Happy accidents - what to do next?
Sometimes, when working in Photoshop, or sometimes when print-making, I come across an image which catches my attention. Not because I intended to produce it, it was created despite my not paying any attention to it. Here is a case in point: a 'holding' page for colouring in the shading on some clowns, it's a 'duotone' file set to a dark earthy brown, it's there so i can drag layers into it, and immediately drag them back, now coloured. It's such a quick process that I pay little attention to this 'holding' page. When I closed all the pages I was actually working on - this was left, I like it, it was never suppose to be created as artwork, but I like it. What to do with the effect/artwork, I don't know yet!
'Dog Comics Two' is out now!
I've been waiting for this day, and now it's here. I was fortunate to have been asked to contribute, and among good company, with illustrators I admire! It can be bought here: Often and Mistakes
Here's the cover, with a list of contributing illustrators, and a few images from my contribution.
Bee, just a bee.
That's right, it's just a bee. BUT, this bee is going to cause problems for one character inparticular...
Glow of the clown
This is a detail of an image I'm working on. It owes a lot to what I observe in lithograph prints, but it's all drawn and textured and assembled digitally. A happy accident occurred when moving layers around, and now I'm very interested in these colorful glowing effects.
Happy Christmas!
I'm not one for wishing a 'Happy Christmas' too early, but what the hey! Why Not...HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
"To see the dog laugh."
This is a drawing I did for 'Dog Comics 2'(published by Often and Mistakes). I think my dog characters are improving (you can be the judge of that!). You can buy 'Dog Comics 2' at this LINK
Dog ~ Tea drinker.
Once again,I wanted to explore what this dog could do, in particular how it would pick up a cup.
Climbing
This drawing is to test the anatomy I had been drawing of a dog, at this point I needed the dog to do somethings in a little more human way.
Chess: After the great battle (sketch)
This is based on true life events. Me and my son do indeed have great battles (in between chess moves!).
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Clowns and Ladders
More clowns, this time simplified even more, I think I'm getting ready to screen print this one. Feel free to encourage me by saying that you would buy one!
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Confessions of a Screen Printer
Today I used my new screen printing equipment for the first time. With my son’s 6th birthday looming I decided to screen the invites to his party, I really wanted to give the never-used-before-equipment a go.
The process is simply using speedball ‘screen drawing fluid’, and speedball ‘screen filler’, and completely cleaning the screen between each new drawing for the next colour.
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You can see the print above with just one colour, but here it is with two colours. Complete with mis-registration!
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Things I learned today are:
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And, there's always the happy accident, here's one without the blue, and it's growing on me, I think I may prefer it!
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How much extender base to use to get the right transparency in the ink (the blue was the first colour I tried, and when I got to the yellow I’d just about figured it out, which was around 50/50 consistency). When I next buy extender base, I will buy a BIG one.
It’s easier to draw the design onto the screen first rather than ‘tracing’ by eye through the screen (the difference is that if you don’t draw onto the screen first you are using one eye consistently to view the image from above, which I found to be a bit of a strain).
No matter how much I lined my paper up to the registration cards I stuck in, I found it best to ‘pause’ flooding the screen, put the paper under, put the screen down, check registration, lift the screen again then flood the screen ready to pull the ink. The ink/mesh seemed fine while I ‘paused’, it didn’t clog up.
Things I tried along the way, but didn’t turn out the way I wanted:
I tried using a ‘stencil’ method, of cutting out areas (this is suppose to be good for simple areas – like the 3 bears for example), the I had a reoccurring problem of the paper warping, and ink smudging. The paper I used was a baking paper; I think it was too thin.
Things I will be really looking into:
Designing to get a third colour from a mix of two colours, this is really not easy. I can feel a ‘still-life’ coming on to try this out.
Octo-alert
I don't usually play with the settings for 'Hue and Saturation' in Photoshop, but I did for the sea colour in this image I'm working on. It's an image of sea creatures; they are creatures I rescued from being discarded, when they were left out of a seafaring story. So I'm going to turn them into an image in their own right. This sea colour may change again before the sun sets!
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But GIANTS' exist... right?
This is a conversation I had with my son, it serves as a warning to remember how stories sink deep and can surface quiet quickly, the giant my son was talking about was from a day stomping around Cornwall and spotting St Michael's Mount over the bay, two years earlier (when he would have been around two and bit years old).
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Page from a sketchbook.