March 2016: Learning about digital illustration

Ballerinas in the Studio

Version A: The Bandits

There are so many choices to make using photoshop. Sometimes I have trouble deciding which version I like best. What I have to do is let the images "steep" and return to them when I've been apart from them for several days.

Just curious, which version do you like best?

Version B: The Bandits

Bedtime Bear

Changing the lightbulb

Bunny and Chicks

Forsythia Bunny

Frog and Mouse

The Marble Game

The Night Hike

In the Rain

Building my own clip art files. FLORA

 I've created image stamps in photoshop to manipulate in landscapes. Interesting and fun to experiment with forms, shapes and colors.








 


This is a scene from a picture book manscript about a family of Virginia Opossums in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Note the pine from image one has been enlarged and reused here.

 I actually used this background in the image I submitted to the "Draw This" prompt last month for SCBWI's illustration contest.

 

Winter Scene repeating and altering sizes and colors of trees.

 I included a building with this fantasy tree in a night scene.

Playing with forms of plant life in this collage of my own clip art images.

#scbwidrawthis

Flamingos dancing

#scbwidrawthis

Every month SCBWI posts a prompt word for members to draw. This month the word was "DANCE". I love to draw dancers so it was a "must do" for me.











(I've been working on creating a clip art file of landscapes and flora to use in my digital work. Looks like I might have overshadowed the flamingos with the background. What do you think?)

52 Week Illustration Challenge: PRINTING

Week 6 of the 52 Week Illustration Challenge. PRINTING

I was inspired by Gutenberg's discovery of the printing press.
Used photoshop to try to get the feel of a woodblock print.

46 more weeks to go. Hope I make it. I seem to be working right up to the deadlines.

Exploring digital illustration. Discovering as I go...

I used powerpoint to create the background then superimposed the characters that I had colored in photoshop on top.

    

Once again, I used powerpoint to make the background, 

then imported the background into photoshop to 

add the "painting" then added the main characters 

(previously colored in photoshop to the finished background). 

I drew the branches and leaves in photoshop, imported the image into powerpoint to add the gradient background, then imported a jpg of the main characters, previously colored in photoshop to the background. I know there must be an easier way, if you know how, message me!

 

Tea time. (Pretty much the same process as detailed above.)

 Owl at night. The moonlit image was done almost entirely in photoshop. I can't get a handle on layers. When I import one image on top of another, I can't seem to control the size...ugh. So once again, I created the background, this time in photoshop, then imported it, then the foreground into powerpoint, where I could tweak the size of the image.













 I stole a leaf from Owl at night and built an owl nest for image #2. I was able to vary the colors of the leaves in powerpoint. Fun. Can't wait to do more...

Unlikely Friends: Owl and mice the line drawings.

Bedtime with Owl and his toy mouse.

 The theme for the facebook drawing group Doodle Day this month is unlikely friends. 

The first prompt was Owl and mouse. 

I had so much fun drawing owls and mice I have a series now. 

I plan to digitally color them. 

When I finish I'll post them here for you to see.

Owl pushes two mice in a swing.

Owl paints a mouse.

Tree top Tea Party

Mouse and Owl parade.

3 More posts from the "52 Week Illustration Challenge" and a few images from Doodle Day's "Ages and Stages" month.

Three more weeks of the "52 week Illustration challenge".

Prompts were:
Swimmng
   Outdoors
      and
        Theme Park

I'm still working to learn photoshop by trial and error. I wish I could find an inexpensive class. If you know of any, let me know!

Doodle Day's Prompts this month were ages and stages. I struggled with this one. Here are a few  I thought were OK. (Doodle Day is a facebook page that gives daily prompts.)