Category: simple photoshop

animals, dogs, Illustrations, simple photoshop, Tablet Drawing

drawing dogs–Fenway

Michele B. Naquaiya

For a while, I’ve decided to do some digital drawings of dogs. This is Fenway and I saw his photo on my friend, Melinda Dalke‘s site. She said ok go ahead and draw him, so here he is. Every dog has a special personality and I thought he was adorable. The way he cocks his head and his eyes are pretty captivating.
This is the first completely digital sketch so I’ve learned a lot about which are the best brushes to use. He has a lot of yellow but in real life his colors are much more subtle. I used hand drawn lines to add a little more texture. Here he is on my products.

alphabet, birds, fantasy illustration, Illustrations, kids, simple photoshop, whimsy

Alphabet letter F

Michele B. Naquaiya

Here is the letter F for the alphabet book I am working on. This fantasy bird is completely created with digital feather brushes. I had a lot of fun doing it and even though it isn’t a popular subject, it’s what I want to do. I picture it as a book in English and Spanish. This could be a complete time sink me thinks. I’m have a habit of doing projects that are too big for me but here goes. This is not a kids’ color palette but that can be changed. I have put it on products as a tester to see what people think of it. Personally, I like it a lot but I’ve been known to be prejudice.

Here it is on some products to have fun with.

alphabet, fantasy illustration, fonts, Illustrations, simple photoshop, whimsy

Original Nymph

Michele B. Naquaiya

Sometimes I see things that aren’t there. When I check and look again, they are gone. I see little creatures in the forest. Here is a little androgynous imp that I found in the cool forest. I have been playing with painting with light and this is a first attempt to use some overlay filters with different opacities. fun. The fonts are JellyBelly for nymph and StrokeDimension for the word original. In both fonts, I have used an additional 2 colors.
If you want to check it out, here’s a link on FineArtAmerica.

Illustrations, scratchboard drawing, simple photoshop, t-shirt design

Playing with the moon outside her gate

Michele B. Naquaiya

I guess you could call this a composite drawing and the category would be surrealist art. That’s ok with me. It is a composite because the Hopi girl with firecrackers is an old scratchboard from years ago.

I masked her and her firecrackers out from the black textured background and got the idea for the gates from a snapshot I took from the tv in an old black and white basil rathbone film of Shirlock Holmes. I loved the moodiness of the view of the foggy atmosphere and the far away landscape in the film.

So I started putting pieces together in photoshop 2018… I just wanted to basically create a mood with the art. It went through a lot of changes. I had an idea in my head of a piece of art where the subject was coming out of the background frame. This turned out differently., Don’t ask me how I ended up with this but that a learning curve for you.
As usual, the problem with this kind of art is that it’s really hard to put into a specific category for commercial use. So when I go to fill out tags for it, the category that came the closest was I’m guessing is surrealistic. Who would buy this and how would they search for it in their tags? I would buy it since I like it but what do I know. I’m prejudice.
Nonetheless, it was fun and fairly quick and turned out completely different than I thought. I’m perfectly ok with that since I would not even do it if it wasn’t fun. Here’s the link if you want to check it out…..

fantasy illustration, Illustrations, simple photoshop, t-shirt design, thoughts behind the work

Love and hot cocoa t shirt designing

Michele B. Naquaiya

More line art and experimenting with a few coloring details and playing with fonts. I drew this in photoshop and used a quick method of coloring under the line art. This is not the professional way to do it but…I redrew this so many times, I just wanted to finish it. For a comic book the professional way is to make the flats first and then color, and then render.

I know this art is pretty flat and there is no light source and no rendering, but…. I wanted something quick to try out a few shades of separate colors to see how they would stand out on their own on various fabrics. I am happy with the four shades of green and the four shades of blue in the fairy’s wings. They do give the art a little depth. I think the shades could have been a little stronger with each step though. It did load well and you can see a distinction in the colors on all kinds of fabrics. I put a lot of thought into placing a heart above her head to show what she is dreaming about–love. I had one more heart but decided that one was better than two–less is more. The cocoa cup color repeats in her dress. I’m hoping the cup starts to resemble a magic globe that she is dreaming into.

I’ve been studying the art of the tshirt for a while now. Aside from the obvious there is a lot to this medium. I am happy today as I had a lightbulb moment last night, looking at some of my favorite t-shirt artists and making mental notes on their thought processes.

I’m hoping to do this again and to see if I can build up a little speed. Another note is that the text and image can’t have much space between them because when it’s printed as a sticker, the parts should always be connected. I did color animation cells al long time ago and we had similar issues. fun.

Here’s a link to see the product