Holiday Illustration

Wishing everybody a fine holiday season and a fabulous New Year.

New Christmas Designs for t-shirt company:
http://ping.fm/Thv0s

Christmas Designs for T-shirt Company

I recently created some Christmas designs for "might tees" a seattle base t-shirt company that I encourage

you to visit for your next t-shirt purchases. When I work on new assignments I turn on the jazz music and let my mind wander. I work on several sketches before I scan my selections into Adobe Illustrator CS5. The sketches were a great way to work up some ideas and complete the coloring with Adobe Illustrator CS5.

Feel free to leave your comments or contact me for your next illustration assignment. Visit my website for more samples at http://www.paulweiner.com

 (Click on image to enlarge)

http://ping.fm/IEMd7 a fine Thanksgiving Day!

Wishing Everybody a Fine Thanksgiving

Swag and Sway...

Latest illustration showing a challenging urban roots home boy. It's not the motion but the swag that keeps me with the sway.

Bugs invading the yard...

I am glad the summer is over because these are the kinds of bugs I had to deal with this summer in the backyard...

One of my favorite holidays is just about here...

I am at the point where I am designing my costume for the big occasion. This is so exciting planning the stages of development and putting the costume together. When I am finish I hope to display the outfit but this will depend on the comments at the costume party in New Your City. Let's see what happens!

Thoughts About Online Creative Exposure, pt. 2

Linkedin
One of my favorite social media websites is Linkedin. This site differs from Twitter and Facebook because it is a site solely for professional and business community. On Facebook you can have a personal page for your friends and fan page for your business but not so easy
to setup. Twitter has no distinction between personal and business and you can tweet to both. I find it easy to use. Linkedin is for the professional person so it's best you keep your personal comments to yourself and on a business level. Linkedin has a very good research tool for contacting other companies and professionals for possible job positions. You are able to post your profile, experience and have a portfolio with images.

Limit Your Time Online
You need to decide what is a fair amount of time for using the internet and when to return to other business activities. There are times when I loose track of my time while surfing the web and should probably be working on my creative projects. I usually set a certain amount of time for online stuff and decide when to return to my business activities and being creative. I enjoy being creative and using my social network to contact my social contacts about my latest art projects.

Remain Positive and Productive
To be a successful artist takes more than just talent. It requires a lot of hard work especially during an economic downtown. You need to know yourself very well and decide when things are not going right and when it's time for a break. You might take a walk around the block or to your favorite park to clear your
head. Once you are recharged and have a fresh outlook return to your goals with a positive outlook. For a lot of creative professionals starting out takes patients especially with all the social media promotion, website advertising and business activities you pour your energy into. I have realized after many years that I wasted not just my energy but was very impatient. I gradually realized that there is a lot about the creative profession that is out of my control. I am now using my time effectively while I pursue my interest and love for the illustration profession. Remember to be patient and strive to be creative.

Fall My Favorite Season

The autumnal equinox starts the beginning of fall. Good-bye summer!

Paul's new blog post, "Thoughts About Online Creative Exposure."

Thoughts About Online Creative Exposure, pt. 1

My online presence and success has improved since I started
using internet resources available to the creative community.
Placing a blog on my website makes it possible to be actively
involved by displaying articles that other creatives should find
useful. Joining social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook
have professional benefits. These websites have increased my
networking with colleagues, increased my knowledge about
business aspects and increased sales. I send out e-mails with
attachments periodically that keep me in touch with my database
clients. I recently started sending out my first newsletter using a
site named,"Your Mailing List Provider". The web site provides an
easy and convenient way to store my clients information. I really
enjoy another feature that lets me input my html newsletter code and send directly to my clients stored
on my database. Creatives should also consider exploring the variety of free and inexpensive websites
that exist on the web. I am currently a member of Jacketflap.com, CreativeShake.com and
IllustratorsInk.com. I find it exciting experimenting with these websites and discovering the possible
benefits. The point I want to make is creatives need to get their work out in front as many viewer as
possible.
Use Your Website
Having an online website is very important and unless you promote it no one will know you exist. If you
read the above information, you already have some ideas. I am continuously reworking my website with
new images, new links and blog articles to stand out from my competition. Exploring the internet is a
great way to find new professional groups to join and interact with. I search out blogs to leave my
comments and opinions on sites. You should make an effort to interact with your peers so that it
increases your exposure as a professional.
Offer Your Help
It has been my experience that "What goes around comes around". What I mean by this statement is
that we should be willing to offer our advice without expecting something in return. You will find when
we offer our assistance our efforts probably will be returned in kind. We are all in this together and as
a creative collective we need to enrich and keep our creative community growing.

New Photoshop Illustration

I was exploring Photoshop CS5 and created another in my series for dinosaurs.

Are You Familiar With Adobe's CS5 Width Tool?

Adobe Illustrator CS5 has some amazing tools worth exploring and improve your illustration skills.
One of my favorites is the width tool. This tool created the figures to the left. I will explain below
how this was done.
Using my mouse I selected the pen tool with my mouse and drew a vertical black line. Any color will do depending on what you are after. Refer to sample (A) below.
I select the width tool with my mouse and mouse over any part of my drawn vertical line a point immediately appears. Refer to samples (B) and (C) below. Pressing down with my mouse and dragging to the opposite direction or dragging inward a shape begins to appear. If I press down on my mouse and slide along the vertical line the shape changes. The more points I establish the more shapes will be created. Refer to sample (D) below.




I’ve noticed that selecting the command key, option or shift key on the Mac or control or alt keys on Window’s will affect the points therefore your shape. The control key will bring up a menu of options such as “undo with point change, redo width point change, etc. If you select a point along the edge of the shape and select the command key, the shape will expand on both sides. When I select the option key only one side or point will expand and change the shape.
Once I am satisfied with my shape I will embellish it with additional elements from the pen tool. I will touch-up the shape with the paint brush tool to create features for the face or added details for the clothing items. Refer to sample (E) below. I would encourage you to explore and experiment, discover how many unusual shapes you can create.
I would like to hear from you about your own creative possibilities. Send me some comments.

New Children's Artwork

Hot off the palette. New Children's artwork with radiant colors.

Illustrations Created for Yow Canada Inc.

I completed a series of electronic illustrations for Yow Canada Inc. The illustrations will appear on their website about "Work Place Violence and Harassment. Adobe Illustrator CS5 is an exciting application to use to create vector graphics.

Width Tool in Illustrator CS5 Creates Figures

This sample piece was
created with Adobe Illustrator
CS5 (width tool). An explanation
will be supplied shortly how
these figures were created.

Paul adds new artwork to website gallery
Check-it out: http://ping.fm/D1YAR

Children Book Illustration Videos

A few weeks ago I received an
e-mail notice from Dani Jones
(Illustrator) who was plugging a free
weblink to a video on instructional
drawing techniques by Will Terry. Will is a well known childrens book
illustrator who is offering a number of video instructions on topics about his own tehnique as a childrens
book illustrator. His free video demonstrates his drawing techniques viewers will find very informative. After
viewing his video I decided to explore his blog and website portfolio. His web site is filled with exciting colorful illustrations. I especially like "Sledding".
I decided to view his video on "Digital Painting in Adobe Photoshop". I was very curious how he uses Adobe Photoshop and achieve the colorful style when he paints. The amount is a modest fee for $29.99 and well worth the money. After making my payment to Paypal I started viewing. Will begins his lesson by offering tips on using Adobe Photoshop using only the applications tools he needs to accomplish his work. He mentions setting up his image size and what modes he prefers to use. He demonstrates his next step and brings his sketches and thumbnails together. This finished grayscale image is scanned and placed on a separate layer. I did enjoy the section about using brushes and what he does to adjust the size, opacity and paint flow. His two main modes are normal and multiply making it possible to see the color above without affecting the grayscale image below. Will explains his method for creating his textured brush. He starts by using a house paintbrush and gel medium and applies this medium to the paper. He lets the painted paper dry and applies another layer of gel medium to bring out the peaks and valleys. Once the paper has dried he scans this into the computer and saves it so he can use and turn into a textured brush. Will continues and selects "Define the Pattern" to save the texture as a brush.
There are a number of illustrators on the web who explain how they achieve their own textured brushes. I encourage you to explore and experiment to achieve your own textured brushes. He goes through a series of steps to composite his sketch so he can scan and place this sketch on a separate layer in Photoshop. Another layer is added so he can paint over the grayscale image. He quickly adds paint on this layer and fills in as much of the blank area's as possible. I discovered that Will's paintings are created painstakingly slow. He adds color here and there or may decide to eliminate an entire area of color he just painted. I won't explain everything Will's video has to offer so viewers can discover for themselves what he has to offer.
His years of experience have given him the knowledge and patience to achieve the amazing work that he does.
Will Terry is not an Adobe Photoshop power user but he doesn't have to be, he knows just enough about Photoshop to complete his work. He may use the same circle brush for coloring, maybe change the size or hardness and thats all he needs to do and complete his work. I found watching this video was worth the time and money. I strongly suggest that you explore his videos as well. You can view all his videos at
http://willterry.com/coursesamples.html

Creating Illustrations for Canadian Company

Paul is creating several electronic illustrations for Yow Canada.
The illustrations will appear on the companies occupational health
and safety web site as well as in advertisements. The illustrations
will reinforce the text and assist those who are committed to
occupational health and safety issues. Yow Canada established
in 2001 provides high quality occupational health and safety
training and materials to aid Canadians. The group of electronic
illustrations will depict "Work Place Violence and Harassment.
I will post some of the illustrations once I have clearance from
the client.

Night Out

This past Friday evening I was in need of a break and decided to visit the South End in Boston. I ventured over to an art exibit opening at Space 242 titled "Good vs Evil". I didn't realize what to expect until I arrived to a packed gallery with an assortment of local artists and admirers.
The show consisted of paintings, three dimensional pieces, photographs and a series of animations. The overall style of artwork was heavily influenced by pulp magazines and retro-comicbooks from the last thirty years. The exhibit probably doesn't appeal to the general public but for those of you who appreciate an alternative to the visual arts this is your exhibit. The show displayed all sorts of surreal bizarre images that can only come from the fertile imagination of todays young visual artists.
I don't have time and writing space to give credit to all those who participated so I will mention just a few. Alyssa Adams has a painting titled" Mosquito Man". Her painting is unusual and strange with a large green mosquito crouched with a homely face holding what looks like a glass of blood. There is a black silhouette of a mosquito floating off to the right side. Alyssa uses color with lots of tone and this adds to this strange world she has created.
Allison Blackwell is another artist who created three pieces of art titled, "Star Jammer", "Super Roller Girl" and "Blue Streak". The female figures dominate her work and show boldness and strength. She uses pen and ink with a brush to define each woman that causes each figure to jump out towards the viewer. In each of Alyssa's paintings she has a solid area of bright color balance her black and white brush strokes and create a visual balance.
The last work of art I will mention is a three dimensional piece by Tom Torrey. He creates a Batman/Spiderman character sitting on a blue finished boat with an out-of-order sign placed to the left side. The superhero figure looks so amusing as he sits in this boat looking forward maybe thinking about his next cape crusade. He uses a fair amount of black mixed with his colors. Tom's colors have more tone and doesn't have the same brightness as in Alyssa's paintings.This creates for a far different mood for the viewer.
For those of you living or visiting the Boston area and looking for an alternative visual experience I suggest you visit the gallery Space 242. This exhibit will transfer you to another dimension and most importantly give you a well deserved break.
Visit Space 242 / 242 E. Berkley St.,2nd fl. / Boston , MA 02118
Check out the gallery att: http://www.space 242.com

Lighten Your Day with "SteamBoat Willie"

There are so many great animations from Walt Disney's early
days but one of my favorites is "SteamBoat Willie". I love all
the sound effects especially the scene with the goat eating
the music sheets and the guitar. The amusing clever animation
frames synchronized with the music,"Turkey in the Straw" is so clever and entertaining.
Check out this short animation to lighten up your day at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TPbpvP-okM