"Sometimes" is today!

The title of this illustration is "Sometimes", but this morning was so frustrating that I should rename it "Today"!  I was online trying to set up a new place to show my work.  Needless to say, it wasn't working.  So I scrapped the whole idea.  AARGH!

"Sometimes" is available as a print, pillow, t-shirt and more here.

Illustration Friday: "Crooked"

Just in time with a last-minute post.  I drew this with graphite, scanned it, and then had fun with  textures and Photoshop filters.  The graphite I like best these days is cheap #2 pencils!  They're great and come with their own erasers!

This illustration is available as a print, an iPhone case and notecards here.

Bottled Romance

I was looking through some folders, posts and printouts and found a colored sketch that I had hurriedly posted for Illustration Friday and then never went back to.  So I did a finished version and here it is!  The old post is here. 

This illustration is available as a print, notecards and an iPhone case here.

A little mantra

This is a little mantra I say to myself when I'm stalled.  Or overwhelmed with my to-do list.  I figured it might be helpful to have it pinned to the wall so I can see it, so I illustrated it.  And it really works!  Yesterday my husband saw my sketchbook opened to the sketch for this and decided not to blow off his workout! 

It's a crow-quill pen and ink drawing that was colored and finished in Photoshop.

Available as a print here!

Illustration Friday: "Shiny"

This piece was created digitally in Adobe Photoshop.  I think it took longer to draw it digitally than it would have if I'd used a traditional pen and ink but I did like being able to use color, instantly correct mistakes and experiment without ruining anything.  And there was no risk of spilling or blooping ink!

Illustration Friday: "Jump"

For this illustration the foals were drawn with pen and ink.  The background and colors were done in Adobe Photoshop.

Illustration Friday: "Fluid"

This one's for everyone who spends any time with little children and is constantly on "nose watch" at the first sign of a cold.  Kids' cold germs are the worst, aren't they?

Illustration Friday: "Suspense"

I was thinking about this idea all week but never had time to do an inked version!  This is my sketchbook rough, scanned and worked up in Photoshop.

Sorry that the card is late....

I'm quite late with our holiday cards this year so I drew this up today, made lots of prints, and put one in each card!  I hope everybody enjoys it.

Illustration Friday: "Separated"

Illustration Friday: "Round"

Hoopin'

This guy is my debut into "inking" digitally.  It kind of cracks me up to call it inking since there is no actual ink involved!  It did feel more like pen inking than I thought it would though.  And it was fun to play around with Photoshop CS5 with all its options for customizing brushes.  I colored the illustration with a brush I made myself from a sample of a traditional ink drawing.  A little art irony perhaps!  Just as a side note, I use an Intuos tablet, and an old one at that.  Still works great though.

Something occurred to me as I was coloring this.  As I'm "painting" (of course, without actual paint) and discovering how textures work in Photoshop, I'm thinking that visual interest generated by Photoshop could probably cover up for a lot of bad drawing!  I'm going to have to be mindful of that as I practice.