More digital experimenting

I've been experimenting with digital painting without outlines. It's a lot like painting, wonderful to see the shapes of things and how they relate to one another. The corrections were easy to make and I had a lot of corrections!

This is the original from my sketchbook. The technique was a deviation from my usual habit of starting with a tight line drawing. Digital painting was way more fun!

Update on "...and the dish ran away with the spoon"

Last year I posted some preliminary work on this piece and happily moved on to other projects. When I got a chance to work on it again, the cd file was missing from my studio! Gremlins?!... or did I clean up the studio so well that I trashed it? Yes, .... trashed it from the computer. Oh well, it was a chance to look at it again, and make better decisions on the color.

Here it is, still in progress, but mostly worked out. It has been fun to have the time to work on the color.

And here are the preliminary color sketches.

In Progress Completion

This piece was originally posted in December 2011. I finally got around to finish it and am posting a little progression of the artwork.

Here's the first.....

and an in-progress color version......

and the finished piece with color corrections......

Visiting Young Authors

Yesterday afternoon, I had a delightful time with the winners of the young authors' contest from Morningside Elementary School.  At the invitation of my friend and Morningside teacher, Mrs. Peggy McBee, I participated in the awards ceremony and gave a small presentation as the "celebrity artist" to the winners and their friends and families.

It was my great pleasure to celebrate these talented young children and receive this lovely bouquet of flowers with mementos from the school. What a fun afternoon! Thank you, Morningside!

Recent Work - Color Corrections

So far this year, I have been fortunate to be working on a project that involves scanned line drawings, colored digitally.  Since my Photoshop skills are limited, this "on the job" training has been great for applying what I know and learning more.

I chose a subtle palette, thinking it would be better for the biblical subject matter, however, for a young audience brighter colors were preferred. These corrections were easily made with Photoshop. What a time saver!

Here a the examples of the color corrections.

Original color......

And the corrected color, brighter and much more saturated.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This illustration is the original that was redesigned for the header of this blog.  It was one of my first attempts at digitally colored illustration.  It started the progression of experimentation which has been challenging and loads of fun.  

Sweet Valentine wishes for all!

Rejoice!

This is the season to rejoice!
Here is the sign for rejoice. In a monthly feature for The Little Lutheran magazine, I illustrate signs to a song. Even though I have illustrated many signs for these pieces, I still don't know them all by memory. Practice is needed!

Merry Christmas!