This Year's Christmas Card

Just finished my Christmas card picture:

If you scroll through my old posts or look at the color portfolio on my website, you can find the village I decided to blanket in snow for this image. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens and watercolor on Arches 140 lb. hot press paper.

Now to order the cards...

My Last Illustration Friday Sketchbook Project Combo for the Year

This is the last full spread in my Sketchbook Project "Treehouse" book:

The contrasting designs of the two houses is inspired by this week's Illustration Friday topic "vanity."  Sorry, no prizes for figuring out who's meant to be vain in this picture, but if you can come up with a creative reason why it would be the guy in the tree on the left, I'd love to read your explanation in the comments.

One page (half a spread) left to go before this puppy gets mailed to Brooklyn.

Another Treehouse Spread for the Sketchbook Project

Another Illustration Friday - Sketchbook Project Mash-up

Silent:

Playing around with Photoshop

For well over a week, I have been busily working at my lessons in the Adobe Photoshop Classroom in a Book.  Today I decided to take a break from the proscribed lessons and play around with the book cover image I created a couple of weeks ago.  I tweaked colors and added borders and text.  Here is the result:

Please don't fall asleep.  At least it's an improvement over this:

But clearly I need to learn a few more things about graphic design and Adobe's tools for generating it.  I've ordered a few more books on the subject.  I've only used Photoshop so far. InDesign is bound to prove more helpful for layout and text matters.

Illustration Friday: Stripes

Here is "Stripes":

I am almost at the end of my Sketchbook Project book, so soon you should start seeing Illustration Friday images posted here that don't involve a treehouse.  It's been fun to combine the two exercises, but I'm about ready to move on to other themes...

A Man's Treehouse is his Castle

There are only about five spreads left to fill in my Sketchbook Project book.  No rush to finish this year.

I've been doing a little less drawing these days as I spend more time familiarizing myself with my new Adobe Creative Suite 5.5.  I had an old version of the design software (Photoshop, Illustrator, and Pagemaker, purchased in 1999) that I barely touched.  But a lot of brilliant work has been generated in the newer versions lately, and it's made me want to master the medium.  It's going to take a lot of practice.  Starting with Photoshop, I'm orienting myself with Classroom in a Book.  I'm amazed at all the tools available.  I don't imagine I'll come anywhere near to using them all.  To begin with I'll probably just use Photoshop to tweak scanned illustrations. But once there's room in the budget for a tablet with a pressure sensitive stylus, I may see what it's like to generate images like the one above in digital form.

Of course, I will always have inky fingertips.  I love the tactile experience of generating art on the page too much to ever go strictly digital.

What about you?  Do you use digital tools when you create your art?

Illustration Friday: Scary!

Once again I have managed to combine the week's Illustration Friday theme with my Sketchbook Project "treehouse" topic.  Here is "scary":

This is the darkest I've drawn on the sketchbook pages, and I'm pleased to report no problems with bleed through.

IF: Fuel

I'd hoped to get this up a couple of days ago, but - oh, well - things don't always come together as planned.  Here is my Illustration Friday answer to the theme "fuel," drawn in my treehouse-themed Sketchbook Project book:

Click on image to view it large enough to see the maple syrup dripping onto the pancakes. 

Playing with pencil

So I've been attempting to enhance the cover image with colored pencils.  Hm.  I guess I'm done?

Here's the scan I made after I decided to stop fiddling around with it:

Interesting how different the colors look under the influence of the glaring light of the scanner.  I suppose I could tweak it some more with my new Photoshop CS 5 - after learning the software better.  I'll let the picture sit a spell while I take a shot at another mock cover, perhaps this time a retake of a published book.

But first, I'll take a crack at this week's Illustration Friday challenge ("fuel").  Once again I have an idea that will tie it in to my "treehouse" Sketchbook Project.  Look for the picture to appear on this blog sometime this weekend. I have an SCBWI conference to attend tomorrow, so you may not see it until Sunday night.

Cover with inking

I've been inking and tweaking the lines on the cover for the past two evenings.  This is how it now looks:

I'm not quite satisfied.  I know I'm going to need to produce more mock covers for the portfolio, so I'm going to play around some more with this one without worrying about destroying it.  I think I'll see what kinds of effects I can get by adding some colored pencil.  Stay tuned!