Bottles

Potion bottles done in Painter. Simple and quick. The subject matter is inspired by a scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. First I did a pencil sketch on paper and scanned it. Opened the scan in Painter and saved it as a RIFF. With basic paper as my canvas texture I lifted the sketch to a watercolor layer. Then I created an ink layer above that. I started drawing with the real drippy pen brush, but then switched to the crowquil.  It just seemed to work better with the scale and detail of this particular drawing.  For the flat color, I created a layer just above the canvas and painted with wet gouache round brush.

Illustration Friday: Wings

For this week's Illustration Friday challenge, and for our (fingers crossed) next Super Bowl champions, I give you Ravens in Flight.

I drew this with the real drippy pen brush in Painter. I love the real drippy pen!  It feels so natural.  It's much more responsive to pressure and stroke speed than the crowquil or bamboo pen brushes.  Expect to see more real drippy pen images here.

I added two layers of Painter's real watercolor.  I know I said I didn't think I'd use it again because it's painfully slow, but I could not resist.  I am a watercolorist at heart.  The second layer was a killer.  It took my poor little PC ages to process my brushstrokes.  I may have to plan compositions that require only one layer of real watercolor.

My Favorite Things

Inspired by Abigail Halpin, I have decided to follow John Hendrix's advice to find my artistic voice.  Please visit his blog to read his five recommendations.  It will be worth your time.  My post today addresses Hendrix's first recommendation: "Learn to solve problems on your own terms."

As Hendrix points out, "When we make things we enjoy, our work gets better."  I tend to forget about this when I start to solve an illustration problem.  I focus on the specific needs of the assignment and set aside the what I love most about drawing.  This is not usually necessary.  I can infuse my illustration with things I love to draw most.  Hendrix offers up a simple, but helpful exercise: Make a list of 100 things you like drawing and keep the list up in your studio to remind you of what you should be including in your artwork.

Here are some of the things on my list:

gnarly trees
children climbing
town houses
castles
Victorian houses
skinny cats making mischief
apples
steaming coffee mugs
teapots
anthropomorphized rats
tiny mice
old stone churches
stacks of hardback books
ink bottles
fire hydrants

You can see a lot of these things in the older posts on this blog,

... and you can expect to see even more in future posts.

Illustration Friday: Myth

For Illustration Friday: Myth: 

Self portrait as a drawing demon.

Executed in Painter 12 using the crowquil pen and various acrylic brushes.

Illustration Friday: Ocean

This week's Illustration Friday offering and my first stab at using the real watercolor brushes in Painter.  I like the realistic look, but the strokes take so long to load that I can't see myself using the feature regularly.  Next, I'll be exploring other means of adding color to my digital ink drawings.  I will definitely be making more use of Painter's crowquil pen brush.  It's heavenly!

Illustration Friday: New

Here's to the hope that newness brings! 

2012 brought me new software--Painter 12--and I am having a blast with it. Best new toy ever!

More play with Painter brushes today for this week's Illustration Friday prompt: "New." 

I know I need to spend gobs more time learning this stuff in 2013, but I am excited--not daunted--by the prospect.

More Play with Corel Painter 12

I've been going through the book Digital Painting for the Complete Beginner by Carlyn Beccia, and playing along with the software (both Painter and Photoshop) as I read. Today I learned how to clean up an old scan and tint the pencil lines.  I tinted the drawing in this post in Painter 12.  I used Photoshop CS 5.5 to tint the blog banner. Simple, but different processes for each.  (I won't go into them here.  If you are using both of these kinds of software and are eager to learn lots of tips and tricks for illustration, I strongly suggest getting a copy of Beccia's book.)

Then I went a little crazy playing with the brushes and paper textures in Painter.  Apparently it's possible to get just as messy in a virtual studio as a real one.  Who knew?

I did not bother to save most of my sloppy efforts today, but here's one I don't mind sharing:  

I colored this version with a diffuse grainy camelhair watercolor brush on handmade watercolor paper. The base drawing comes from an old sketchbook.  A very old sketchbook.  The model died about twenty years ago.

Illustration Friday: Glow

Futzing around with Corel Painter 12 for the first time.  This glowing lamp post in the woods (a la Narnia) I did with the soft pencil tool that was set for use when I opened the software:

I know I can do a lot more with the software, but today I am merely getting acquainted with the interface.  I love the realistic feel.  Very gratifying for an artist who had always assumed she would only be happy working with traditional media.  I look forward to playing around with the different surface textures and patterns.

Today I inadvertantly learned an important difference between Photoshop and Painter: When you're saving a Painter file in a different format, in my case a riff to a jpeg, you have to generate a different base name for the file or the save won't take.  In Photoshop, it's enough that your file name has a different extension.  You can have a sketch.psd and a sketch.jpg generated on the same PC by the same copy of Photoshop.  Painter says, "Get you sh*t organized or I ain't playin'!"

My Tomie de Paola Illustration Award Contest Entry

You may have noticed that my last post, yesterday's Illustration Friday, was a Christmas card image from 2011.  I drew and painted that just before Thanksgiving, over a year ago.  So I did not create a fresh "snow" picture.  I decided to slack off and post an old one.  

I have excuses. It's been a hectic week at the day job what with all the year-end donations to process and the  preparations for our annual holiday party.  I've put in a fair number of extra hours the past few weeks.  My daughter returned from college yesterday.  And on the weekends, I've been working on this:

This is my submission to the SCBWI's annual Tomie de Paola Illustration Award contest.  It's a scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, rendered in Photoshop using the scratchart method I've been trying to perfect recently.  The challenge was to illustrate a scene of your choosing from Tom Sawyer, Little Women, or The Yearling in black and white.  Since one of my goals is to illustrate middle grade novels, I thought I'd better enter the contest this year--you know--put myself out there.

If you'd like to see some of the other entries, take a look at the blog the SCBWI-Houston Illustrator Coordinator, Diandra Mae, set up: scbwicontest.blogspot.com.

Illustration Friday: Snow

For this week's Illustration Friday post --- it's last year's snowy Christmas card!

Illustration Friday: Stretch

Reaching for that book on the very top shelf . . .

This is a re-posting of a pic I drew in 2011 for the portfolio.  I don't expect to generate any new Illustration Friday pieces until the submission deadline for the Tomie dePaola illustration contest has passed.  

Yes, you read me right.  I am daring to enter this year.  I figure the challenge to do a black and white illustration for a classic middle grade novel is right up my street.