Scribbles from the Past

We're doing some house-cleaning and rearranging of late, and as I go through notes from old illustration projects I'm finding some amusing memories in the mix. Scanning a handful to share here!

This was an illustration project for a paleontology exhibition at the San Bernardino County Museum. The early sketch here is just exploring the general look of brown with white highlights on parchment-toned paper. For some reason I'm totally charmed by this early doodle.

From the good old days when I was drawing a lot of fossilized rodent teeth under the microscope! I focused on projects like these for about two years as an undergraduate, and occasionally revisit that subject matter when researchers start knocking at the door. Something about the simplicity of this pencil sketch, with the grid marks helping me keep in all in scale and the light touch on the shading, makes me happy.

Another undergraduate doodle, again with the rodent teeth (this time it's the chewing surface of a tooth from a vole). Once the graphite draft gets all worked out, I'd do the final illustrations in ink on plastic film with a steel-nib pen dipped into a jar of ink, totally old-school. Each of the little wriggly lines on this scrap is me testing the pen after a fresh dip into the ink to make sure it's not going to leave a big ink blot . (I suspect that's why the partially finished drawing here was turned into a test-scrap--blob attack!)

None of these scraps of paper are terribly important, really; but it's sure fun to look back at them and remember the experience of building up to the final illustrations, scribble by scribble. 

Paint to Pixels to Paint

A quick recap: The art for this year's Wildflower Festival poster started off as ideas that I sketched in watercolor, then was adapted to digital art that will work well on the t-shirt for the event. * Una breve recapitulación: El arte para el cartel del Wildflower Festival empezó como ideas explorada en acuarelas, y entonces fue adaptado a arte digital para el camiseta del evento.

Now, I'm doing the final art for the poster in watercolors. * Ahora, estoy pintando el arte final para el cartel, otra vez usando acuarelas.

Oh my goodness. After staring at pixels on the screen for half the weekend, I am really delighted by using real paint this afternoon. It flows! The pigment drifts around in its tiny puddle of water in the most delightful way! Even just "plain green" has a whole universe of color hidden inside of every wash. * Hijole. Me he enfocado en píxeles por la mitad del fin de semana, y ahora usar pintura verdadera es como una revelación. ¡Fluye! Los pigmentos flotan por ahí y por allá en sus charcos dimunitos de agua, y me encanta verlo. Hay un universo de color escondido en cada lavado de un verde simple. 

More updates as the paint dries! * Mas noticias cuando la pintura se seca!

T-Shirt Ideas

The poster design for the Wildflower Festival always gets converted into a t-shirt design as well. I often find that starting with a simplified set of colors that would translate well to screen printing helps me make some of the big decisions about tone and contrast, which then inform the more elaborate art for the poster. Here is a record of the day's experiments! * El diseño para el cartel del Wildflower Festival siempre se convierte en un diseño para camisetas, también. Para mí, trabajar con colored limitados que se traducen bién a serigrafía es útil para hacer los decisiones fundamentales sobre el tono y el contraste, lo que guía el arte mas detallado del cartel final. ¡Aquí hay mi documentación de los experimentos de hoy!