Category Archives: Art

Canadian Artist of the month Erica Messing

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I know I haven’t posted anything in quite awhile but I’ve been in the middle of a cross-country move and working without my trusty computer. Hopefully I’ll be up and running normally again in a short while. In the mean time I’d like to take this time to re-feature a painter from BC. I was recently given a piece or her art and absolutely love it. Her name is Erica Messing. You can see what she has to offer and read all about her at www.ericamessing.com. I hope you enjoy her work as much as I do. Here are just a few of her works.

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Fairy Book in Progress

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You’ll remember that I had several different methods that I was looking at for the art work to be used in my new fairy book; well I have finally decided how I want to proceed. I started with my usual pencil drawing, but instead of re-drawing it on to a canvas or water-colour paper I scanned it into the computer and started adding colour using Photoshop. For me it showed the best results for what I imagined this book to look like.

Here are samples of how I did this and what a two page spread will look like.The first photo is of the drawing without anything done to it. In the second one I’ve used levels in Photoshop to bring out the contrast a bit. The colour is added to the next one and the last is with the border and background colours as well as the description page with the lower flowers added for the text to fall between and the fairy wings on either side of the heading.

There is still a ton of work to be done on the project and I will probably make changes to backgrounds and maybe even colours but this is the general layout. Also I just want to mention that the words on the page are not necessarily how it will be in the final. I just thought it up while I was putting the page together. My process will be to draw all of the characters and scenes first then add the story to each illustration.

Let me know what you think. I’d love to know.

Having Fun With Fonts 2

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“Fun With Fonts” was so popular last time I thought I’d do it again. This time though, I’ve taken one phrase and used the same font for each example but a different effect. The font I used is “Americano” and the phrase is “A Rose”. I had a lot of fun working on each effect using both Illustrator and Photoshop to make each of the changes. Mainly I use Photoshop and some of the filters I have like Filter Forge and some of the filters that come with the program like drop shadows and bevels. Let me know which is your favorite.

Greeting Cards

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I love making greeting cards. I’ve been making them for a very long time now. My favourites to make are Birthday cards because you can make them a little more personal than Christmas, Easter or other seasonal cards.

I want to share with you the last card I made because it is one of my faves to date. I wish I had documented the whole process, but I didn’t, so I’ll just describe to you how I made it. I started with a rough sketch, then a proper drawing. Next, I scanned it into the computer, and the drawing was tweaked and manipulated a little more in Photoshop. I painted on the colour next using the Photoshop water-colour brush, and when I was satisfied with what I had done, it was added to Indesign to make the final layout for the inside and outside of the card. I proceeded to print out the card once, then just the front a second time. I cut and scored the card to the size I wanted. The second printout was used to cut out certain portions to be taped to the front using double-sided tape at different thicknesses. The paper I used was a watercolour paper for digital printing.  Here is the final result.

Photos in Photoshop

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I thought I’d try something a little different with my post this time.Instead of featuring art, an artist, graphic design or a photographer I decided to show a photograph and the fun you have using Photoshop CS4.
This program comes with all sorts of amazing filters. You can have lots of fun playing with your photos. Your friends will look at them and say “how did you do that”? I have taken two photos of dried guava that I took using natural light from a window. I used several of these filters to show the different effects. In the first set  I singled out one guava slice and played with combining colour & BW and a few other effects . In the second set I used only the filter and nothing else.
I hope you enjoy what I’ve done here and maybe even try something yourself and let me know what kind of results you came up with.
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