plans to paint a big Obama sign in my yard. I had planned on the doing the "Hope" poster, but it seemed to hard. It hit me while at the rally (seeing so many posters) that I could just do the Obama logo. When I got back to my desk and was reading my email, I was really suprised and sturck by the coincidence to see email from KM with a link to a news story about a woman in Austin who did exactly what I was thinking about. So I replied (and I replied to all, so quite a few people got this) and said I was going to take the afternoon off, go home, and paint my yard.

I went to the Evil W and bought paint. I was torn. What is a nice green liberal to do? Drive a 45 mile round trip to go to some other big box in the nearest town, or go to the Evil W that's a mile away? I chose nearby, so that I could get to it faster.

When I got home, J was there eating lunch, so we ate together and then we realized the hideous black stuff we'd seen on the door was actually all over the back of my coat, which was hung in the closet. So it took me another hour to clean what we figured out was gobs and gobs of flat-bed trailer grease (it has to do with the Halloween Parade the night before, which is an entirely different story). It was all over the door, on the floor a little, and all over three coats in the coat closet.

So it was 2:30 before I got outside on this beautiful crisp Fall day in Pennsylvania. Beautiful beautiful day. First I had to to rake and pick up sticks.

Then I made a circle maker. It's a t-ball tee with a 12-foot length of twice tied to it. The idea is that I tie the other end to a spray can, then walk the can around at full length of the twice to get a perfect (or near perfect) circle. I moved it and changed the string length to get the arcs for the other part of the design.

Then I filled in all the white. I used all 6 cans of white, and could have used a few more to get better coverage. I may still do that, since I have to go get more paint anyway.

I started filling in the red. I had 4 cans of red and used three just to fill in one of the red areas, so it's back to Evil W for me tommorow.

Next up, when I can get back to this tommorow around 3:30, is to fill in the rest of the red, then do the blue, then decide if I want to do the text for "Obama '08". My hand is sore from spraying. KM told me about a thing you can use to hold down the sprayer in spray cans that is used to mark fields and such. I am not sure where I can get one in town but I am going to look. When I am done, I am going to hang a super-bright shop lamp in the tree and shine it down so it is visible in the dark. Then I'll just hope that I don't get egged.

Half-cards

2008-10-21T10:14:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I was reading a blog by a guy who makes cartoons all using a template the size of a business card. He started out doing them on the backs of actual business cards. I really liked all the stuff he had to say about creativity, and I like his bigger paintings a lot also. He was a little self-congratulatory about the uniqueness of his business card idea. Although I do like the idea of picking a format and sticking with it and using that format as part of one's schtick. I have two boxes of business cards laying around my office. Half of them have my old title. Even the ones that have my current title are kind of useless -- I give out business cards maybe once a year to two people. This box will last forever. So my big idea was...to cut them in half. Oooohhh, I hear all the rumblings of astonishment at my vastly superior creativity.

Diatomatic Nano-critters

2008-10-10T14:27:00.005-05:00

Doodled during a meeting, colored just now. With a couple of coloring options.

Sumo Paint

2008-09-29T20:11:00.005-05:00

I found this nifty little flash-based paint program. It does one thing I find so cool (and I wonder why Photoshop doesn't have a tool like this) -- it has a little symmetry tool that lets you draw one line and it replicates it around so that you end up with a kalaidescopic effect.

Just playing for a few minutes.

Portraits, continued

2008-09-26T15:44:00.002-05:00

I swear I know five guys that look just like this.

Another monster

2008-09-23T19:39:00.002-05:00

A Ratmonster baby, hungry.

Portrait Series

2008-09-23T13:17:00.005-05:00

I have been drawing a bunch of portraits, loosely based on a mug shot photos from a book I found. The end result looks nothing like the photos, both intentionally and unintentionally, but hopefully that means I am not a big ugly copyright violator. the originals are just refernce material. So once I have drawn the portrait, it then gets a caption. I scanned a couple of these today, and worked on coloring on photoshop. Here is one:

Dominic bought his suit at the carnival and does not regret it one bit.

An Owl

2008-09-18T11:50:00.002-05:00

Here is an owl.

Not really a new blog logo

2008-09-15T15:35:00.004-05:00

I wonder if anyone calls blog banners/logos "blogos". I like the word. Blogo, blogo, blogo. Anyway, I was playing with Photoshop and made a new blogo. I am not really going to use it -- I still like my original.

After an unbearably long absense..

2008-09-12T11:07:00.005-05:00

Life goes like this: Vacation in early July. Much fun, but tiring. We get back, and it's all work and no play. And mostly I am grumpy because I am truning 40 and still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Then I got a bike and I rode it some. I was also working on some paintinsg for the ACAC show. I misread the deadline, and missed it, so what a waste of two paintings. Maybe I'll post them here. Then I fall down. Three weeks later I am off crutches and it finally isn't taking all of my energy just to drag myself to work and back home again. So more than two months since my last past here, and that's just the way it is.

All I have today is a color version of a doodle I drew during a meeting yesterday. I have a couple of meetings later today, so maybe that'll generate some more!

Sheep

2008-07-02T14:10:00.003-05:00

I found these mixed in with my notes from a conference I went to in May. I drew a bunch of sheep then and I can only find these two right now.

Goofing around

2008-07-01T20:11:00.002-05:00

Just goofing around.

Another day, another monkey

2008-06-26T13:19:00.001-05:00

This time, Space Monkey is hungry.

Etsy

2008-06-20T14:56:00.004-05:00

I finally decided on an Etsy banner, and it wasn't any of the ones my commenters liked. I decided against the cars, and went with the bird, just a brighter version of it.

And so, my first jump into Etsy! I posted an item, and added an Etsy link to this blog. It's kind of hidden so you'll have to look for it. I'm shy.

Eat Local

2008-06-17T10:08:00.002-05:00

We've been eating a lot of veggies. Not these so much -- not in season yet -- but chard and lettuce is harder to draw...

Studio

2008-06-15T15:44:00.004-05:00

I have been working, I swear. I just never seem to take pictures or scan anything. Here are a few pics to prove I have been painting!

The monkey was just a quick thing I made today to see how long it woudl take to make this kind of little painting. This one took about an hour, but I was trying to do some other stuff at the same time.

So that's all for today!

May

2008-05-06T09:55:00.003-05:00