Picture Story: calla lilies & tree swallows

calla lilies & tree swallows

Of all the pictures I have ever created, this one has always been my favorite. Shh, don't go telling my other pictures, they'll be all jealous and stuff.

With the exception of the birds — I drew the sketched the entire composition... and then followed the process of converting the sketch to a blue page, inking that, printing out a color fill and then coloring that with colored pencils, and well, a whole bunch of editing... you know, that same paragraph I type up virtually every time I explain how I translated a sketch into an illustration.

Yes, this was once just an outline on a white sheet of paper, before it was an entire production combining a digital scan of a painting, a digital scan of a colorized print-out of my calla lilies, and a digital scan of my drawings of tree swallows.  The tree trunks and the leaves were done with photoshop filters - as this picture pre-dated me owning a digital camera (otherwise I surely would have photographed some tree bark).

Anyway, there are 2 things I remember most vividly about this picture.

One is that I re-edited the calla lilies about 3 times, because there was something that I just didn't have right about the outline around them - and actually ended up mostly painting in the outline in photoshop until I was happy with it.

And the other is that the tree swallows were the first set of birds that I simply drew out on bristol - absent of any actual composition, to scan and cut.  Back in the olden days - when I created an illustration I drew the entire thing on one sheet of paper by hand... this was really the first time I drew the parts separately and put them together.  These were literally the first bird graphics that I meticulously removed from a white background in photoshop.

It's a strange thing to remember - but it's what springs to mind the most when I look at this image - as it was a point in a learning curve.

Anyway, calla lilies & tree swallows has always been one of my favorite illustrations, albeit simply for the visual.  It's intricate choreographed chaos.

Picture Story: nectar

I think that illustrations are often self evident. That's why they're illustrations. And that's what I do - I illustrate. So, I realize, when I talk about my work, instead of explaining what is in the picture or why it's there - I tend to talk about how I illustrated it.

So, on to the obvious: "nectar" is a picture of ruby-throated hummingbirds eating the nectar of fuchsia. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are native to the eastern United States, for most of us on this side of the country - they're the only species of hummingbird around. They show up here (in Michigan) in May or June and usually hang around until September, when they fly South for the winter. Ruby-throated hummingbirds have a head and body that are green and a white underbelly, only the males have a ruby-colored throat.

Contrary to the depiction in this picture - this species of hummingbird is very territorial. I have never seen 2 of them aware of each other at the same feeder or plant at the same time. However, you can find videos on youtube of multiple ruby-throats in the same feeding area at the same time coexisting peacefully... that just doesn't happen in my yard.
This clip has music - but this is what it sounds like on the back porch all day long: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twqrrlAEHf8 Just tiny little birds fighting and squawking over the sugar water (often referred to in this household as 'bird koolaid') in the plastic container.

"nectar"

"nectar" was one of my first experiments with coloring over a printed image. The fuchsia in the picture were actual flowers that I photographed. I then edited the backgrounds out of those photos, combined several photos together and adjusted the color on the image I had created. I printed that out and colored over it with prismacolor pencils, and then scanned that and edited it as the base of my illustration. The background is based off one of my photos of the sky. I adjusted the colors and then merged it with a color layer to get it the shade of aqua I wanted.

And the hummingbirds were also an experiment in coloring over a print out. They were originally drawn in pencil. And that was scanned and printed as a blue page — and then inked. And then I colorized the ink outline and printed that out and colored over that in prismacolors, and then scanned that back in and made another print out. I colored over that print out — adding details, and then scanned that back in and 'cut' the hummingbirds out of the background.

And then I added the hummingbirds into the illustration, in a layer that was above the sky but below the fuchsia.

I know, I know, the boring technical stuff is only remotely interesting to me.

Since it's August, I come home from work every morning to the sound of a 'bird fight' taking place on the back patio... and I imagine this squawking and fighting and chasing and otherwise all-out territory dispute goes on until dusk. They're lovely creatures and they're complex.

And when I go out on the back porch to do something I am often reminded that I am interrupting their visit. The hummingbird will just pause and hover and look directly at me, and then jut forward, and pause and look at me again, and then decide whether it's on to the feeder or to quickly buzz off to go sit on the edge of some nearby leaf and wait for me to leave... like as if I'm not the one who keeps making them more bird koolaid or something.

Yes, they're complex creatures.

Picture Story: spring sing

Technically, I was on vacation this week. Vacation, as it turns out was mostly about sleeping and not having to wake up at the sound of an alarm clock. Plus it was about getting some work done on some projects that I have been procrastinating on for a long long time. I am a hell of a procrastinator. But, I did finally take all the snowflakes down — my winter decor consists of my ginormous collection of plastic / resin glitter covered snowflakes (see this post for my hilarious prediction).

Anyway, now I have to hang the butterflies and the hummingbirds... which I just haven't quite gotten to yet.

In the mean time — a picture story: spring sing.
I finished this illustration in the spring of 2009 (see last graphic), but I probably technically started it around 2005. This first graphic is actually a painting. It was painted with acrylics with details done in prismacolor on illustration board. The original is actually 11X14 inches. But via the magic of a scan and a size format change in photoshop it became an 8X10.

What I actually did was I flipped the image horizontally, and then lightened the resized copy of the painting in photoshop and then printed that and drew an outline around everything. Then I scanned that outlined copy and adjusted the file until all I had was the outline on a white background.

When I have an inked copy, then I make a sample fill of every part as a separate layer. So I fill all the tulip flowers with one color, all the petals with one color, the grass, the tree trunks, the leaves, the sky, and the clouds. Because I am going to use scans or paintings or drawings, or digital photos to actually fill in the those parts.

This is a size reformatted portion of a scan of an 11X14 acrylic painting called "geranium sunrise." It's what would eventually become the background of "spring sing." Of course, I had to reformat it 8X10, and then I would go on to lighten the entire painting by creating a layer of white, playing with its opacity and then merging that to the layer of the scan of the painting.

The yellow warblers that appear in the painting were drawn separately. They were drawn with prismacolors. That drawing was scanned, and all the white space was removed. The clouds were created using the paintbrush in photoshop, and then using a layer fill style over the background. The sheet music that appears in the background was scanned, and then manipulated using the warp tool so that it is wavy instead of linear.

The leaves of the trees were created from a digital photo that was manipulated and resized. The original image is actually of maple leaves on the ground. The tree trunks were created from a layer I created by layering several different colors with several different brushes and then using filtering effects in photoshop.

The grass was also created from a photo. It's actually a picture of the grass in my neighbors yard (and this particular photo has been used in a number of my illustrations when I need grass, which I always think is kind of funny since my neighbor will mow his lawn on a diagonal and this shot is clearly of some grass that hasn't yet been cut) . The tulip flowers and leaves were both taken from the same scan that was used for the background.

And through the magic of layering styles all these things come together to create the illustration. You can see the finished piece here in my "sarahkdesigns" shop on Etsy.

If you're anywhere near Tecumseh, Michigan: Friday 29 April 2011 is the annual Tecumseh Art Walk. I'll be at Timeless Stitches, so if you're in town, then please stop by. The event is 6-9pm.

I hope everyone is enjoying their spring : )

Picture Story: violet night

It occurred to me when I was scanning my 11X14 acrylic paintings that I was inevitably going to be making new scans of paintings that I have used as backgrounds for my illustrations. Yes, that's part of the magic of photoshop — the painting I used as the background of an illustration is actually completely separate from the illustration. Mostly because while I render the vast majority of the 'parts' of my illustrations by hand - ultimately they are digital collages and assembled on the computer.

So, it took me a ponderous moment of searching, but I found the "violet night" background.

It is via the magic of photoshop that this painting became part of the background of this illustration:

"violet night"

"violet night" was created mostly out of the parts of other illustrations. It's just one of those compositions I assembled for the fun of it.

The irises are something I created for "purple martins & purple irises" which is an image I originally made for one of my calendars (it was for June, since that's when my irises bloom). Anyhow, the irises were originally a pen & ink drawing, which I 'filled' in photoshop — the petals were created from parts of a scan of a salt on watercolor painting and the leaves were created from a scan of an acrylic painting.

The luna moths came from a graphite pencil drawing that I had done as a teenager for the county fair. I scanned them into the computer, colorized them, printed that file, and then colored over it with prismacolors, and scanned that back into the computer. The luna moths are kind of the only part I formatted specifically for this illustration, even though they originated with another composition.

The starry sky came from the background I made for "deer in the winter woods." This illustration was the January picture for one of my calendars. I'm pretty sure the star is a vector graphic, which I spent many hours rotating and layering in a file. For violet night - I used the graphic as a layer over the scan of the painting, and then literally faded out half the graphic with the eraser tool.

Obviously, I color adjusted the scan of the painting that I inevitably used as a background, because, well, I wanted it to be a cooler and bluer shade of violet.

I admit, there are some illustrations that I like just a little bit more, and "violet night" is one of them. Probably mostly because that's my favorite shade of violet — that sort of milky bluish violet color.

Picture Story: hummingbird on bleeding heart

I draw, I illustrate, I make pictures, I take pictures... and perhaps that is why I am so stymied whenever I try to write about one of my illustrations: I'm better with pictures than with words. And because I want people to draw their own conclusions and have their own thoughts and emotions and reactions when they look at my pictures.

So, this piece is adroitly titled: "hummingbird on bleeding heart"

And it can be found at my sarahkdesigns shop on etsy.
Quite obviously, it's an illustration of a male ruby-throated hummingbird perched on a stem of bleeding heart in front of a cloudy blue sky. Now, the hummingbird was drawn with colored pencil. He was composed with a whole group of hummingbirds that I actually drew for a piece entitled "hummingbirds & hollyhocks." And his female doppelganger appears in "summer hummingbirds."

Anyway, the stem of bleeding heart is something I photographed. I plopped the photo into photoshop, played with the colors and levels and all that, printed it out, and then drew over it with colored pencil. The sky was quite literally made from a digital photo of the sky which was put through several color adjustments and maybe a filter or two before being treated with a layer of color to make it brighter & more saturated.

Amusingly, when I planned this illustration, this was not what I had envisioned as the end result. This was actually supposed to be a picture of a hummingbird sitting on a watering can in front of a stem (or possibly stems) of bleeding heart. However, I wasn't thrilled with the way my watering can was progressing, and there was some issue with proportions and whether or not the composition would be horizontal or vertical... so, yeah, goodbye watering can!

Maybe someday I'll work up that composition with the watering can... someday.
For the time being I'm happy with the way this turned out.
And I look forward to next month when the ruby-throated hummingbirds should start showing up in the backyard, squeaking and squawking at each other as they get territorial over the bird koolaid in the feeder. They're a delightfully cantankerous bunch.

The Etsy Voter

I encourage you to go vote in this round of the etsy "voter." It's called "What's in Your Ideal Garden." And one of my pieces, "Happy Together" is in contention! So, yes, I'm asking, begging, pleading, & otherwise strongly encouraging you to go vote for my print!

When logged into your etsy account you can vote here:
http://www.etsy.com/voter_list.php?ref=voter&room_id=101

I've been busy lately, but I have gone out & snapped some shots in the yard. It's been pretty chilly here lately. It warmed up a little recently, but not soon enough for the magnolia blossoms, which are now brown... cursed weather.

I also invite you to check out this marvelous treasury by rawartletterpress!

Treasury! sponteneity & spring

It's raining outside as I type this... but it's sunny somewhere off in cyberspace.
Even sunnier that my print (wonderland wash) is featured in this treasury: some kind of fantasy

wonderland wash

which can be found at sarahkdesigns

This was a fun print to make, as I made it on a whim. I was just sitting in front of the computer and decided that I wanted some 'Alice' on my clothesline... and so, I printed out my ink drawing of the clothesline and penciled in the rest... inked that, scanned it, edited it, and started filling in my file with whatever was hanging around on my desktop...

Sometimes spontaneity is perfect.

Picture Story: happy together

I like happy pictures. As far back as I can remember, that's what I've drawn. I like things with bright colors, and a lot of different colors. I like landscapes, I like sky, and sun, and flowers. More specifically, I like drawing them.

I recently decided to make some artwork specifically for myself (the house). And in the process I ended up working out a number of compositions since I made a variety of elements. When I was drawing the calla lilies I also drew a bunch of tulips. And then I made "the house" — well, I also drew out the bird house. Technically, it's not actually a "bird house", it's a bird box, more specifically a nest box.

Anyhow, the reason that I would draw myself a nest box is because I have them in my backyard. They are for eastern bluebirds. And every year, there are a pair of bluebirds that have a brood in one of the boxes.

So, I decided to make myself a picture using the nest box with some bluebirds. The bluebirds usually show up in March, right around the time we have spring here in Michigan, to scope out the yard and claim their territory. They always arrive before the tree swallows.

close-up of the bluebirds

They spend a lot of time inspecting the box. Sitting on top of it, perching on the back, and doing the wing wave.

This will be available as a print at "sarahkdesigns" soon : )

Warblers & Callas

Since the calendar is done, and I have 11 months to finish the next one, I now have time to just illustrate whatever happens to come to mind. So, no trying to match a graphic to a season or month, and everything doesn't have to be formatted horizontally! Ah, freedom.

It's cold outside here, so I suppose that might be the reason I've been working on so many suns lately. Well, that and the sun graphic is part of a project that I'll be unveiling some time in the future. Anyway, I've been drawing a lot of flowers lately. I finished some black eyed susans last week, and have those scanned and cut into a piece... and I've drawn a couple bunches of tulips, and some compositions with birds and tulips. What can I say? Tulips are fun to draw. Of course, now I have to color them.

Anyway, I drew some callas in the mean time, because I want to make a picture for me. Well, actually, a couple pictures for me. The same stuff has been hanging in my office for what seems like ages (we'll say more than 3 years now). It's not that I don't like my current artwork, just that it's time for something new.

So, I actually sketched the callas, scanned them and printed them out as a blue page, inked that, scanned it and printed it out clean, and then colored it with prismacolor pencils. And scanned that, and cut it, without any real idea what the rest of the picture was going to be. I like the process to be open.

So, I picked out one of the scan of my salt on watercolors for the background. Kind of to change things up — because I've been using a lot of acrylic paintings as backgrounds. So, the watercolor is something different.

I was thinking maybe it would be a night scene with stars. But then I added the sun, and the rest of the pieces just kind of fell into place. The yellow warblers that I originally drew for "spring sing" were the right color... throw in some sheet music on the background and some musical notes, and well, everything just kind of came together.

Of course, now I have to name it...
yellow warblers sunshine song available at sarahkdesigns

Picture Story: cardinal song

...and Christmas is over, so now my free time is free again, well, sort of.

So, it's time to get back to work. This is my latest creation (which will be available at sarahkdesigns within the next week): cardinal song

It's one of those pieces that just kind of happened. I do, occasionally, actually plan compositions most of the time. But this one just came about. Mostly out of my need to produce a Christmas present for my grandmother. The woman has a living room full of cardinals (embroidery, figurines, paintings...). Well, that and she asked me to draw her something. A cardinal seemed like the most obvious thing.

So, I had the cardinal drawn, and I scanned it before I gave it to grandma as a gift. So, there it was sitting on my desktop (with a gazillion other files). So, through the magic of photoshop I cut the scan of my pencil drawing from it's background, and combined it with one of my many photos of the sky. Played around with the color a bit and added some filter layers (not unlike the filters in "warbling"). Put on a layer of sheet music, and added the musical notes... and voilà: finished composition!

Yellow Warblers!

I've been doing a lot of work lately, a lot of sketching and drawing... because I want to be able to relax this Christmas. But every once in a while I like to just make something.
I did a series of "bird song" pictures a while back. And I decided to make some companion pieces.

This is one of the originals:






And these last two are the new ones. I hope you like them. They were a delight to create.

Picture Story: chickadee in autumn

"chickadee in autumn" is available at sarahkdesigns


Freddie Mercury may have professed his love for his car (in that he had a feel for his automobile)... well, I apparently love my little black-capped chickadee.

I finished this picture on Wednesday morning, much to my own delight. It wasn't planned, it wasn't sketched out or mocked up. It just kind of happened. And sometimes, those are the ones that are the most fun.

Most of the illustrations I do presently are digital collage. I usually end up sketching something, inking that sketch, and scanning that into photoshop where I manipulate it with color and texture fills, and fills created from my drawings, paintings, or photos... so I tend to just have a lot of stuff around, which I suppose might seem a little aimless: piles of salt on watercolor paintings, a stack of paintings that are acrylics smeared across illustration board, plus the many many folders I have filled with my colored pencil drawings of birds or flowers or butterflies... and then there is my massively full iphoto...

I have a lot of graphic material hanging around.

And sometimes, I just have a moment where the idea just comes to mind and the parts just fit together... and I think this was one of those moments.

I've been working lately on the calendar... because, really, after 5 years, I don't want to be finishing my traditional family Christmas gift on the 24th of December. Miraculously (although I do keep changing my mind) I have 5 of the pictures fully completed, and at the very least a sketch for each of the graphics... January, December, and November are the least completed, as usual.

Anyway, it occurs to me that I usually wuss out and chuck a landscape photo into the September slot (although, this year's September is already complete). So, although I have a seasonal illustration for most of the year, I tend to have a very sparse selection of work involving autumn, which is part of the reason I made the chickadee in autumn picture: to add some autumn to my catalog of work.

Hopefully, you enjoy it!

New Snowflakes!

I've been busy lately. Yes, it was the end of August, and it is the beginning of September — but it's snowflake season!

For the past several years I have been creating snowflakes. I believe I began doing it in 2005. I designed my first snowflakes for my Christmas cards — because I wanted to use something of my own — not glyphs from a wing-dings font.

Inevitably, I designed a template on which I could create my snowflakes. The template isn’t particularly eye catching, and I suppose it probably looks strange to anyone who happens to catch me drawing on it. It’s 4 rows of 60˚ angles, 3 per column; which yields 12 snowflakes per page.

I sketch the snowflake arms, and then fill them with black ink. I then scan the page into photoshop, where I do all the necessary editing (making sure that all I have is the black portions). And from there each arm is transferred to another file which is inevitably a template of new snowflakes. That new file is genially referred to as the snowflakenator, because that’s where the real snowflake magic happens.

Each snowflake has 6 arms. Some of the arms have bilateral symmetry, some don’t; it depends on what I was designing at the time…

Anyway, these are some of this year’s new snowflakes:



Look for them on prints at sarahkdesigns, and on my snowflake Christmas cards at sarahknight.etsy.com!