Wednesday, February 20, 2008

In Your Face

Here's a collection of characters from my sketchbook. Most of these started as a simple shape: an inverted triangle, a rectangle, or an oval. I then filled the outline with a face, experimenting with placement and proportions of the features. Hey, how'd Geraldo get in there?!!

Friday, February 15, 2008

Illustration Friday - Theory

What did happen to the dinosaurs? I like Gary Larson's theory that they were done in by cigarettes. A more popular theory is that they were wiped out by a giant asteroid. I'd like to think ol' T-Rex enjoyed the light show before he went extinct.

This illustration is 100% digital. I used a Wacom tablet with Photoshop. Once again I challenged myself to bring an illustration from concept to completion in short order - this took 3.5 hours.

At first I thought this was funny - but now I find it kind of disturbing. Poor T-Rex; he looks so happy...

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Thanks, Illustration Friday!

Up until a month ago, the visitors to my blog were stalwart and few. But then I participated in the Illustration Friday challenge! Soon I was I getting hits from all over the world, according to Google Analytics. (Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about a website's traffic. Details such as: where visitors come from, how long they stayed on the website and their geographical position.) Here is a screen shot of the traffic to my blog since January 12th.

It's been exciting to see visitors come to my site from across the globe! Thank you to everyone that has left a comment - it's a treat to hear from you. Thanks for your feedback!

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Illustration Friday: Blanket

I remember running around the house, jumping off furniture. I clutched two corners of a blanket (okay, maybe it was a towel) around my neck and pretended a cape billowed dramaticaly behind me. The soundtrack, as I recall, was Gypsys, Tramps and Theives by Cher... or maybe it was The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia byVicki Lawrence. Well, is there a difference?!

That's what sprung to mind when I saw the word for Illustration Friday was "blanket."

Once again I challenged myself to create an illustration relatively quickly (5 hours from concept to final). I chose to work in line because my portfolio is lacking black and white samples - that's crazy because I grew up with a brush (and ink) in hand.

This illustration was actually created with goache, not ink. Goache is opaque but doesn't gum up a brush like ink. The color is added in Photoshop.