New Year, New Blog, New Art

I don't really like to make New Years resolutions because, well...I pretty much suck at keeping them. Doesn't everyone? I guess that's why we just keep making the same ones year after year. Don't get me wrong, I know I need to change. A LOT. Instead of trying to lose 20 lbs, eat healthier, exercise more, and solve all of the world's problems by the end of the week, I have one goal: be a better artist. Wow, couldn't get more specific could I? Nope. Because I can't be more specific. I don't know what it means to be better or what it will take to be better, but I plan to try lots of different things and just see what happens.

I am instituting the Couch to Illustrator (C2I) program starting today. Instead of sitting on my butt thinking about what I could be doing to be a better artist, I'm going to actually do something. And maybe...just maybe, I will see a change. Hopefully this time next year I will be able to say that my little plan was a success.

The C2I program includes the following (I am open to more suggestions by the way):

1. DRAW EVERY DAY! I think this is pretty important because like most skills, if you don't use it, you lose it. Practice makes perfect. Insert any other corny saying that applies. I will draw something every single day. I'm not saying I will create a masterpiece everyday, but I will put pen to paper, brush to canvas, or stylus to tablet for at least 30 minutes each day. Perhaps it will be doodling, or maybe it will be a photoshop painting that takes me weeks to finally finish, but rest assured, something will be happening. Every. Day. (This is probably my most lofty goal, but I think it is also the most important)
2.  Blog once a week.  If I'm drawing everyday, I shouldn't have a problem scraping together a blog once a week.
3.  Figure out my own style.   There are so many illustrators whose work I love.  They all have such completely different styles.  I am a master at copying anything, but I haven't quite figured out my own personal style yet.  By drawing everyday, I'm hoping something starts to emerge. 
4.  Spend each month working on a different technique for creating art.  This is all part of figuring out my style.  I have the most experience with pencil drawing, so in order to diversify, I will spend a whole month learning and practicing different mediums.  I know a month isn't much time to master anything, but I think it is good enough to see where my strengths and weaknesses lie.  This list may change, but right now it looks like this:

• pen/ink
• gauche/gauche resist
• watercolor
• colored pencils
• oil pastels
• linocut
• illustrator
• photoshop
• painter
• scratchboard
• charcoal
• carbon dust

I think this month I will get back to basics and do some charcoal drawings.  The monthly mediums as I am calling them, may or may not be a part of my everyday drawing.  But I will make sure I devote plenty of time to each medium.

In addition to helping me improve as an artist, these things will help me build my portfolio.  My ultimate goal is that by the end of one year, I will good enough and diverse enough to start some freelance work on the side.  During the year I will also work on research, marketing ideas, and create a website.

So what was I saying about making impossible goals???  Wish me luck interwebs peeps.

tattoo design

My friend Kim asked me to design a tattoo for her. She really wanted her kids initials (J & A) using an elvish font. She was hoping to incorporate their birth dates as well (10/2 & 10/7). She wasn't sure how to bring all of this together, so that's when she called me in. Since she is a big Lord of the Rings fan I decided to incorporate a design from the movie. When I saw the White Tree of Gondor, I thought that would work well with the initials:

This is my initial marker sketch.


This is the cleaned up vector image.

Dubya in Photoshop

More fun painting in Photoshop......

Painting in Photoshop

This is my first attempt at painting an image in Photoshop. I inked the lines with the brush tool in Illustrator, then imported it into Photoshop. I also got a little texture happy, but I still think it looks cool.

Karate Stags

Art DNA logo: Part 3

I wasn't completely happy with the way the logo turned out, so I decided to play with it some more. The biggest problem I had was that the pencil and brush were not intertwined, and therefore did not really resemble a DNA double helix. So I went back to my original Illustrator file, selected the brush & pencil, then used the pathfinder to divide the paths. Once that was done, I selected the paths I wanted to move and colored them accordingly. It's still not perfect, but it's getting better.

Art in my DNA: The Sequel

I finished the logo that I started yesterday using Illustrator. The text was done using the scribble effect, and everything else was drawn with the pen tool.

A Scanner Darkly

This image was created using the tutorial here. It was painstaking work, and took the good part of a day, but I think it is worth it in the end.

Team Qualidation

Another logo idea...this is for my co-workers. I've recently learned a lot about making custom art brushes and transforming shapes. I like the retro look of it all.

more fun with the letter e

Ugly Fish Part Deux

Created in Illustrator CS2....I outlined the basic shape with the pen tool, colored it using gradients, then added the background.

Pattern

Pattern drawn in Illustrator.

I can use the pen tool!

I know it's nothing fancy, but I drew this in Illustrator completely with the pen tool! I was inspired by watching a tutorial on You Tube. The pen tool tutorial and many more are available at www.tutvid.com. Seeing it done makes much more sense than reading about it. I'm going to practice a lot, because if this is what I can accomplish after a 20 minute video, I may be well on my way to a thriving career quicker than I imagined.

Check my poopdeck!

Another baby design (available here). This one was my little sister's idea. I hope I did it justice. I'm really becoming addicted to using textures and adusting the transparency to give a different feel to the image.

Will Cry for Food

Available here!!!

latest t-shirt designs

Here are just a few of the latest designs I've added to my cafepress shop (www.cafepress.com/konite).

Konite Designs

These are 2 logos I designed for my Cafepress shop (www.cafepress.com/konite). I made the starburst design by first drawing an elongated triangle and they using the transform feature to rotate it every 20 degrees. I placed a colored circle behind it, and then the cutout square in front (2nd picture). In the first pic, I made the cutout square white. I also gave a brushstroke to the text in the first image.

Yankees Suck!!! Now with less copyright infringement!

You can buy this shirt here!!!!

Yankees Suck!

This is how I roll!

You can buy this shirt here!!!!