One of my favourite challenges as an illustrator is giving my older illustrations a face-lift. Christmas is almost two months away – yippy – so I knew it was time to re-create my elves under the mistletoe! What do you think of my re-creation? My favourite part is the girl elf’s curly toed high heels and holly in her hair!
My house is already starting to show signs of Christmas! My husband and I stopped by Home Depot the other day to buy an outdoor grill; we ended up buying a small rosemary tree and some lights as well. PetsMart was right next door, so I just HAD to go inside and buy a festive hat for my dog. (I’ll post a picture of that next time!)
Lately I’ve been noticing a lot of patterns showing up in my Pinterest feed. While most are beautiful, it seems like very few of them are actually functional… Meaning that when repeated horizontally and vertically the pattern doesn’t line up properly.
Today I took on the task of creating my very own pattern. I knew immediately that I wanted to do a cloud pattern. Once I got everything lined up it felt very bare, so I decided to add my bee drawing a heart for a pop! (:
Hope you like my first attempt at pattern making! And yes, it is functional!
Have a beautiful day! ♥
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Today I completed my recreated illustration! In this last blog post I wanted to share my colour techniques.
Every colour journey starts with Adobe Kuler. If you are an illustrator and haven’t heard of Kuler, look it up on Google… You’ll thank me forever! The colours I wanted to concentrate on in this piece were that of the balloons. I searched “rainbow” on Kuler and selected a set that I found pleasing. When imputing these colours into Adobe Illustrator I’ve found that I need to use the RGB codes. Every time I use the CMYK values the colours don’t end up the way they should.
After I finished giving the balloons their colours, I used the Mesh Tool to create a slight Gradient effect that a real balloon has. I also reduced their Transparency (another thing that real balloons have). I did a lot of work with the clouds ~ editing their Brush Stroke, adding different transparencies and sizes, and Arranging some to the front of the document.
You probably notice that I added quite a lot of clouds from the original sketch. One of the biggest ways my technique has evolved over the years is that I now try to express a story in my illustrations. When I first began I just made simple sketches that, while cute, lacked substance.
So, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, here is a Before and After!
What do you think? What is your process for colour picking? Have you ever recreated an illustration? Tell me in a comment!
For all those who followed this series ~ Thank You!!! To purchase an Art Print of the new illustration just click on the Before and After picture!
Have a beautiful day! ♥
As I said in Part 2, I am terrified of empty Adobe Illustrator documents. I made a simple sketch yesterday to serve as a “skeleton” when I recreate my digital art-piece. By placing the sketch on it’s own locked layer, I am able to quickly use the Pen Tool to trace it’s outline.
My initial trace is rough – basic outlines of the entire document. My favourite colour to trace with is hot pink! Instead of having to rearrange all of the paths later, I prefer to plan ahead. I begin tracing the items I want furthest back and move forward. Once the sketch is complete I go back with the White Arrow tool and perfect the various shapes and lines. In this illustration I had to modify the balloon strings quite a bit.
Tomorrow I’ll be sharing my colouring process!
Do you like using the pen tool? What is your process as you trace? What is your favourite colour to use?
Have a beautiful day! ♥
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Every illustration starts with lined paper and a number 2 pencil, preferably a Dixon Ticonderoga. You’ll also notice my fancy Left-Handed Notebook. No, I’m not left-handed, but it was just too cool not to buy!
I find myself terrified of a blank white Adobe Illustrator document. I need a skeleton to guide me as I create digital artwork. Somehow a sheet of notebook paper isn’t frightening… In fact, it’s rejuvenating to grab a pencil, turn off my brain, and just sketch out my happy stick figures.
This sketch took me about 15 minutes while listening to Sixpence None The Richer. Music is EXTREMELY important to me in this stage of the illustration. It helps block out everything except my creativity. I’m a person that gets easily frustrated, so I tend to listen to peppy/uplifting music. I used to make mistakes and just give up, but fun music encourages me to work through creative blocks!
Tomorrow I’ll show you how I use this sketch in Adobe Illustrator.
Tell me about your process! Do you sketch before you create digital art? What paper do you use? What music do you like to listen to as you create?
Have a beautiful day! ♥
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