Illustration: Colours of Nature

Here is the theme illustration I did for the 2013 SmokeFree WA Kelmscott Annual Show. The theme was 'Life on the Land: The Colours of Nature'.

 I provided them with five different concepts, and they chose one this one, a continuation of the 2012 theme of 'Mother Nature'.

This was done in Adobe Illustrator CS6:

Here's a closer look:

I'd put up a colouring page, but my website host appears to be down, so that will have to wait. 

I'm sorry to say that this wasn't an enjoyable assignment, so I was thrilled to see that it struck a chord enough for a kid to enter a lego version of it in the themed lego section. This is by someone called Xavier, isn't it fabulous? (It even won a first!)

Everything was faithfully put in, even the flag and clouds from last year's theme that were vetoed this year. Last year I included a donkey – this year I had planned to include a horse, but it was eventually dropped, so I'm glad to see that there is a horse here too. 

I also demonstrated portraiture and needle felting for one day of the show. (19th October. I know, I'm late with this post) I did about 6 hours all up, over half of which was portraiture, and the rest felting. 

Unbeknownst to me I was coming down with something that completely flattened me for the next week (and ruined my productivity and energy for the following week (and then some) as well) so I hope I didn't unwittingly give it to anyone! I thought I just had a nasty headache caused by the stormy weather (not unusual), and soldiered on. >.<

I'm indebted to my father for these photos (usually he forgets to photograph me =P). That's my mother sitting beside me, doing some knitting, and doing much of the talking for me. I am deaf in one ear and have trouble in large, echoey spaces, much of the time I wasn't even aware if someone was talking to me (when they were standing to my right) with all the surrounding noise and feedback in my hearing aid. 

At times we had quite a crowd, generally there were at least one or two people watching:

And did I ache after that uncomfortable plastic chair and desk!

My portraiture demonstration was Gene Kelly this year. I didn't have time to prepare a new portrait, and found this, barely started, in an abandoned sketchbook. By the end of the day it looked like this:

My reference was a publicity shot from Anchors Aweigh. 

And about 2 to 2 & 1/2 hours furious felting resulted in a semi-complete duckling:

Design: Wagtail Christmas Cards

I did a lot of Christmas card designs in November, and now that Christmas is nearing, it's time to blog them. 

This first design was originally done for my Great Aunt, who told me 'something Christmassy with a willy wagtail'.... I ran with that. And she hated the result. So I had to do something else for her, this time with more specific instructions, which seemed to work better. =)

Happily for me, my friend Tilly stepped in, declared she loved my poor wagtail cards, and ordered a batch for her own cards. We got them printed at the lovely moo.com, in five colour variations:

I did the main design in Adobe Illustrator CS6, and added textures (from Ming-ling) in Adobe Photoshop CS6. 

KAS Billboard

I did my very first billboard this year, for the Kelmscott Agricultural Society, which has been keeping me pretty busy lately. I was a bit nervous doing a billboard, because there was no one to tell me what to do, and I'm more used to the poster and flyer side of things. (And it was a good thing I did the 2012 Theme illustration as a vector, and didn't have to worry about the size!) However, I think it turned out pretty well, and it was in a great location – with the lights on it at night it looked rather striking, I think. =) 

My lovely father went to the trouble to get me this photo:

For a closer look at the illustration, you can see my previous blog post.

All done in Adobe Illustrator (CS4 and CS6).

Vectors: Health flyers

Here are a few of the vectors I did this week, to jazz up some informational flyers for a chiropractic clinic. Since it's hardly reasonable to charge the earth for simple flyers, where possible I used images already in my files, so you might recognise two of these. They're all coloured to match the client's branding. 

Two kids for a flyer about regularly checking kids' backs for scoliosis. For this I quickly vectored Trouble, which took me about 30-45 minutes.   

A health professional, based loosely on one of the actual people at the clinic. 

And a vector of Ready for Anything, which (fortunately for me) I'd already vectored up as a media example for a job pitch – so I just changed her colours. She was for a flyer about helping kids manage asthma through checking spinal health. 

All done in Adobe Illustrator CS4, with a Wacom Intuos 3.

Illustration: Tree Full Of Owls

A Post for Halloween!

This is entirely down to Makenzi Crouch, who suggested that we do a story & sketch for Halloween. Unfortunately, at the time I was suffering from a sick headache that was about to develop into a migraine, so to make things easier I sent her an old image with a vaguely Halloween-y theme, and let her play around with that. And once she'd finished her story, and I could see/walk/type in a straight line (hooray!) I gave the image a bit of a tweak to fit in better.  

So, without more ado:

.......

Most of the porch lights on Alpert Court were out. The only reason anyone bothered to trick-or-treat here at all was for Mr. Jackson's candy, and only a very few - the well-informed - braved his house. Chris had been scared so badly last year that he had promised himself he wasn't going to go anywhere near Mr. Jackson's house this year, and now he found himself standing at the end of the walk again, distracted from the ghosts swooping around the porch by something in the tree in the front yard. He tugged nervously on Matt's sword.

"Matt, there's eyes in the tree. Matt!"

.......

What happens next? Go over here to read the whole thing!

And, for your edification, here's the original image:

This was done way back in September 2009, when I was just starting to use Illustrator. I've come along way since then – this was mainly just me poking around with various tools to see what they did.

Inspired by a line from the 1956 musical High Society:

"Uncle Willy, this morning you look like a tree full of owls."

No, I don't know what it means either.

******

I think the night time version looks better than this one – but that's okay, I wasn't trying to do anything fantastic with this in the first place. ^.^

Illustrator CS4. 

Design: Stickers

I recently designed some bumper stickers, to go, if I'm not mistaken, on kayaks at the upcoming Avon Descent. My client wanted something based around the banner of the RatherBePaddling website, so I took that as my starting point, and tried to make it look speedier and shinier.   

I got them printed up at CJKing's, who did a fabulous job. They aren't large stickers (21 x 5cm), but I think they're quite striking. And being printed on UV coated vinyl, they should last the distance, I think.

Adobe Illustrator CS4

Design: Wren Recipe Book

I designed these two little splendid fairy wrens for a recipe book I put together for my friend Tilly, who's getting married on Saturday. Today was her bridal shower, and I got everyone coming to contribute a few favourite recipes, and typed them up into a book, which I then got bound up.

I chose to do wrens because I did the Wren Wedding Invitations for Tilly, and thought I'd just carry on the theme. 

The male blue wren was part of a blue layout, for savoury recipes, and the brown female wren was part of a pink page, for sweet recipes. And I had one drinks recipe, so put both of them on that, with a purple colour scheme. 

Wrens and page design were done in Adobe Illustrator CS4, and the text was done in Adobe InDesign CS4.