Friday, February 25, 2011

Illustration Friday - "Swarm"

I might be pushing it just a bit, but hey, its BEES, and they SWARM, right? This is close enough. They're swarming at the office. Yeah, that's it.




I'm thinking of resurrecting this style, with an update.
It was so much fun to do.
Not sure why I stopped.




You know how it is - you get an assignment where the client wants to you to tweak things in a certain direction. So you do, and several portfolio samples later you've tweaked yourself into a whole new style.




It happens gradually, so at first you don't notice.




I mean, how did I go from this, to doing tight renderings of food with colored pencils?



I think I'm going to throw all my styles into a big pot, give it a stir, and see what happens.



After all, making art is a lot like cooking, right? You have a recipe (assignment), ingredients (characters, 'things' you have to draw), utensils (pencils, digital brushes, etc.), and then you. Your unique talent is what makes the recipe (art) successful, or not.

So I am off to go putter in the art kitchen to see what I come up with.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Drawing with Painter

The last couple of posts I was trying to PAINT with a DRAWING implement.
Now here I am trying to DRAW with a PAINTing program.

What can I say.

I'm determined to 'go digital' if it kills me (but hoping it doesn't). At least for some of my children's book work. It just makes sense.

I did this drawing, at first thinking I would render it up with watercolors, or maybe colored pencils, or maybe my new BFF art supplies, the water soluble pencils. Then I thought "hey, let's give Painter a try again - its been a while."




So I opened up my original drawing and started to make a digital 'final' drawing over it on a new layer. But it wasn't that easy. I had to find a medium that mimicked my drawing style. Which actually, I couldn't. I tried everything: conte crayons, colored pencils, regular pencils, brushes, ink, watercolor, regular pencil, etc. etc., in different widths and every variation there is. Almost. What I really want is something that can do a thick and thin line, like the plain brush tool in Photoshop can. I love that. But can't seem to find the equivalent in Painter. (If you know of something, please tell me.)

I finally settled on a plain colored pencil. It sort of does thick and thin (which varies according to how much pressure you use when you draw), but also goes lighter and darker which kind of bugs me. But I tried to make it work.






The other thing I haven't figured out yet is an equivalent to Photoshop's "line tool". I would love to pull a straight line for the skate blades, for example. I don't want to do all super perfect straight lines like in Illustrator. I want to keep the 'drawing' feel. But sometimes you do need a straight edge. (I actually almost put a straight edge on my Wacom to keep my hand straight at one point. How silly is that.)

So now I have to decide how to paint this puppy. I think I will keep this one version as just a line drawing. Then I'll do a new one with some digital watercolor. There's another whole can 'o worms, the watercolor options. Oy.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Painting without paint

Still fiddling with these water soluble pencils. This one I did with Faber Castell Aquarelle Sticks, just picking the pigment off with a small brush and some water to make 'paint'.


They work just like the water soluble pencils, but they're much bigger. I sat there with a stick in one hand and a little brush in the other, and with the brush wetted a bit, picked color off the stick and worked it around on the paper, blending a few colors together. It started with a washier layer of yellow, then I worked in some orange and finally two reds.

It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to, but as an experiment, it worked and I learned a few things. Which was the idea.

I did come back in with some Polychromo pencils to deepen the color and get more detail. Then - and this is where it all went wrong- I decided to do more water-pencil/paint over the top of that. Well. That can make a lovely 'goo', that you then have to shmoosh around to try to make look like something other than goo. So in other words, I overworked it, and you know how fun that is to try to fix. I managed, sort of, but thankfully this was just an experiment and not a "real" illustration for an assignment.

This was done on Stonehenge paper. I think that something heartier, like illustration board, would work better with this painting technique. Illustration board is still my all time favorite surface for everything - I just wish you could see through it on a lightbox to transfer drawings!

So anyway, this is 100% colored pencil. And a little water. Kinda cool.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Fiddling with water soluble pencils




I've been wanting to change my technique a bit for my illustration work. You know I mostly use colored pencils, but one issue I have with them is the 'grainy' look, if you don't burnish them (or sit there for way too many hours doing way too many fine layers to make the white of the paper disappear). I still like the soft look of pencils, but wondered if combining them with watercolors would make a better 'look'.

Well, actually, I already KNOW that using watercolors as an under painting would work. What I don't like about using regular watercolors this way is that: 1. I have to squeeze out paint and 2. I have to squeeze out paint.

So then I had the bright idea of trying my water soluble pencils which I had decided I didn't like some time back. What I hadn't liked before was the uneven quality of the wash you get when you 'color' an area with the pencil, then brush water over it. Yuk. I thought maybe if I did a more drybrush technique I could get more control.

* The drybrush technique is where you hold the pencil in one hand, and take a fine brush, dip it in water, roll it over a paper towel to get most of the water off, then pull it across the pencil lead to pick up some pigment - then paint with it that way. No mess! No paint trays, no puddles of water, no ''too much paint" squeezed out. Neat and tidy.
(OK, OK, I know I could use watercolors in a dry brush way too - get pan ones, or just nick a bit of paint from the opening of the tube without actually squeezing any out, etc. etc. But this is about using all pencils, no paint at all.)

First up though, here is a the swatch chart I made to see just how different the pencils are when wetted than they are dry. WOW. Big difference!! These are Faber Castell water soluble pencils, the set of 72.
I made a right mess of a few of them, and the technique is spotty since I've never done this dry brush thing before, but you get the idea.

(click to see it bigger)


I did a few experiments with different techniques. I'm working on some illustrations that have knitting in them (big surprise) and before I get to the finishes I want to nail down how I'm going to paint them. So instead of doing some generic shape like a cube, I decided to do a mitten.

All of these are on Stonehenge paper, which I want to make work because I like the 'see through on a light box' aspect of it.

On this first one I did a rather loose and still somewhat painterly dry brush technique using just one color - the Oriental Blue pencil. Looks pretty much like watercolor. But it didn't buckle the paper.




Next up, I used only pencil. The water soluble pencils, on their own, when used just like a normal pencil (no water) don't do it for me, so I switched to a Peacock Blue Prismacolor.
Here you see the old grainy soft quality, with the white paper peeking through. No burnishing, obviously.

On this one, I did a picky dry brush wash with the Oriental Blue pencil and water, then went over it with the Peacock Blue Prismacolor. I didn't develop it completely, but can see that the layer of paint underneath really cuts out the white paper nicely. And does it with watered pencil, rather than actual watercolor, which is what I wanted to find out.


Then this one is just the Oriental Blue pencil and the dry brush technique, but done in a slower and pickier way.

I'm happy to know that the pencils used with water in this dry brush method can achieve results that either look just like watercolor, or can work as an under layer to regular colored pencil.
I'm looking forward to developing this technique better - these examples are pretty rough, I must say.

The other thought I have about this is that when "100% colored pencil" is a requirement for a piece, like, say, CPSA, I believe they would have to accept water soluble pencils as being 100% colored pencil - right? I find it intriguing that one could conceivably enter a piece that looks like watercolor to a colored pencil show. Just saying. I guess its no different than using solvents or the Icarus Board or something. Still, it feels like cheating somehow.

Discuss, leave comments ~

Friday, February 11, 2011

Illustration Friday - "Sweater"

I've illustrated a fair number of sweaters in my day, but these are some of my favorites - especially the gal in green.

(click to see them a bit bigger)


These were done with Polychromo colored pencils on illustration board. They're the front and back view of the same scene - get it? Actually there's one tragic flaw in it that I didn't realize until it was all done. I know I shouldn't point that out, but in case anyone sees it, I want you to know that I'm aware, thank you very much.

I've been fiddling with some water soluble colored pencils, so will post about that in a few days. I'm in a "trying to figure out THE perfect medium/technique" sort of quest, the best of all worlds, and the water pencils are my newest 'thing'. Actually I've had this set of Faber Castells forever, and had decided I didn't like them for some reason way back whenever, so banished them to the bottom of the colored pencil pile. With the Inktense. And Graphitints. But I fished them out and think now that they might hold some promise. I'll let you know ...



Tuesday, February 08, 2011

miscellany: colored pencils, children's books

The CPSA Explore This!7 entries and winners are now online, here.



And the prospectus for the next International Exhibition is here. The deadline is March 31st! Not sure if I will enter this year, but we'll see.

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I just got myself caught up on what happened at the SCBWI Winter Conference, here, on the Official conference blog.
Fun reading!



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That's all for today. I have to go brave the WIND and get the car smog checked. Life is fun.

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Illustration Friday - "Reverse"

"Looking back" is the same as going in Reverse, right? Well, close enough.

(click to see it a little bigger)

I'm looking in Reverse at some art I did a while back. This was for Highlights. Its also sort of my lame nod to the party atmosphere in the air here in the US today for the Superbowl, which I have absolutely no molecules of enthusiasm for whatsoever. I don't even know who's playing. (Should I not admit that?) I do love the commercials, but will probably watch them all on YouTube tomorrow.

Anyways. This was a Hidden Picture. I can't offhand remember what the hidden objects were, but looking at this I can spot: bowling pin, saw, horseshoe, closed book, rowboat, bone, camera (it has a little strap hanging off of it), and there should be one more, since there are usually 8 things, but can I find it? No. All you Hidden Picture veterans have a good look and tell me if you see anything else, will ya?

This was done in ink and watercolor, and I'm thinking this would be a good piece to practice on to try and do digitally. Maybe with Painter? I'm still determined to get a digital portfolio of children's book pieces together, in a simple style.

But meanwhile, WHAT IS THE 8TH HIDDEN THING?

** Update - I found it! Its a tomato. See the image below for all the 'erased out' objects.
Thanks for playing!

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Chinese New Year

Gung Hay Fat Choy! or Kung Hei Fat Choy! depending on how you want to spell it, English-style. Sorry I don't know the actual Chinese characters to use. Even then, it depends on what dialect you're speaking. I think what I've done is Cantonese, in English.



Its the year of the Rabbit. I know that Carrot Cake is not a traditional Chinese dish, but at least my heart is in the right place. Eat something yummy and think about good fortune and health and all of that, right?

So happy Year of the Rabbit everyone! Let's hope it is a happy year. The last one - not so much.