How to Be Ferocious - Illustration Friday - Ferocious

For this week's 'Illustration Friday' challenge, which is the word "Ferocious," I stuck with the first idea that popped into my head, which was little children acting like ferocious beasts. I started off by doing some digital sketches using the 2B pencil brush in Painter 12. Originally I thought I would do a whole series of sketches, but I ended up just doing two which I then painted using Painter 12's new watercolor brushes (which I really like by the way).

I started out with a sketch of a child wearing a headband with attached animal ears.  A long, cloth belt tied around the waist makes a tail. He/She (at this point the sex hadn't been decided) is trying to scare a kitten. 

I then did another sketch, adding a boy in a similar pose but facing the opposite direction. 

As I began to refine the sketches, the first child turned into a little girl in her pajamas. She is imitating the lion that is depicted on her pajama top. The little boy is trying to frighten a puppy. As I refined him, I gave him pajamas with a dinosaur on the top and put him in slippers that looked like alligator heads. 

After finishing and cleaning up the sketches, I began painting them using Painter 12's new watercolor brushes. For painting the figures I used the Digital Watercolor 'New Simple Water' brush and the 'Coarse Mop Brush.' For the blue background, I used one of my favorites of the new brushes that come with Painter 12 - the Real Watercolor 'Fractal Wash' brush. This brush acts and looks like a real wet wash, and the speed at which it paints is greatly improved over previous versions. It's a great brush for adding a wet looking, fuzzy background.

At this point, I also added in another sketch of the first little girl, showing her sneaking up on the kitten. I liked the idea of showing a sequence, but it wasn't going to work with the image of the little boy and the dog, so I decided to split the illustration into two illustrations.  The boy and the dog now became a separate image.

Illustration Friday - Mesmerizing

I had several ideas for this week's 'Illustration Friday,' which this week is the word "mesmerizing." The idea I ended up using came to me while I was sitting in an auto-shop waiting room, waiting to get my oil changed and my tires rotated. There was a big screen TV in the room that was set to a channel playing old sitcoms. I had brought a book to read, but I had a hard time concentrating on it. The giant TV, which was showing an old episode of 'Bewitched,' was so mesmerizing that I found my eyes constantly drifting away from my book to look at the screen. Since there was no one else in the room, I finally got up and turned the sound down, which helped a little as far as concentrating on my book went.

So, from that experience I came up with the idea of a waiting room filled with children. All of the children in the room, with the exception of one little girl, find the TV to be mesmerizing. The child who is not watching the TV, is mesmerized by her book and would rather read.  This is my first image that I started and finished using the new Painter 12 upgrade (I did take a side trip into Photoshop to add some filters, but more about that in a minute).

Since it's small enough to fit in my pocket, I almost always carry my camera with me.  For this illustration I consulted a reference photo that I took while in the auto-shop waiting room (see photo at right). From there, I made a digital sketch. I knew I wanted to have the little girl and her book off to one side of the image, so I started by arranging the chairs and figures. After the initial sketch, I did another one where I refined the figures and darkened the lines.

Once I was happy with the sketch, I started doing some coloring. On a separate layer, I filled the canvas with a soft yellow color to give the image some overall warmth. Then, using the Digital Watercolor 'New Simple Water' brush, I began to color in the background and shapes. You can see my progress in the images below (Click on any image to see it larger).

As I worked, I created lots of layers so that I would have the flexibility of changing the opacity of different objects and adding special filters to some areas.  When everything was colored, I saved the image as a Photoshop file and then opened the image in Photoshop CS4.  In Photoshop, I used a third-party filter called Mister Retro (made by Permanent Press) to add some speckled texture to the various layers of color. The second to the last image in the progression (see below), shows the image with all of the coloring finished in Painter, prior to adding the filters. The last image in the progression shows a screen shot of the finished image, re-opened in Painter, after the Mister Retro photoshop filters had been applied. In this image, you can see all of the layers I created while working. I reopened the image in Painter in order to add some shadows on the little girl and under the chairs. I created the shadows on their own layer and painted them using Painter's Smart Strokes 'Textured Chalk' brush.

What Mesmerizes You? I.F. Mesmerizing

I had several ideas for this week's 'Illustration Friday,' which this week is the word "mesmerizing." The idea I ended up using came to me while I was sitting in an auto-shop waiting room, waiting to get my oil changed and my tires rotated. There was a big screen TV in the room that was set to a channel playing old sitcoms. I had brought a book to read, but I had a hard time concentrating on it. The giant TV, which was showing an old episode of 'Bewitched,' was so mesmerizing that I found my eyes constantly drifting over to look at it. Since there was no one else in the room, I finally got up and turned the sound down, which helped a little as far as concentrating on my book went.

So, from that experience I came up with the idea of a waiting room filled with children. All of the children in the room, with the exception of one little girl, find the TV to be mesmerizing. The child who is the exception, would rather read her book.  This is my first image that I started and finished using the new Painter 12 upgrade (I did take a side trip into Photoshop to add some filters, but more about that in a minute).

Since it's small enough to fit in my pocket, I almost always carry my camera with me.  For this illustration I consulted a reference photo that I took while in the auto-shop waiting room (see photo at right). From there, I made a digital sketch. I knew I wanted to have the little girl and her book off to one side of the image, so I started by arranging the chairs and figures. After the initial sketch, I did another one where I refined the figures and darkened the lines.

Once I was happy with the sketch, I started doing some coloring. On a separate layer, I filled the canvas with a soft yellow color to give the image some overall warmth. Then, using the Digital Watercolor 'New Simple Water' brush, I began to color in the background and shapes. You can see my progress in the images below (Click on any image to see it larger).

As I worked, I created lots of layers so that I would have the flexibility of changing the opacity of different objects and adding special filters to some areas.  When everything was colored, I saved the image as a Photoshop file and then opened the image in Photoshop CS4.  In Photoshop, I used a third-party filter called Mister Retro (made by Permanent Press) to add some speckled texture to the various layers of color. The second to the last image in the progression (see below), shows the image with all of the coloring finished in Painter, prior to adding the filters. The last image in the progression shows a screen shot of the finished image, re-opened in Painter, after the Mister Retro photoshop filters had been applied. In this image, you can see all of the layers I created while working. I reopened the image in Painter in order to add some shadows on the little girl and under the chairs. I created the shadows on their own layer and painted them using Painter's Smart Strokes 'Textured Chalk' brush.

Illustration Friday - Boundaries

This week's word challenge was 'Boundaries,' and I put off working on it all week. Originally I thought I would do something showing a boundary between light and dark or night and day, but I didn't have a clear enough vision in my head of what it would look like. So, instead I came up with something else entirely. My new idea was inspired by a sweet illustration I saw by Barbara Cooney in the 1949 book, "Read Me Another Story." It shows a little hen standing in the middle of a pen. Her world definitely has boundaries.  In my image, a fence is a boundary that is keeping a little rabbit out of the lettuce patch (You can click on the illustration to see it larger).

I experimented with a technique I don't usually work in - a digital scratchboard technique. My original digital sketch was done in Painter 11. A few days ago I finally succumbed to an email from Corel with details on a special upgrade deal for Painter 12. I bit the bullet and purchased it and it arrived today. I could have finished this image in version 11, but I was anxious to get my feet wet with the upgrade so I finished the image in version 12 (more about it in a future blog).

On the right, you can see my original sketch. You'll notice that originally, I showed much more of the garden. As I worked, I decided to zoom in a bit and bring the viewer closer to the rabbit.

Below is the Barbara Cooney illustration that was my inspiration.

Illustration Friday - Mysterious

This week's "Illustration Friday" challenge is the word 'Mysterious.' I had originally planned to create a digital pen and ink image of a mysterious Victorian-style house under a full moon, but after I started work on it, I realized it was going to take me a while, so I decided to go in another direction. While going through some of my children's books I found an illustration by Alice and Martin Provensen of a young girl holding an egg. Looking at that image led me to think about a young girl holding a mysterious glowing sphere, that has her under a spell.

I created this painting in Corel Painter 11 and worked rather quickly; I think I finished it in under 45 minutes. I first created a digital pencil sketch. Once I was happy with the sketch, I began to add some washes of color. I started with a pale yellowish-brown and then kept adding washes until I got some nice darks in the background. I primarily used the New Simple Water brush and the Coarse Mop Brush to do the watercolors. For the ink lines I wanted to have a line that appeared to be bleeding, so I used a Leaky Pen brush that I modified in the Brush Creator palette.