here's an attempt at drawing cartoon figures. i drew these guys to illustrate a little story i posted over at my site (i wrote that story a little over 10 years ago at the age of 14, lol).
i had a lot of fun with this one. learned some new things, such as deleting from shape area to create the shapes you want, and using the warp tool. plus got me some practice with the formidable pen tool. i'll do more drawings like these in the future fo' sho!
i created this little photo grid using photos that are on my computer. they span from 2004-2007, and were all taken by either me or someone in my family. Click the image to see the full-size version.
i tried my hand at an isometric drawing tonight. followed a nice tutorial that explained how to create a swimming pool. it was a little tricky lining up the tiles, but i'm pleased with how it came out. i added some embellishments in the background (vector rectangles to represent the grass, and lens flare for the sun). i might go back and add some trees and flowers once i learn how to do those in isometric as well. fun start to the summer! it was 85 degrees here this afternoon.
without water
with water
medium: photoshop cs3 duration: about 2.5 hours tutorial:here.
ever since sumer 2006, i've been asked to create the graphic design for our community choir's summer chorus. each year the songs fall under a theme. this year's theme is "la bonne cuisine," and all of the songs are about, you guessed it, food. it took me a while to come up with this design but i finally got something i like. this design will be used on t-shirts, posters, the program cover and in the cd jewel-case.
program used: adobe illustrator cs3 resources: microsoft clipart collection (office online) procedure: decide on shirt color (dark green because i have to appeal to men as well), then grab a bunch of clip art. import the art into illustrator. mix and match the art, editing the colors (no more than 4 colors for a t-shirt) and flipping the shapes around, rearranging them, re-drawing some parts, deleting other parts.
i've always felt a little funny using clipart -- i mean, i am supposed to be creating my own drawings, right? but then i realize that i in this case, i am a designer, not an artist. a designer takes resources that others have created and puts them together into an attractive presentation. that happens all the time in book world, for example. most books have both a cover artist and a designer. plus, i heavily edit the clipart i use, so i've made it my own. Clipart rules!!!
i am sad because i'm not doing a good job of keeping up with this blog. but this semester was a killer. 2 term papers (20+ pages each) and heavy reading on top of that. but now it's all over. no more excuses...yeah right. lol. i've just been quite unmotivated these past few weeks. plus i'm suffering from post-choir-concert depression. the community choir i sing in has been working on the wonderful carmina burana all semester, and we just held our concert on may 17th. in addition to our large choir, we had a full orchestra (11 violins, 6 violas, 3 cellos, 2 basses, 2 pianos, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, 1 english horn, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba, 1 timpani player, and 5 percussionists), 3 professional soloists (who did a good job but i still have mixed feelings about a community choir using professional outside soloists) and the n.c. boys' choir. there were well over 150 people on that stage (major genius points to the person who organized us all on the stage so that everyone could be seen). a full house. LOUD sound. we were all mesmerized by the orchestra. sure, the performance wasn't perfect, but my god, it was the best we've done since spring '06. everyone in my family who was there loved it (as in really loved it, not just "oh that was good" but "oh, that was good").
we had only 2 three-hour rehearsals with the orchestra, and then the performance was only 1 hour. after that, it was a huge letdown. all that i was so depressed. excited, yes, but depressed because it was all over. nothing else seemed exciting anymore. all i wanted to do was talk about the concert and listen to carmina burana on my itunes and watch it on youtube. now, i've sung in choirs ever since 5th grade and i've always had these post-concert withdrawls, but this time it was stronger than ever. after all that adrenaline and excitement build up and then bam, it's over before you know it. i'm cut off from all of my fellow choir members. my family doesn't want to hear about the concert any more. nothing, in my mind, will ever match up to carmina burana. it's so unlike most operas and classical music. even if you don't like classical music you will probably still enjoy carmina burana. the primitive rhythms, the catchy melodies -- it's so easy to respond to it. i can't wait to get the concert cd!!!
i'm doing a lot better in terms of my withdrawal. every day it fades. now i'm pretty much back to normal, so yay!!!!
here is a playlist that contains a great performance (not ours) of carmina burana. i think their tempo is a bit too fast, plus the audio quality of the video isn't that great, but it's amazing nonetheless. i love this conductor's energy. i would love to sing in his choir!!! also they did the entire thing memorized. WOW.
anyway, you really need to listen to the entire playlist (8 videos) in order to get the real feel of carmina burana. there's so much more to it than the 1st movement.
ok. that's about it. i know this is supposed to be an art blog...but music is art. hah. next entry will contain new graphics of mine, promise. :-)
...cuz we're gonna take a look back at works from the past, in true spirit of the brink of a new year. following are some graphics that i've done back in the days of auld lang syne. i've been so busy with classes and projects this semester that i didn't have the time and energy to sit down and do a tutorial. hopefully next semester will be better, but don't count on it. but optimism never hurts!
to the right there is cosmic christmas, a desktop wallpaper i created back in december 2001 with paint shop pro. i was very proud of it at the time. i was in both a spacey- and christmas mood, so that image captured both feelings perfectly.
next, we have just lookin', a graphic i drew with paint shop pro back in the fall of 2004. i ended up using it as a header for my blog over at tabulas, when tabulas was the in-thing among my web friends. heh. man, those were the days. i was obsessed with reflections and trying to make things look shiny.
river raft and rainy night are 2 of my favoritist (yeah yeah yeah, i know that isn't a word. sigh.) graphics. once again, these were created with paint shop pro, in summer 2004. i was mostly fooling around with the different tools. rainy night was a complete accident...i wasn't intending to make a figure in the picture (it was just meant to be an abstract landscape), but the shape just happened to look like a body with legs so i embellished it a little. with river raft, i was just tryin' to have some summer fun!
now, in the spring of 2005, i was drawing a bunch of animals for a multimedia project. i changed my project at the last minute so none of the animals were used, but i put quite a bit of effort in them so i'm proud of how they came out. here is a malaysian sunbear, which came out the best out of all of them. i did it in (guess) paint shop pro using the usual tracing method (found a photo, posterized it and then traced over the colored regions with the vector tool, adding in shading and other details in the end). It's not perfect, but I like it all the same.
finally, i wish to end with 2 images i drew following tutorials from pixel2life.com. they are a cartoon airplane and the now old-fashioned 1st generation ipod nano (with my imagined colors, of course). these were done with photoshop, in summer 2006. enjoy!
well that's it! hope you enjoyed my blast through the past, and more new things to come in the near future!
this is my first attempt at a visual journal. i am by no means a traditional artist. i can't draw to save my life. i rely on tried-and-true methods for digital art and never had the time and patience to expand my skills. with this blog, i hope to change all that. i'll experiment with something new each time.
medium: photoshop cs3
medium: adobe photoshop cs3
medium: photoshop cs3
program used: adobe illustrator cs3
...cuz we're gonna take a look back at works from the past, in true spirit of the brink of a new year. following are some graphics that i've done back in the days of auld lang syne. i've been so busy with classes and projects this semester that i didn't have the time and energy to sit down and do a tutorial. hopefully next semester will be better, but don't count on it. but optimism never hurts!
next, we have just lookin', a graphic i drew with paint shop pro back in the fall of 2004. i ended up using it as a header for my blog over at tabulas, when tabulas was the in-thing among my web friends. heh. man, those were the days. i was obsessed with reflections and trying to make things look shiny.
river raft and rainy night are 2 of my favoritist (yeah yeah yeah, i know that isn't a word. sigh.) graphics. once again, these were created with paint shop pro, in summer 2004. i was mostly fooling around with the different tools. rainy night was a complete accident...i wasn't intending to make a figure in the picture (it was just meant to be an abstract landscape), but the shape just happened to look like a body with legs so i embellished it a little. with river raft, i was just tryin' to have some summer fun!
now, in the spring of 2005, i was drawing a bunch of animals for a multimedia project. i changed my project at the last minute so none of the animals were used, but i put quite a bit of effort in them so i'm proud of how they came out. here is a malaysian sunbear, which came out the best out of all of them. i did it in (guess) paint shop pro using the usual tracing method (found a photo, posterized it and then traced over the colored regions with the vector tool, adding in shading and other details in the end). It's not perfect, but I like it all the same.
well that's it! hope you enjoyed my blast through the past, and more new things to come in the near future!
