Journal: Show & Tell

I missed two weeks posting, but I made some cool stuff!

Well, I missed a couple of weeks posting my journal, so I’m not going to share every little thing I’ve made. I’ll just show the highlights. I really enjoyed putting this one together. I haven’t really sat back and looked at what I’ve made since my last journal. I think I made some really cool things.

I did hold to my goal of making simpler designs in the style I’ve been developing. I started by drawing my partner’s guitar case and my late grandmother’s ceramic duck.

I made a little comic and I thought the moons would be really cute shirts. I drew some other stuff in a cutesy Hello Kitty style. I thought these would be a kind of nasty little sticker set.

I’ve also been using more text in my designs. One of the platforms I’m selling on seems to push designs with slogans. I think it is a good challenge, especially since I’m not usually a shirts-with-slogans person. At the very least, I’ll want to wear it.

I don’t know how much I want to get into vector artwork in this blog, but that is something I’ve been making. I still draw my artwork on my iPad like always because I find it easier to think through a drawing that way. But once I have a finished illustration, I trace over it using the vector brush tool in Adobe Fresco. I like this drawing this way a lot. Traditionally, I would use Adobe Illustrator and my vectors would be a little soulless. This method maintains the character quirks of my line work because I am drawing them by hand.

I made sure to design a couple repeating patterns. I want to keep that skill fresh.

I made the Sick Sad World pattern for this portrait of Kashif Andrew Graham. I wanted to find different ways to blend all the things I’ve been practicing.

I’ve also been really interested in colorful drawings of really functionally designed spaces. I’ve been paying attention to things like the fire extinguisher box on the side of an apartment building or lightswitch covers. I’m thinking about stuff I would hyper-fixate on as a kid. I don’t think I’ve ever outgrown that fixation.

I am testing my designs in the real world by putting them up for sale online in a couple of print on demand marketplaces. I’ve ordered a couple of shirts for my partner Joe and myself from my Tee Public shop. I want to test the quality of the merch at Tee Public before I make more designs. I also just really want these shirts. A few weeks ago, I set up a shop for myself on Fine Art America because a friend of mine wanted to buy one of my drawings. He seems happy with what he got, but I want to test it myself.

I’ve been working on this drawing on an 18” x 24” digital canvas to test the larger canvas sizes at fine art america. I just really want a picture like this in my apartment. It would look so good over my record player. You hear that, Joe? We’re getting a picture!