Category Archives: people

Illustration Friday: Island

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Island of Tranquility

Just a quick sketch for this week’s Illustration Friday topic: my own personal island of tranquility. Click image to enlarge.

Our household is in a bit of chaos at the moment. I just finished all the craziness for my best friend’s wedding, and now we’re dogsitting for her while undergoing our first major household renovation: a complete bathroom remodel and some carpentry work in our attic. But in our den we can hunker down with all the pets and watch TV and not think about the chaos in the rest of the house. It’s a little sanctuary for us, where we can watch our new 3rd Rock from the Sun DVDs and snuggle up and relax. In fact, that’s what we were doing while I drew this.

(I’ve been slacking and missed the last couple of weeks, but I’ll make up for it soon!)

Illustration Friday: Routine

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The Morning Routine

This week’s Illustration Friday topic is something I’m having trouble relating to lately, because mine is totally shot. I would have spent more time on the drawing but I really needed to get back to this part of my routine: my exercise routine.  No, I’m not trying to kick the TV in… this morning it was my Kathy Smith Kickboxing video, one of my faves. So just a quick scribble for this week, scanned right out of the sketchbook (tho I did take the time for a quick pencil under-drawing before the inks!) Click the image to enlarge it.

I started exercising relatively recently and it still amazes me how much better it makes me feel sometimes. And yet it’s the first thing to drop off my schedule when things get busy…

Illustration Friday: Detach

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Bereft

A slightly surreal image for this week’s Illustration Friday topic. When I thought of the idea it was a bit more lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek, but I only had a couple hours to work on it and this is what came out instead. Click the image to enlarge it.

This drawing and the one before were done on sheets of drafting vellum — an almost-transparent paper with a fairly slick surface, almost plastic-like. It’s very prone to smudging so it forces a light, quick touch. I experimented with it a while ago and it makes for really crisp lines. but I find it difficult to scan; the transparency means the ink lines tend to cast a shadow behind them on the scanner which is hard to remove without obliterating the finer lines. I suppose a film scanner might solve that problem, but it’s easier just to use another medium instead.

Since I was rushing, I made a major error in the ink drawing: The shading on the background had the light coming from the opposite direction as the figure in the foreground. I made some halfhearted attempt to fix it on the paper, and then decided that this was what Photoshop is for. I flipped the figure after scanning it (a bit clumsy with the masking, I’m afraid) and voila! Might have worked better if I hadn’t tried fixing it in ink first. It would have been even better if I hadn’t made the mistake in the first place!

Illustration Friday: Poof!

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Let Me Check My Notes…
Let Me Check My Notes… (click to enlarge)

So many possibilities for this week’s Illustration Friday topic! I decided to go with a post-poof moment this time. I hope the effect comes through ok with only inks, no time for color this week. Or a background!

I think I may be reading too much Girl Genius lately. Last week I lost an evening of productivity when I got book 7, despite the fact that I’d already read it online. I love the humor in the drawings and the writing, but there’s also an intriguing mystery afoot with lots of interesting characters. Phil Foglio has a great loose style that just works, with tons of little extra details hidden in the background. I deliberately avoided too many stylistic swipes in the finished drawing, but the influence is obvious in my thumbnail sketches:

Let Me Check My Notes… thumbnail sketches

Interesting (or not) trivia factoid: these sketches were done in the dentist’s chair while waiting for the NovacaineTM to kick in. The note in the corner was a leftover snippet from a trip earlier this year, and in no way intended to be a slur against taxis in general.

PS: More mad-science-y fun can be had at Narbonic… another clear influence at work here which I will have to re-read when I have a week free sometime…

Illustration Friday: Foggy

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Pause in the Shadows

This week’s Illustration Friday topic is a tricky one for me — I was stumped for something metaphorical, and I haven’t drawn atmospheric effects in a while. Then I remembered this old image which I made a while back for a school project but never really felt happy with. Just add fog: Viola! It’s not perfect, but I think it helped give the picture the depth it was lacking before. Doesn’t do anything for the figures, unfortunately!  Click the image to enlarge it.

The character is from a story rattling around in my head. She’s slipped out in bits and pieces of prose over the years, one of these days she’ll escape entirely…
The drawing itself is from several years ago, when I was still developing my current method of coloring. It’s fascinating to me sometimes to look at how I used to structure my files.  It seems like every few years I change my tactics. I guess it’s partly an evolution of my method, and partly due to the relentless march of software upgrades. (I always seem to switch the way I organize my file archives every few years too… amazing how something that made perfect sense five years ago can seem silly now! )