On Safari, I spy Ellies

 

Illustrator

 

Recently I have become addicted to watching live safaris in South Africa. It amazes me how every day is something new and the beauty of nature at its true work is beyond description. Many years ago I painted this image for an art class. I got a new Wacom tablet for Christmas and in the spirit of my new addiction to safari I decided to recreate it in Illustrator.  You can view the original painting  here Original Painting.

 

 

Blessings,

Charlii Jean

Blue Dog

 

Illustrator and Photoshop

 

 

Everyone has their dog days and every dog has his day, I wonder if they are the same day. Maybe when my dog has a good day I will have a bad day or my good day is his bad day and does this only affect people who have a dog. What if you have two dogs, would you then be twice as likely to have a bad day? OK, probably not. However, my blue dog poster is kind of cool.

 

I took a stock photo of this dog into Illustrator and used the image trace tool to convert him to a grayscale image. I then recolored it in shades of blue. The image trace tool is a neat little tool, but it's also a bit of a cheater tool. It is great for a quick and dirty vector art, but I still prefer to use the pen tool and have control over every aspect of the drawing.

 

 

 I finalized the image in Photoshop by using grain and glass filters to add a little texture. Personally I like to add a little texture to my vector drawings.  Vector art can have a tendency to look very flat, which isn't always a bad thing. However, I like my work to have a little depth to it so I tend to use Photoshop a lot to accomplish that. The smallest, lightest grain or noise filter can add depth to the image and still remain almost undetectable to the eye.

 

Have a beautiful weekend where ever you are and let your dog have his day, but don't let your dog day get you blue.

 

Blessings,

Charlii Jean



The Doctor is coming

This is my little experiment with using my iPad for drawing. I am trying different apps. I used  Sketchbook Pro. I couldn't think of a better subject than the TARDIS.

Medium: Digital (iPad, Sketchbook Pro)

Daisy Paisley

Drawing the paisley is a mental vacation for me. The shape is simple and the patterns can be as simple or complex as you want. To me the paisley is an ultimate doodle. You don't have to put much thought in it and still come up with a cool picture.

Materials: Sharpie pen and color pencils

It has been a long time, two years in fact since I have posted anything on my blog. I have let too many daily life things take away the time I had for my art. That is too bad and I need to rectify the situation. It has been that long since I took part in Illustration Friday as well. Any ways the to images above were painted for school a couple of semesters ago. I always liked how they came out. I never really considered myself a painter, it made too much of a mess and went way too fast. I prefer to work for my art, put sweat and frustration into it. Then I found out that painting really is a lot of work too, but for me it is work worth doing.

Rain Drop Tease

Ink and colored pencil on Bristol board

I love the rain and unfortunately for me we don't get enough it. As our rain season, if you can call it that, comes to an end I wanted to do something that can remind of the rain. This was an idea I pulled from an old sketch book from 3 or 4 years ago. In the sketch it was just circles and think making the sunflower viewed through water drops was a much better choice. I also love the way the cropping of the flower came out it's kind of like a little tease.
Enjoy:)
Charlii Jean

Purple Daisies for Miss Z

purple daisies
Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/17644879@N00/.

I don't know what made me think of it but I was called to mind of my first argument over creative difference. I was kindergarten, no you didn't read that wrong. I was a strong willed child to put it nicely. Anyway, we were coloring a picture of trees and grass. When I decided that I wanted to make my tree's leaves purple. I was just about to start coloring when Miss Z ( her name was too long for any 5 year old to pronounce) popped her head over my shoulder and said that trees are green. Like I said I was a strong willed child and I told her that some trees were purple. For a moment she lost her sanity and began to argue with a child. I wouldn't relent on my position that there were purple trees and she walked off with the order that I will make the tree green.

I am sure her reason was to teach us that trees are green and the sun is yellow ect. What she didn't know was that the area I lived in was filled with purple leaved trees. Several of our neighbors and my babysitter had one or two. And there was this street on the way to my aunts house ( I think) that was lined on both sides of them. She made the assumption that because she had never seen it and I was five that I didn't know what I was talking about.

However, that rational didn't occur to me then. I just wanted to use the purple crayon. I wanted my picture to be different from the other 31 pictures that are just like it. I had an artistic vision ( well as much of one that a five year old could have) and this lady was messing with it.
I made the tree purple any ways and I got a letter home say that I was not behaving very well again. My mother was not amused by my behavior but she liked my coloring.

So, I think the lesson for us artists is that when we take to creating our next masterpiece is to let go and paint it as we feel it. Even if it means breaking convention and get sent home with a note.