Illustration Friday - Moon

Pencil sketch, photoshop color.

Carrots

I was trying out some of the brush options in photoshop, inspired by this post over on danidraws.com, which is a terrific illustration blog.



And there's blueberries on the bushes! These are not your grocery store variety. Tiny, tart, and with a whole ton more flavor, the only downside is giving a blood transfusion to the mosquitos swarming when picking them. I made scones with the berries using a recipe in the "Cupcake Cafe" book. The recipe was pretty good, except I left them in the oven a bit too long and they dried out. Of course, it's nothing butter can't fix.

And some links...

*Little Pea - I've always been a big fan of Jen Corace's work, so was thrilled to see a picture book with her illustrations. I didn't think it was possible for a legume to have so many facial expressions, but Little Pea does, and it's a really adorable book.

*Clever cut paper cards on Exclusive Choses

Illustration Friday - Poem

Emily Dickinson.

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Nein...

I really love picture books that use a limited color palette, especially the ones from the 50's-60's. I think that was the inspiration here.



The hollyhocks out by the steps are taller than me! Not like it takes a lot to do that, but it is really fun seeing how high they go.

And I just discovered that new Edith Piaf movie is showing Friday. Anyone seen it - thumbs up or down?

Before & After

Here's a bit of that piece that I started out painting and am finishing up in photoshop. It's getting there.

I worked on that a bit this weekend. I also finished sewing a skirt and went to the Greek festival. I think baklava is my new best friend.

Upbeats and Downbeats

Gangsters, Cake, and Tractor Trailers

Machine Gun Kelly and I have exactly one thing in common; we both share a birthday of July 18.

The day called for coffee out and chocolate lemon cake. I also found paper lanterns for 99 cents that I painted:



My niece was sitting on my lap while I was working on this. She had specific dictates as to what should appear on said lantern: Gnocchi. In case you haven't been initiated into the world of "Curious George" this is one of the lil' guy's friends in the PBS Kid's show. Gnocchi is now surrounded by various other members of the animal kingdom including a goose with a much too long neck and sundry butterflies.

I'm also glad she didn't mention adding trucks. That's her newest interest (due to the sound the brakes make when they go by on the road). Conversely, they're also my least favorite thing to draw. But I might have to beef up on my tractor trailer drawing skills, just in case...

Anyone want a lantern with a big rig painted on it?

Do tell...

There's an interview with me over here posted by the lovely Marta.

Happy Monday!

From Russia With Love

Thursday night my best friend from college called. She's getting married and I'm doing the wedding invitations so we chatted about that for a bit, caught up on all the gossip, and found out about her latest find: lomo cameras.

I'd heard of them before, but never that they made disposable ones. Similarly nifty is this tutorial which shows how to mimic the look of a lomo image with a regular photo in photoshop. Above is me fooling around with a photo I snapped yesterday.



Needlework and typography? Oh yes. This is one of the yard sale vintage pillow cases. They no longer reek of cigarettes and mothballs. Victory!

Light up the Night

I'm not done with this yet, but here's a bit. I've started out in watercolor and am thinking I'll finish the rest of the colors in photoshop.

*Taeeun Yoo - Whimsical and imaginative illustrations. I was looking at "The Little Red Fish" this week and it's just wonderful.

"Hesitating Beauty"

With apologies to Woodie Guthrie for the subject line.

I watched "Bridge to Terabithia" Sunday night. I liked the movie overall. The children playing the leads were good picks, the ending wasn't candy coated, and the imaginary world was portrayed in a really creative fashion. My one bone of contention? The soundtrack was dreadful (but that's just my opinion). Some of the scenes were just begging for a Danny Elfman-esque waltz and instead there seemed to be an overabundance of top 40's sounding ditties. It's a minor quibble, but it detracted in some of the scenes.

And tt's been eons since reading the novel, so I did a little digging to see if there were illustrations that accompanied the novel. There's a few here.

***

Since seeing Susan's link to the amazing Madame Tutli Putli I've been really curious about what else is out there for stop motion animation.

Over at StopMoShorts I found Susie Templeton's work - wow! Here's a link to her version of "Peter & The Wolf".

Illustration Friday - Geeky

Geek Rock!

'Round These Parts

Lunchtime sketching.

So I've managed to cram a lot into the past two days. Starting a new drawing and beginning a skirt were on the to-do list and I got around to those. I also went yard sale-ing and that was interesting. The first was a barn sale out in the sticks (and I do mean THE middle of nowhere), in an old red farm house that looked like it had seen a century or two. We pulled up a half hour before closing and if there's one thing I know with yard sales it's either a) be the first to arrive or b) be the last, because who really wants to cart all those goods back inside. There was a tarp heaped with vintage linens, a quarter a piece and I snagged a few. One actually has my initials, the other pretty close (AVH - but I'll pretend that "v" is just an ultra-decorative em-dash).



File under the category of: "I like cooking, but sure not the dishes":
Cheese, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, red onions, olive oil, salt, and fresh pepper. Easy, quick, and no soap suds were harmed in the process. Well, minimally anyhow.

* Plastic Bag Wallet

*The Pineapple Diary - A delightful illustration blog

*Holocaust Art of the Ghettos and Camps - Very sobering. The site details artwork created by camp inmates and it's moving to see the role artwork played in their lives.

Summer Time

What's summer without a pair of cut-offs?

So this week I: watched fireworks, consumed several gallons of iced coffee, enjoyed a day off drinking yet more of said iced coffee, saw a sousaphone in the back seat of a parked car, enjoyed reading outside, and saw a surf band that featured an accordion in the lineup.

A pretty good week.

Strawberries

A random sketchbook drawing - she's warming up for that "Around the World" trick. I tried that as a kid and almost took out a window.



Check 'em out - fresh strawberries! They had them at the farmstand down the road and they're darn good. Topped off with sour cream and brown sugar, it doesn't get much better than that.

Illustration Friday - Twist

Rapunzel plaiting and twisting her hair.

Watercolor, pencil. I was going to keep going with the color, but can't make up my mind; hmmm...