In a recent Book Illustration Class I'm taking a discussion came up about using images found online and copyright laws. The conclusion was the best bet is to use your own material / photographs if possible. Thus, I had the idea to try to work directly from one of my photographs. In an attempt to save time at re-drawing the images, I found this tutorial online to convert my photos to line art in Photoshop. Then I printed them on watercolor paper and painted in color with watercolor washes and watercolor pencils. It was a FUN exercise with pretty cool results at a fraction of the time!
I tweaked the tutorial instructions slightly: 1. I made sure the image size was 300 dpi and the dimensions I wanted. 2. Edit out any background items you don't want in your watercolor 'drawing'. 2. Under Filter > Smart Blur, I made the settings: Radius- 15, Threshold- 30, Quality- High, and Mode- Edge Only 3. I then selected: Image>Adjustments>Invert If you try this, please let me know how it turned out for you!
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These are my first digitally-created children's book illustrations! I originally started to do these as watercolors, then decided to try it this way instead. Did the sketches on tracing paper, then scanned them into Adobe Photoshop. I still see changes I would make and have found how easy it is to spend hours and hours on my Wacom tablet....!
I recently finished reading the biography of Margaret Wise Brown by Leonard Marcus, Margaret Wise Brown - Awakened by the Moon. I'm a big fan of Brown.... I love her lyrical writing, the repetition and poetry she used...so childlike and whimsical! Before that I read The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll by Jean Nathan a biography about children'swriter/photographer Dare Wright, famous for her "Lonely Doll" series. I remember being entranced by Wright's books as a girl... the photography seemed so "other-worldly" and intimate to me...! Brown's life ended tragically early, on the cusp of new love and undoubtedly a new, true happiness in her life. Based on Nathan's book, Wright's whole life was tragic in so many ways-- too many to go into here. Yet I found myself wanting to know more about both of these women after I read the books... Both of these beautiful, talented women, in addition to being extremely creative, also dealt with deep, painful personal issues. Yet I'm not sure they were even aware of these 'issues', and they certainly didn't let it stop them...! The fruit of their work blessed the world in so many ways! What would I allow to stop me? With God all things are possible -- Matthew 19:26
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Thank you for landing on my blog! This a collection of photos, art, poems, thoughts, and other stuff on my creative journey since 2010.
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