Greetings from Snow City

During the month of December, I participated in a sketch challenge, doing a sketch per day of anything related to December, holidays or the holiday season. Here's a finish of one of those sketches. At first, I titled this post "Saying Goodbye to Winter," but here in New England, we hardly had a winter. Certainly, hardly any snow. But, it is April. He is waving. He could be saying goodbye. However, I have a bunch of snowfolk sketches that I plan to do in color. You may be seeing them from time to time all year long. So, maybe I should call this guy the Invincible Snowman?  Wait.... I have it! I'm changing the title to "Greetings from Snow City!" Yes! That's where snowmen go after they melt. They never REALLY go away! I'm sure of it!

The Know-er or the No-er and the No-Bull dog. An After Hours Drawing

This is a fictional character in a fictional world. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. This is an After Hours Drawing where the pencil leads me wherever it wants to go and here's where we wound up. If you'd like to see more After Hours Drawings, just click on that phrase to the left under "LABELS."

IF - Suspense - Digital Baby Steps - Keyboard Commands

This week's prompt for Illustration Friday is "Suspense." It happens that I had this drawing that I did one night, as part of my After Hours Drawing series. That's really just stuff that I doodle when I don't have the energy to work on other things such as actual jobs, work for specific things such as cards, apps (yes, I'm working on one.) or book dummies. In other words, things that impose certain limitations.  

So, one night, after hours, I just started drawing and this is what happened. (That's a characteristic of After Hours Drawing - whatever happens happens.) To put it up today for IF, I did my usual scribbly rendering and then scanned it into Photoshop and combined it with a background color. I have some screen shots below.

This is NOT a finished piece! Eventually it will be full color. Perhaps a limited palette, but not this limited. Just keep in mind, this is only the beginning. I couldn't resist adding the light from the partially open door, hoping that it creates some suspense.  In addition to more color, I may use different textures in different layers. That's something I want to experiment with.

This shows the background color that I wanted for this piece and the scanned sketch side by side. This is all that fit on my screen, but it was enough to do the job. The background is created by going to file - new and making a blank document either the same size as the sketch or larger. (If it's larger, it can be cropped, but it must be large enough to hold the sketch, so  can't be too small.) Pick a color and drop it in with the paint bucket tool.

Then, drag the sketch onto your background and make it a multiply layer. It will blend the sketch with the background color. I LOVE this! It doesn't happen automatically, so don't panic! Just see below:

The multiply layer is created by selecting multiply in the drop down menu in the upper left of the layers palette. You can see, I selected multiply for my sketch - the sketch layer is highlighted) This blended my drawing with the blue background. And that's that!

On a little different digital note, last time, I wrote about some favorite keyboard shortcuts. My friend Barry Gott told me about something called ikey which seems like the mother of all keyboard commands. I'm still learning how it works, but Barry is a genius and super techie. When Barry speaks, I listen! So, here's ikey. Have a look! I'll be adding more friend's favorite keyboard commands in the future.

Thanks for stopping by!

IF- Forward - Digital Baby Steps

Well, she certainly is leaning forward. I also call this one, " Gone With The Wind." No, just kidding. I like the way this one looks with the type in place. Sorry, can't share that now.  But, I can share the image. Part of an ongoing project.

As my Digital Baby Steps contribution for this one, I'll share a few keyboard commands that are my favorites. Believe me, I am still learning!  So, these are Baby Steps for sure, but very useful. 

Command S - Save

Command Z - Undo

Command Zero - Fit on screen

And, a new one that I just learned from Tracy Bishop:

Command - option Z - multiple undos by going through the history palette.

I just tried this one! Excellent! Thank you Tracy!

Be sure to check out Tracy's portfolio here. Awesome work!

I plan to share more favorite keyboard commands in future posts, as I learn them from friends, so stay tuned if you are learning, as I am! 

IF-Grounded and a Belated Happy New Year!

I hope it's not too late to wish all my friends a Happy New Year! This piece is a finish of one of the sketches I did during the month of December. The challenge was to do a sketch a day. What made it really fun was that I did it with two fantastic illustrators, Laura Jacobsen, and Linda Silvestri. We called it HoHoDooda and you can see what I did by clicking on that word under labels to the left. You can do the same on Laura and Linda's blog to see all their Decembers drawings. It was great fun to see what amazing, beautiful work they came up with day after day. Much wonderful work was done! Now, the fun will be to see if some of those sketches make it to finishes. That wasn't part of the commitment, but you never know.

If you'd like to see my sketch for this piece, you can find it here. You'll also discover something that I changed my mind about.

For Illustration Friday, this Mr. Snowpeep may be a little bit high from his bottle of Champagne, but I think he's well grounded. He's not going anwywhere. Or, is he? Well, that could be a whole other story, couldn't it?

HoHoDoodah - Dec 30

A toast to Santa's mission accomplished. A toast to all the elve's hard work and magic. And a toast to my doodling pals Linda and Laura for a job well done.

HoHoDooda - Dec 28

And now there are three. My trail of elves is growing. Slowly, and not so surely, but it's growing! Many tweaks needed here. This exercise of having to post something every day is good though. Small steps are better than no steps, right?  Busy holiday days, but carving out at least a little time each day to draw something on the side is good. (Yes, this is holiday week around here! On it goes. Poor me!)

Be sure to see my pals, Laura and Linda's blogs. My elves want to see too!

Thanks for stopping by!

HoHoDooda - Dec 27

I need a trail of elves chasing across a spread. So, I added another to the elf in my last post. Guess what I might be drawing tomorrow? There should be about 4 or five total in this piece.

I've missed a few days of posting drawings. And I mean missed! I was sorry to have to give it up for a few days. But, we had a wonderful Christmas, so if I had to miss, missing for something that nice was worth it! I'm a lucky person.

Be sure to look and see what Laura and Linda have been up to now! I'm still catching up myself!

HoHoDoodah - Dec 22

Just a wee one tonight. My Santa story is going to need a lot of elves. 

In the meantime, maybe you could  think of this little guy as sliding into Christmas. That's kind of how I feel anyway. Will I make it? Will I make it?

Be sure to have a look at Laura and Linda's blogs. Such great work!

HoHoDooda - December 21

Today I'm back to a study of Santa for my Santa story. Finally, he's slumped into an easy chair, but he's cold and exhausted. Not to worry! There's a happy ending. But, did I mention..... it's a SECRET!

Be sure to see what Laura and Linda have been up to. No secret there! They are doing great stuff!

I hope you are warm and cozy and well rested!

HoHoDooda - December 20

The gift of giving!

Now give yourself a gift and see what Laura and Linda have been up to!

HoHoDooda - December 19

I think this guy's orange, carrot nose will be a bit red.   

Be sure to see what Laura and Linda have drawn today. They are really, really good!

HoHoDooda - December 18

This one speaks for itself.......I hope.

I'm sure that Laura has done a lovely, elegant drawing, and Linda has worked her magic too. Me? I'm just getting loopy. But I'm having a good time.

HoHoDooda - December 17

A bunny's gotta do what a bunny's gotta do.

Let's go see what's happening at Laura's blog and Linda's. 

HoHoDooda - December 16

Ho Ho, Hello!

(Keeping it simple tonight!)

Be sure to see what Laura and Linda have been up to!

HoHoDooda - December 15

Here's another Mrs. Claus, with a few friends. This drawing is part old and part new. I think I like the Mrs. Claus in my previous posts a little better. They are very similar after all. Maybe they are sisters.  I'm sure this lady is a very nice person, but I'm just partial to the other one for this story. 

Don't you kind of wonder what they are looking at on the opposite page? I hope so! But, if you do, I'm sorry. Top secret. Now I feel like a grinch. But it is was it is........ SECRET!

Stop by at Laura and Linda's to see what they have been up to with their daily December doodles. I think we are giving ourselves the gift of a lot of material to work with when this is done. 

HoHoDooda - December 14

My, what long arms you have, Mrs. Claus. And those legs are a little weird too. But, we are a little tired tonight and want to work on something in COLOR!!! So, we'll take another look at you tomorrow. Or .... not. In the meantime, have fun! Keep dancing!

And you, gentle readers, dance on over to Laura and Linda's and see what their dancing pencils have been up to!

Tootles!

HoHoDooda - December 13

Mrs. Claus. Or, maybe this is a lady auditioning for the role of Mrs. Claus in my Christmas story. I'd like my Mrs. Claus to look grandmotherly, but active and "with it." I may need a little help with the "with it" part, (oh dear!) but I'll give it a whirl. Speaking of which, I know she likes to dance. And she does aerobics and free weights. Come to think of it, Mrs. Claus may need her own book. She's that cool.

And speaking of cool.... See what Linda and Laura have been up to today. The daily doodle is doodling along.

Note to self: When scanning, watch out for the black line thing. It looks really dumb.

HoHoDooda - December 12

The last Santa.....at least for awhile. I never mentioned that I wanted this Santa to be leaning into the wind on a blustery day. So, I think this one is kind of combination of the previous Santas with a bit of that wind added. I think his pose could be exaggerated a bit more. (I think! And hope I can pull that off!) It's time to put the Santa's aside for awhile. I love the luxury of doing that and coming back later with fresh eyes.

Be sure to see Laura and Linda's wonderful doodles (they are always so great!) and thank you for stopping by!

HoHoDooda - December 11

Ooops. Ran out of paper  on the left there. But you can use your imagine and I can fix later. A little livelier Santa tonight. That's always good. Perhaps I should have mentioned, in this scene Santa is happy about the winter weather. I hope this doesn't sound like an excuse, but because this Santa is for a particular story, I feel that he has to stay within  certain perameters. If I were brainstorming Santas for cards or giftware, I think I'd try a lot more stylization and variation. Does that make sense? I could be wrong, but that's the way it feels to me anyway.

See what Linda and Laura have been up to on this doodle day! And thanks or dropping by!

HoHoDooda - December 10

Trying out another Santa. A more conventional, everything round kind of Santa this time.

To see what this Santa series is about ckick here. I'm not saying which I like best until I squeeze out another one 1 or 2. But I am definitely leaning in a certain direction. Trying to keep an open mind and sharpened pencil at hand though.  Who knows? Maybe I'll have a change of heart as this Santa changes his look. 

To see what this HoHoDooda thing is about click here. 

Also, have you ever noticed that if you click on the name of a blog, you'll see all the posts? I found that out by accident one day. Handy! If you've been directed to a single post, clicking the title of the blog will bring you back to the complete blog. I'm probably the last person in the universe to have figured this out, but in case I'm maybe 2nd to the last, I'm sharing.

Most important, click Laura and Linda to see what my doodling partners have been up to. So far, between the 3 of us, 30 Holiday doodles. Good solid start, I'd say!