Illustration Friday - Lonely

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "lonely." The mermaid idea just came to me.  Maybe she's the last of the mermaids and wishes she could join the people on the boat :0) 


With some help from commenters, I realized that I sometimes have a tendency to include too much of the background scene which takes away from the focus of the painting. 


So here is a more tightly cropped version of the painting:

Which do you prefer? 


Also, this is my 100th post! I feel great to have made it to 100, and I am still really enjoying blogging and the community of artists I have "met" through the blog. Thanks for reading! 

Illustration Friday - Carry

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "carry."  I had a bunch of thoughts for this one,  I went with the teacups because stacked teacups always seem beautiful to me. The bird idea came to me as I was painting. 

I did two things with this digital painting that make me uncomfortable, I included a person and went with a more "naive" style than a realistic one. I also played around a bit more with my digital techniques. 

Overall I like the whimsical quality of this one, and I'm glad I went outside of my own boundaries. I just have to remember that I'm not going to get better without practicing drawing people (duh!) and I should get over it not looking "perfect." 

Thanks for visiting, I hope you're having a great week! 

The Other Kind of Painting

My boyfriend and I are moving into a new place soon, and I've been picking out paint colors for the walls. I went to school for and worked as an interior designer so I'm not a stranger to picking paint colors, but it's definitely still a fun process! 

I was inspired to do the above illustration by the prospect of painting the walls. It's been awhile since I did a digital illustration. 


I'm going to try to work mostly digitally for the next couple weeks to try to get in some practice. I'm still working on getting a more natural/less digital look.

I saw this clutch at Kate Spade yesterday and thought it was very cute and worth sharing here :0) 

Illustration Friday - Sight

This weeks Illustration Friday topic is "Sight." After thinking of many different things I somehow ended up on a bit of a tangent with this magnifying glass. 

It helps Louise's eye sight when she reads old love letters. This one is from Carl, confessing his love for her. I had fun coming up with a story and writing the letter. I started out knowing that I wanted the "I love you" to be in the magnified area. 

I'm posting a bit late in the day because I got lost in the painting, forgot to eat lunch till 2pm (normally I barely make it to noon), and spent way way too much time on the stamp part of the painting. 

I typically spend too much time on minute details that aren't very important to the picture over all and I need to work on that. 

But the beauty of digital work is that I can zoom in and give you a close up look at the stamp: 

What do you think? Do you spend too much time on the details like me? 

Illustration Friday - Jump

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "jump." After thinking about it for awhile this image came to mind. I think Goldie wants a nice summer beverage :0)  


I hope you like it! 

May 2012 Calendar Background

Download here:

1680 x 1050

1600 x 1200

1280 x 800

iPhone

iPad

Sorry I didn't get this posted yesterday! I had a hard time getting back into the swing of things after my weekend away. 

I'm so excited for May! It's my birthday month :0) Also Mother's Day is the 13th, I drew a square around it so you wouldn't forget. 

A bunch of talented people also make monthly calendar backgrounds. 

Here are a couple of links: 

Oana Befort

Geninne

Oh Hello Friend

I hope you find one you like!

Illustration Friday - Heights

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "heights." I had a ton of random ideas in my head but didn't feel like most of them really communicated what I think of when I think of heights. 


At the last minute this morning this idea popped into my head of that second before you drop on a roller coaster. I am not a big fan of heights or roller coasters, so I tried to make the drop look extra terrifying (that's a bird flying below haha) to convey how I feel about the subject. 


I started sketching on my Wacom, thinking that I would do a rough sketch and then paint over it but I liked the look of it and kept going with the sketch. I added the paper background (it has schematics on it!) in to give it some more interest/texture. 


I hope you like it :0)

Quick Sketch

I'm trying to get better at sketching (especially using the Wacom tablet to sketch instead of paper) so I did this quick little sketch on there. 

I'm going to Palm Springs tomorrow for a little getaway, and have a bunch of things on my to-do list still! Like packing and finishing my Illustration Friday painting. 

Better get after it! 

Experimenting

I have been playing around with different digital brushes and styles lately. I was trying to get a watercolor- like result, and I think this is pretty close! 


A cupcake like this would definitely make any day a lot more cheerful! I like to think it's a pink lemonade flavored cupcake :0) 


Have a great day! 

Illustration Friday - Puzzled

It's my first digital Illustration Friday! I had a hard time thinking of a concept for "puzzled" until I tried to park my car the other day, and had to decipher three different parking signs before figuring out it was safe to park there overnight. 

This is still a work in progress. I ran out of time and had to throw a background in there, but I think it would look nice to put in something less abstract. What do you think? 

Lemon Head

I finished my first digital piece! It has lemons in it again, hence the title. 

So, I still have a lot of learning/practicing to do, but it came out better than I expected for my first attempt.

For people who aren't familiar with digital illustration, I have a Wacom tablet,  which has a pen and screen that you draw on. I used Photoshop as my program, which allows you to select different brushes, colors, etc and paint away.  

If you want to see an example of how someone does it, you can watch a video of Alice X. Zhang (who I posted about yesterday) speed painting on YouTube here. 

And here's the original sketch just for fun:

Oh and in case you're worried I've given up watercolor (hi mom!) that's not the case, I still love watercolor! However, while I'm super excited about this new medium there might be more digital work on the blog than watercolor, we'll see. 


I hope your week is going swell! 

Inspiration - Alice X. Zhang

I've become more and more interested in digital illustration lately, and have just purchased a Wacom tablet to start doing digital work myself.


There are a ton of really amazing digital artists out there, but right now I think my favorite is Alice X. Zhang.


Her work is very painterly and has a lot of great colors and lighting. 


Here are some of my favorite paintings of hers: 

Source

Source

Source

Source

You can check out more of Alice X. Zhang's work on her website or Deviant Art page.