Category: thoughts behind the work

Illustrations, t-shirt design, thoughts behind the work

Retro couple romantic dancing and courting

Michele B. Naquaiya

I have redrawn and recolored a vintage comic book page in photoshop. The experiment took a long time and turned out very different than what I had pictured in my head. The line art was drawn in black and I thought I would play and make the shadows with line art as a design element. I colored the illustration using bright colors and brushes that mostly look like air brushes. The bubble texts shapes were done by hand as well. I love the dialog in the bubbles and it is circa 1940’s.
The font is “Hello Pencile” which is an art deco style. I think the most successful part of the drawing is the brilliance of her dress. The characters end up having the same hair color. I love her long yellow gloves and orange bracelet. Compositionally, the eye naturally goes to the bottom of the art where there is so much dark towards the activity of all the lines. This was fun. I have listed it on teepublic.

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

fantasy illustration, Illustrations, landscapes of imagination, thoughts behind the work

A paper mosaic garden

Michele B. Naquaiya

This is a watercolor that I did when I was in the process of building my house. I was working with real mosaics which I manufactured and installed myself. It was a very difficult process and many times was physically very painful. I did it as an act of love because I wanted to personalize my house and leave a stamp on it for history.

How sweet is that? I hope I will always be so naive as to think I could make any difference in this world. After the storming of the capitol in Washington D.C. yesterday, I was not at all surprised. I fully expect nobody will do anything about it. No answers will come as to why the police opened the gates to the anarchists and let them in. I don’t have much faith is the longevity of U.S. democracy. I don’t like to make political comments because people generally don’t want to hear them and deal with it in their own ways. I get that. The whole world is now confronted with massive injustice in most countries big and small.

Finding myself of my own accord living in another country that I love is a double edged sword. But for me, I had little choice but to do what I had to do considering my worn out circumstances and condition. I will never regret the move. Now that I have been here just shy of three years, and I have done everything in my power to secure my remaining days with what protection I could muster, the question for me now is…..what do I do now with my time?

With little or no power to change who I am and edit my history, I realize that for me one of my main talents has always been drawing and painting. That is something that no one could take away from me. Now above all the times in my life when I need it to hold on to, it has become a resource that gives me great joy.

Someone asked me why I’m doing print on demand. I guess it’s because it’s a forum that I can learn from and it gives me a good reason to go to work every day. It’s also fun to get a little feedback on my journey. I have always been a hard worker and at this stage, I could never change that habit. So here’s a little quote I wrote on my facebook page today which kind of sums it up…

“This is what I do to preserve my sanity. It’s about keeping up with technology and does not have much to do with art except in the simple process of art 101. It’s about learning new things. How can you be aware of what is going on in the world while realizing how few your options are to change it.? You do what you know best and hope sometime it might make a simple change for the better for whoever is willing to receive it. I think that is all any of us can do. For me drawing brings me to a higher place where I can escape and find peace.” I am focusing on silly stuff as well as trying to bring awareness to all the animals of our beautiful planet that are becoming extinct in my lifetime. In my lifetime and I can’t believe I am saying that. That’s hard to realize.

So here’s to positivity and hope for a better world.


Illustrations, Pen and Ink Drawing, people, simple photoshop, thoughts behind the work

Toulouse-Lautrec

Michele B. Naquaiya

Once upon a time in a city or state I was living in that I can’t remember, there was an exhibit of many original drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec. I had always admired his work but really never known much about his life. The exhibit was downstairs in a kind of basement setting. I remember it was very dimly lit down there to prevent light damage to the art. All the works were small and intimate. This was fascinating as most of us know he painted very large paintings and posters, depicting Paris life and the can can as we know it. This was because he was not just a painter but an illustrator and just as importantly, a caricaturist. The exhibit feature many caricatures of the everyday people in his life.

The drawings seemed to jump off the paper and hit me hard. They hit me in my head, in my stomach and I immediately loved him. I stayed for a very long time, reveling in the idea that when you die, you will not be dead. I had just met a truly great man. The idea grew in my head that If you were born to connect with the history of the world, you would leave something behind. Here in front of me was a little miracle of sorts. This tiny man with his mangled body and his ill fate somehow managed to make his whole life a statement. Tragic though it was, he somehow turned this disabilities into something wonderful people could use as an inspiration. It left a mark on history. He left a permanent mark on me. I hope he will never be forgotten .

This little drawing was actually two that I put together. I was just learning photoshop and combined the Paris background with the pen and ink. It was a lot of fun to do. I don’t know why but I ran across it in my files and it brought back memories.

It got me to wondering that if you were born with the stack of cards this man was dealt, would you do as well in history or would you be as forgotten as the tiny spec of sand on an ocean shore? Is the world the same now or is it completely different: more cruel, more hostile? Is there more hate and bigotry or is it more exposed? I think it’s the world is the same but the language of survival is different.

thoughts behind the work

Changes in the Marketplace

Michele B. Naquaiya

I’m done with my last ditch effort to draw Christmas. The month is half over and reality is here. I have the selected 2 or 3 simple gifts set aside for the holiday. I have been glued to the computer screen like some kind of crazy magnet in search of educating myself on what is going on with the internet. Have you ever awakened to the thought, Where the hell have I been the last few years? Well this has been my revelation since somewhere around October and I am hit with a major learning curve.

Now that all the very big life changing events have sorted themselves out, like buying and remodeling my house, serious health issues, the pandemic and my mascotas (my 3 cats and 2 shared cats) for a total of 5 fur babies to care for. Lately I have noticed a big drop in online sales lately. What I have learned recently since I’ve taken the time to look, is how much things have changed. The business of being noticed on the web is pretty impossible because the competition is so huge.

I have learned 99% of what you put on the web is discovered by the audiences’ keyword searches or tags. Of course I’ve known this for over 20 years but I’ve been personally lax in paying attention and with recent changes in my life. My compadre groups have been disbanded by the big parent sites who have turned us off and over to be on our own. Many have been forced to go to non professional groups like facebook etc, the standards have been watered down to pee water and the artist is once again pretty much on his own.

I realize my sales have come from friends and personal references and not the outside world of web surfers looking for their specific needs. Naw. It has become a jungle out there and lots of POD sites have instituted trend searches on their sites. Tons of You tubers are posting how to get noticed and giving their how to fixes for beating an impossible system. half a million searches a month? 7 million searches a month? So if you are not on page one or 2, it ain’t gonna happen. How can you get found?

There is a science to this as with anything else. I get it. I understand how the business has changed. But like anything else that has changed so drastically over the past 10 years I’m asking myself, what the??? So we have become flooded with thousands of people doing the same thing over and over, looking to break into the graphic and visual arts with little or no training and no taste. They all want to make a quick buck. They want to design a t shirt with no design skills. There are sites out there that offer them a way to do it. I don’t disparage them. But in reality, they can’t replace those people who actually do design and think and develop their ideas and come up with outstanding stuff.

There has to be more to a great t shirt that a pun, which I recall someone said was the lowest form of humor. I think about old tv shows and how they included the vaudeville clips which I always was embarrassed to watch. I can’t stand corney and it seems the world is full of it. And then….you see a genius work. An inspiration from a really good artist and all is forgiven. So I ask myself why do I bother? What is the point? I think the answer is that the people I meet and work with, my friends in the business inspire me. That includes the friends I made and kept over the years.

There is some wonderful energy out there but you have to look for it. Once you find it though in something that is beautifully drawn or executed with masterful skills, you have to stand back and be inspired. I find those darned sites every day. Too bad you have to go rummaging through a hoarders’ junk pile. Well, it’s the art that has always inspired me so I will keep enjoying the good stuff that is out there.

There is some wonderful energy out there but you have to look for it. Once you find it though in something that is beautifully drawn or executed with masterful skills, you have to stand back and be inspired. I find those darned sites every day. Too bad I have to go rummaging through a hoarders’ junk pile. Well, it’s the art that has always inspired me so I will keep enjoying the good stuff that is out there.