Christmas Dogs and Cats

 

Here are a couple new embroidery designs at Embroidery Library (search "Christmas Cats Meow" and "Christmas Canines"). Not exactly an "off the clock" project, but these where pretty fun to work on and I wanted to share them on the blog. I love drawing in this style. I did a lot of gestures and quick sketches before tightening up like the b/w drawings shown here. Just playing with each character and trying to come up with a fun pose, silhouette, personality, etc. 

Autumn Animals

Victorian Cat Designs

A couple embroidery designs from work (UrbanThreads). The guy cat on the left was drawn a year or so ago and his new feline friend was added last month to our collection. It was a good challenge trying to make the two look like they go together, even though it had been some time since the first cat was created. In hindsight, I think I would give the guy cat a neck. That might help the proportions of the two cats to look more equal. It was fun researching the Steampunk/Victorian themes for costumes and attire. It was also fun to flex the character design muscles a little bit. I really tried to nail a cool silhouette with each of their poses and give them a little attitude.

Cartoon Monster Designs

This was an embroidery design assignment from work and I wanted to share a little bit of my process. The top image is the sew out of the design after being digitized, the middle image is the vector art and the bottom image is the pencil rough. My job is making the drawings and the vector art. You can find the machine and hand embroidery files at Urbanthreads.

I usually start with a pencil sketch to get approved before going on to Adobe Illustrator and drawing it again on the computer. The process seams to change depending on my confidence with the subject. Sometimes I use thumbnails, sometimes it's really loose and gestural drawings. In this case I stayed pretty tight and clean and also tried to keep each monster unique. I get so much inspiration from animation and character design artists and am always looking for ways to plug that into my drawings at work.

Thank you for stopping by and checking out the art. And thank you everyone out there for making your own creations and sharing them with the world! Cooking, quilting, designing, crafting... everything. It's a treat to share art on this blog and a treat to experience what everyone else it making in the world.

:)

Lil' Death Paper Model

Happy Halloween! 

This is my first paper model based on the Grim Reaper himself. It was fun to try something new and think three dimensional for a change. You can get your own Lil' Death paper model here! For best results, print on card stock or heavy paper. 

Thank You

This was a recent typography design done for work (back to school series). It made me think about how important teachers are in every one's life. I also thought about the teachers that really helped me through the years, including my mom who was a first grade teacher. The art teachers though, really come to mind as a few of them really helped me find my way over the years. Even if it wasn't about art, they always had an ear ready to listen about things that weren't even related to art and always sound advice and encouragement that was so generously given. There were a few nights my roommates and I would talk to our instructor Ron about art, life, career, etc. well past an hour or two after class. They were more than teachers; they were friends, mentors and sometimes therapists. And so this blog post is meant to be a gesture of gratitude to all the teachers of the world that give so much love to their students.

Thank you.

Lil' Death Cartoon

aww  :)

The MAD Scientist

and his faithful companion... Professor MeowPurr

Christmas at the Beach

Here's a series of cartoon Christmas characters I did not to long ago. The theme was Santa, Mrs. Claus and the gang relaxing at the beach and enjoying the off season. The art was created for machine embroidery and the designs can be found at Emblibrary.com

I really worked hard on these and tried to have fun with them in the process. While drawing the roughs, I was looking at a lot of character design blogs for inspiration. Lately, it's been a lot of about silhouettes and shapes for me. The computer has been a huge tool (sometimes a crutch) in my creative process. In Adobe Illustrator, I'm constantly using the mirror tool, flipping back and forth to find wholes and week spots. Also, filling in all the shapes with a dark value helps me get a good read of the silhouette and adjust/tweak where needed.

I'm due for some beach/outdoor rest and relaxation time as well. Too much going on this summer, but it has been a fun one to say the least. Looking forward to playing some golf this weekend and hopefully getting out to do some hiking soon, too. Best wishes to you and hope you have a good rest of the summer :)

Superheros and Villains!

The first image are some character designs of superheros for kids. This was sort of like a dream to get this assignment for work. Definitely would like to do more cartooning and character design art in the future. 

The bottom image is a drawing of my favorite Marvel villain/vigilante, Venom. It was drawn today over my lunch break. The goal was to do a 15 minute sketch but it turned into 30 minutes. It was exciting; giving myself a time limit really made me think about how I was going to make what was all ready created in my head, and then actually do it on paper. The drawing was made with an ink brush and white out on blue construction paper glued to the back of computer paper.

Ninja Squirrel

Tattoo Inspired Animal Designs

Some more art from work. The original concept for these started out a year ago with a peacock design I did and the style sort of evolved to an "inky" tattoo look. These were are a lot of fun to design. Because their simplicity, my favorite part of creating these was the decision making process; what to include and what not to, and making the image read as a particular animal. They are a bit abstract and hopeful they read well. For each animal, there are three designs to the series; a corner, a border and a feature (used for machine embroidery.)

Hope it's a great week for you and thanks for stopping by.

Merry Holidays!

It's that time of the year again. Here's a couple of my favorite Christmas/winter designs from this year.The Santa designs are from last year and where a lot of fun creating. I'd really love to do more character designing; it reminds me of caricature and graphic design which I used to do a lot more of when I was in college.

Best wishes to you this season and a Happy New Year! :)

Kokeshi Dolls

Another embroidery design series done over at Embroidery Library. This series was inspired by Japanese wood dolls and then modified by giving them an object to hold. I'm really inspired by Asian art and design so it was a real treat work on these.

Thanks for stopping by!

Baby Dragon

Every now and then I like to take the vector art that was used for a project at work and "spice" it up a little with more details, color, background, etc. It's also fun to play around with the programs and teach yourself something new.

Lastly, I'd like to share a quote that stuck with me from the movie "Kung Fu Panda." Master Oogway shares with the panda a bit of his wisdom durring a dificult time. The quote goes...

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift. That is why they call it the present." :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Winter Birds and Artist Inspiration

Sometimes when I'm drawing on the computer I like to listen to artist interviews to keep inspired. Usually, when I'm on the computer tracing my artwork in Adobe Illustrator, it requires less imagination and creativity than say when I'm at the drawing table. For clarity I should state that most of my illustrations are roughed out at a drawing table and then scanned in and finished on the computer. During the drawing table phase, most of the illustration is figured out on paper and the computer is more of a tool to polish and clean up the art. So here's a couple entertainment art sites that I like to stream audio on and listen to when I'm creating on the computer.

Sketchoholic.com

Hosted by the amazingly enthusiastic and tallented Bobby Chiu, this site is full of interviews with professionals in the entertainment art industry. This is HUGE inspiration for me!

Stephen Silver's Artcasts

Character designer and illustrator, Stephen Silver shares his wealth of knowledge and wisdom about art and life. Another great source of inspiration!

Cardinal Stack

Recently we did a series of "stack" designs at Embroidery Library. The stack being three animals or objects of a similar nature sitting on top of each other. The cardinals were my favorite of the series. Something about simplicity really interests me, whether it's writing, speaking, etc.

Free Time

These are a couple drawings from a while ago. The first one is a portrait study done by Yim Mau Kun. Studying other artists work helps me stay limber and learn some new tricks. Whether consciously or unconsciously, I do them in hopes that their genius becomes apart of my work as well. The second one is a drawing of Michael Jackson from about a year ago. It was a rough drawing in my sketchbook and was later cleaned up in Adobe Illustrator.

Happy Holidays to everyone and best wishes to you in the new year!!

Season's Greatings

Happy Holidays everyone!

Flapper Designs

My art teacher in high school told us about combining two different ideas to make something fun and different. Like the person that came up with chocolate and peanut butter together... that's genius... OK maybe not genius but it was a good enough idea to the people that began Reese's candy.

Lately animation has been a huge inspiration to me and these flapper designs where my effort to combine that with my love for graphic design. It was also an experimentation with style. I feel like some things worked and others I'd probably revisit and change. The last two designs are my favorites, particularly because of the gesture and angularity of the poses.

Thanks for stopping by!