My art computer broke…again and is in the shop. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. In the meantime I am working on a portrait for a woman at work. I promised it to her awhile ago and since I don’t have my computer, I guess it’s time to work on it. I’ve been out of practice because I just don’t do them that often anymore. I’ve been working mainly on illustrations and writing. It feels good to be able to just sit down and draw a portrait. (Or in this case four portraits.)
Archive for the ‘Art’ Category
postcard update
Posted by admin - Thursday, February 18th, 2010
I’ve been waiting for my postcards to come in. Seems the company was waiting to send them all at once. I received ALL of them yesterday in one package. I was quite excited to get them, they look wonderful and I am always so proud to look at something so nicely printed that I painted. Going to look at ordering book markers from another company since Vista doesn’t print them. Shame really since they are pretty inexpensive.
I’ve been waiting for my postcards to come in. Seems the company was waiting to send them all at once. I received ALL of them yesterday in one package. I was quite excited to get them, they look wonderful and I am always so proud to look at something so nicely printed that I painted. Going to look at ordering book markers from another company since Vista doesn’t print them. Shame really since they are pretty inexpensive.
Postcards Away!
Posted by admin - Sunday, February 14th, 2010
It is so good to finally be able to send out postcards. To me, it says, I am currently trying to fulfill my dream to illustrate children’s books. My plan is to bombard the publishing market with beautiful samples of my work once a week for about a month. I’ve taken 5 illustrations, and ordered 100 of each. I just sent the first set last week on Wednesday. Although I didn’t have 100 people to send to, only about 50. So the rest I’ll use as sample illustration postcards for the SCBWI conventions. That way I’ll be ready.
If anyone needs a good, cheap, printing place. Vista print is fabulous. The colors are excellent and they send out emails for 100 free postcards at least 5 times a week, so you can always get 100 made for free. Of course they charge you 5 bucks for uploading your own design, and 6 bucks to send it to you, but heck, that’s still pretty good for 100 postcards. One word of caution though. Size your pic to about 3 times what the postcard size is at 300 resolution. It will turn out great every time. And don’t mistake the dotted lines as margin lines. They are the cut lines. Found that out early on when they cut part of my website address off at the bottom. They reprinted them for me and sent them back out for $2.50. All in all, it was a good experience.
I can’t wait until the summer SCBWI conference in LA. I intend to place in the portfolio contest.
It is so good to finally be able to send out postcards. To me, it says, I am currently trying to fulfill my dream to illustrate children’s books. My plan is to bombard the publishing market with beautiful samples of my work once a week for about a month. I’ve taken 5 illustrations, and ordered 100 of each. I just sent the first set last week on Wednesday. Although I didn’t have 100 people to send to, only about 50. So the rest I’ll use as sample illustration postcards for the SCBWI conventions. That way I’ll be ready.
If anyone needs a good, cheap, printing place. Vista print is fabulous. The colors are excellent and they send out emails for 100 free postcards at least 5 times a week, so you can always get 100 made for free. Of course they charge you 5 bucks for uploading your own design, and 6 bucks to send it to you, but heck, that’s still pretty good for 100 postcards. One word of caution though. Size your pic to about 3 times what the postcard size is at 300 resolution. It will turn out great every time. And don’t mistake the dotted lines as margin lines. They are the cut lines. Found that out early on when they cut part of my website address off at the bottom. They reprinted them for me and sent them back out for $2.50. All in all, it was a good experience.
I can’t wait until the summer SCBWI conference in LA. I intend to place in the portfolio contest.
Portrait Tutorial – Featuring Billie Piper
Posted by admin - Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Since my other portrait tutorial keeps popping up in search engines, I decided to add my other tutorial. A full body portrait of Billie Piper. The original photo was a professional shot I found while searching, not sure who the photographer was, but I recreated it in an artistic fashion following these steps. Let me know if you like it. If you try something similar at home, I’d very much like to see it. You need to buy the wonderful software called Artrage 2.5 to accomplish the same things, but it is one of the cheapest software out there. (In cheap I mean 25-35 bucks cheap.)
So, without further ado, here is the tutorial. Sorry it’s so long, but it is full of wonderful details. Click on each thumbnail in order to see the details, it might take you to a page where you have to click on it again to see the full image. Don’t know why it’s doing that, but it is.
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Since my other portrait tutorial keeps popping up in search engines, I decided to add my other tutorial. A full body portrait of Billie Piper. The original photo was a professional shot I found while searching, not sure who the photographer was, but I recreated it in an artistic fashion following these steps. Let me know if you like it. If you try something similar at home, I’d very much like to see it. You need to buy the wonderful software called Artrage 2.5 to accomplish the same things, but it is one of the cheapest software out there. (In cheap I mean 25-35 bucks cheap.)
So, without further ado, here is the tutorial. Sorry it’s so long, but it is full of wonderful details. Click on each thumbnail in order to see the details, it might take you to a page where you have to click on it again to see the full image. Don’t know why it’s doing that, but it is.
Work in progress – Fairy tale style “Peeking in on the beast”
Posted by admin - Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
This was a challenge I gave myself. Someone wanted to see if I could do fairy tale style for a book. I decided to give it a go. It’s different from my normal style, but I was going to give it a go.
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This was a challenge I gave myself. Someone wanted to see if I could do fairy tale style for a book. I decided to give it a go. It’s different from my normal style, but I was going to give it a go.
Little Girl Tutorial
Posted by admin - Thursday, October 15th, 2009
Here is a tutorial that I did in Artrage, my favorite art program. For this you need a good reference photo, a tablet of some type, (I like my cintiq) but any tablet works, and an art program. You can only do some of these in Artrage, but you can modify if working in another program.
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Here is a tutorial that I did in Artrage, my favorite art program. For this you need a good reference photo, a tablet of some type, (I like my cintiq) but any tablet works, and an art program. You can only do some of these in Artrage, but you can modify if working in another program.
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Billie Piper, AKA Rose Tyler
Posted by admin - Sunday, March 8th, 2009
I painted this in Artrage as well. Another Tribute to Doctor Who, although it was a better sweet ending for them. I don’t want to spoil it for those that haven’t seen the episode yet, but it is worth watching.
I painted this in Artrage as well. Another Tribute to Doctor Who, although it was a better sweet ending for them. I don’t want to spoil it for those that haven’t seen the episode yet, but it is worth watching.
Doctor Who
Posted by admin - Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
This is my tribute to David Tennant, before he passes on the Doctor Who title to someone else. He will always be my favorite Doctor. Art was painted in ArtRage. Click on the picture for a larger version.
This is my tribute to David Tennant, before he passes on the Doctor Who title to someone else. He will always be my favorite Doctor. Art was painted in ArtRage. Click on the picture for a larger version.
Hey all, one I’ve been working on.
Posted by admin - Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
This is one of the pictures I’ve created with Artrage. Hope you like, it was fun to do.
This is one of the pictures I’ve created with Artrage. Hope you like, it was fun to do.
Little Beggar
Posted by admin - Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
I painted this little birdie in Artrage. Since my tablet is still broken, I was forced to use my track pad. Boy, I sure miss my tablet. I was able to do this just barely with index finger and thumb and my finger was all cramped afterward. I have a replacement tablet and pen coming today, so I look forward to being able to use it again.
I painted this little birdie in Artrage. Since my tablet is still broken, I was forced to use my track pad. Boy, I sure miss my tablet. I was able to do this just barely with index finger and thumb and my finger was all cramped afterward. I have a replacement tablet and pen coming today, so I look forward to being able to use it again.