alphabet, dogs, horses, cats, fonts, Illustrations, kids, simple photoshop, step by step, how to, thoughts behind the work

You’re On a Roll

youre-on-a-roll-web

When it comes to humor, everybody has an opinion.  The world revolves around people putting opinions of  other people’s creative work into a niche.  Critics enjoy this because they can sit outside and look at it and not be threatened as they are only observers and not the creators.   The truth is, corny or not, people laugh at puns and somebody always will–so let’s move on.  What’s the fuss about all this?

Well, this was an idea I had and was reluctant to proceed because it is a classic “pun” or “play on words”.    My thought was to put a baby in the hot dog bun and draw that.  I got cold feet.  So I did this instead.  Call me a coward but I’m trying to put fonts and images together as a self-motivated interest and I’m trying to stay true to my goal.  That’s my newest M O, so for the sake of being a little more traditional and not wanting to offend anybody, here’s the newest drawing.
I sketched the hot dog in the bun with a ball point pen and scanned it in greyscale. Then opened it in photoshop and painted it in with a few semi-transparent shades of various colors, making a layer for each major item: hot dog, bun, and of course the text.  Did the same for the little dog.  For me, drawing simply like this in photoshop is super easy and very rewarding.  When it was completed, I saved it as a psd file and then removed the background and saved it as a png. Then I combined all the artwork layers.  I am sure this is not the preferred method, but I just plow ahead and do whatever works.  When I grow up, I want to be able to use AI and know what I’m doing.  After years of PSD, I just keep trying and keep learning.  I hope to learn one new thing every day.

When I studied graphic design in college, I drew in AI all the time and was never intimidated. I remembered putting images on to a thumb drive and then bringing them to a professional printer and staring in awe and these gorgeous glossy huge prints spit out my artwork.  I was in love.  Now after all these years, the program is scaring me.  But Adobe is  making improvements that certainly make it more intuitive.  I will continue to plow ahead in the hopes my memory comes back and I can learn new things.

The wonderful font is Hansel  Texture and I think it’s great.  I will be using it more I hope but this is the first time.  I am keeping all these images super simple and super big.  I like seeing them big on t-shirts and I like seeing them on kids’ onesies too.  That’s where I’m at and wow, how fun would it be to see this on adult onesies, if there were such a thing.

Here’s the art on some stuff.

alphabet, animals, fantasy illustration, Illustrations, kids, Pen and Ink Drawing

Fun Frog with alpha-blocks

frog-color-text-web

Here’s a leaping frog full of color and maybe a little nonsense. He is painted in watercolor and drawn with a crow-quill pen. I have colored and added a stylized text to match his personality.
Frogs are a subject of fun, ridicule, and story-telling.  Have fun with this. You may need one in your collection.
Here’s the link to purchase.

animals, flora and fauna, Illustrations, Odd Little Stories, thoughts behind the work

I love the Forest with deer

deer-LUV-forest-web

I’ve seen lots of deer in the forest because I lived in the northwest for a long time.  How can you describe them except to say they are very sweet and can win you over.  Although I remember many mornings shaking a string of empty soda cans at them to make as much noise as I could to chase them away from my flowers and plants.  They always won and grabbed some nibbles before they fled.

Or when driving down a main street, a mom with her twins would come out of the woods suddenly and very slowly cross the street.  They understood traffic and I swear they knew stop signs. The only really dangerous  part is when they would try to cross a main highway from the woods to get to the cool riverbank.  All  you could do is slow down and pray they make it.

check out my online store to see this little guy on various products

animals, Illustrations, kids

Baby Goat is a Kid

baby-goat-web

Who does not like a baby goat?  They are like wise old men turned into babies, or maybe the other way around?  This is a little sketch from one of my many sketch books.  This one was done in quick pen with a few watercolor washes.

I am playing with matching fonts to my art.  I am very fond of this font, which is called “stroke dimension”.  Maybe a 4H kid out there would like this.  Here’s the store to get a t-shirt for a kid.