Einstein- Final Draft

Here's the final piece for Inspire Me Thursday's subject of "Einstein." To see the progression look below. There isn't too much change between the three.

Again, the quote is:
"Imagination is more important than knowledge.- Einstein

Snowflakes 3 (a card)

I loooove designing snowflakes. I think I might have found a new obsession. (There is a unified less-than-enthused "Yay" from my family.)

Yay!

Einstein First Drafts

The Einstein quote behind reads, "Imagination is more important than knowledge.- Einstein

I'm going to let it sit a bit before I critique, but the easiest is that the "I" and the "n" of the top line should move off the page a bit. The whole letter shouldn't be visible. Also once again I can't get the right color for the butterfly. I want a vibrant red and it keeps coming out duller than the pallet picker shows me. Hmmm...

Snowflakes 2

You guessed it, more snowflakes.

Snowflakes

I'm working on snowflake patterns for my winter digital work. There will be a lot of these in Craft Amor's future.

(click to enlarge)

Final Try

This week's theme at Inspire Me Thursday is "coffee break."

My graphic. The graphic's evolution is down below.

Coffee Break 2

Here's the evolution of what I worked on today for Inspire Me Thursday.

I took the McJumpquez's comment and added color to the steam. I have them red for love but the reds aren't translating well from my Photoshop file to the web conversion. I'm still mastering opacity so that's part of it.

I like:
I like the more dramatic values of the squares. I'm still deciding if I like squarer shape, and I'm leaning toward yes. I like the love in the base of the cup. I like how it creates the corner. Also the white line running behind the mug added a lot and helps the lettering placement make visual sense.

I don't like:
The color and value (but I think mostly value) of the steam hearts makes them hard to see. The cup jumps because it's an 8 while the dark hearts are almost the same value as the dark gray on the right. I prefer the hearts' hue in the bottom images, but the orange hearts stand out better.

I need to repeat the black somewhere or cut off an edge of the cup. I tried cropping the cup edge and it makes the image unbalanced. However the big block of an 8 value grabs focus instead of the steam. It's amazing actually that even though the hearts are red they command less attention than that (almost) black mug. Oh the power of Values.
(click for larger images)

Coffee Break

The Inspire Me Thursday's theme is "Coffee Break." Here's my first graphic although I'm not going to link until I've thought about it a wee bit. I like the heart steam but I'm not sure about the colors or the text. I look at it and sort of think, "What's the point of looking at this?"

No Drinking and Shooting

I made both of the papers used here. When I thought about combining them for a card the cup paper was blue in my mind. Blue and silver...because those are the paints I used. Yet when I glued it down against the copper brown color it seems very green. Green isn't bad but it has this camouflage feel that is a bit confusing. As in, "Why is my martini ready for hunting season and what does this have to do with thanks?"

I'm sending it anyway!

(ps- It's a thank you card for a friend who hosted a cast party at her house.)

Graffiti- First Attempt

I can never spell "graffiti" right. I have to spell check it every time.

OK, so this is my first attempt at vectors in the graffiti style. At 17, I visited Berlin and fell in love with graffiti. My German cousin is a graffiti artist and took me on an East/West wall art tour and since then I have sought it out in every country I've visited. I've still never seen anything as cool as Berlin but in the graffiti world that makes sense.

Lisa Engelbrecht mentioned graffiti a lot when we filmed her DVD. Now that I have my evenings and weekends back I'll be working on calligraphy and font play in general.

peace and joy

I'm giving in to the Christmas spirit. I'm not a humbugger but I find holidays overwhelming. I don't like crowds. I don't like guilt. I like mankind and the idea of being surrounded by those we love. But Christmas music has started in the stores, and I can feel my blood pressure creeping skyward. Instead of fighting it, I'm going to embrace it. And by embrace I mean start making cards. That's how I cope with something: make a card.

So here's attempt one of hopefully many. I like the swirls (which is a big deal actually for me) but I'm not sure about their placement. The card is trying to incorporate a few too many different design feels, and I think it hurts the cohesion. Also, it's heavy to the right.

Autumn Paper

Last night I worked on paper for autumn cards. I like how the paper turned out but realized the leaf print was too large for cards. It wouldn't read on a 4x6" area.

1. Brown paper and covered it in Mod Podge.
2. I cut out a stencil in cereal box cardboard and applied brown craft paint with the design.
3. I painted a green glaze (craft paint and Golden glazing medium) and used bubble wrap to create texture.

4. Back to the cardboard stencil with light violet glaze (purple craft paint and Golden glazing medium.) I also used the leaf shape remaining from the stencil cut and painted around the outside edge of it.
5. Stencil and copper paint. When the paint was still wet I used a rubber leaf stamp and stamped off the wet paint.
6. Second purple paint glaze. This one a bit darker.
7. Mod Podge.

Oh Sun, See You in June

This pattern is in exact opposition to what I'm seeing outside of my office window today. It's cold. It's dark. It's blustery and wet. September and October were some of the prettiest I've ever seen here in Oregon. November might just let us have it.

As I was browsing Michael's yesterday for post-Halloween sales, I realized that I often get excited about a holiday right after it's over. Maybe it's because the pressure is gone. So I've decided that I can make cards for any time of year at any time during the year. I'll just keep them and send them appropriately. I know this isn't a rocket science realization but it's funny how we need to give ourselves official permission to do certain things. I've given myself permission. I'm also writing it down (here) for when I forget.