Illustrator Lesson 10

Image with texture layer. Click the image to see a larger version!


Image without texture layer.



Original image from tutorial: CLICK HERE to read the tutorial.

Illustrator Midterm

I have long been a fan of M. C. Escher's creations. The first Escher images I ever saw were ones that created feelings of moving through infinity and illusion. His creations always had many details to them and seemed to hold an element of surprise.

Elements of this poster which are Escher's work: The background image of the eye, the colorful patterns inserted into the text on the headline, and the self-portrait within the pupil of the eye. I modified the self-portrait by first doing a simple live trace, and then applying a 3D extrude and bevel with wireframe.

Illustrator Lesson 6

These items are part of a still life that I arranged and photographed a few years ago for a watercolor project. I decided to trace it for this Illustrator assignment, as it is a very colorful arrangement. I am still getting used to using the pen tool, and I love the gradient mesh tool!

Illustrator Lesson 5

This image is made up of various fonts. The creature's head is a portion of the letter M. The scales are made from the letter C. Circular images are the letter O.

The pinkish orange animal is a cat. The mice are riding in a houdah on the cat's back. Can anyone tell me what letter the houdah is made from? :)

Note: A howdah, or houdah, is a carriage which is positioned on the back of an elephant, or occasionally some other animal, used most often in the past to carry wealthy people or for use in hunting or warfare.

ECommerce Lesson 5

Note: widgets have been removed, as they were slowing down the loading of the blog. :(

These are possible widgets for a site that provides customized mobile apps and widgets. Various brands of cell phones are offered, as that relates to the hardware in which the site's products would be operated on. There is an instruction manual, for those who are inspired by the site to make their own apps (the site will consider templates submitted for purchase). Also offered is a book listing the best Android apps for people who wish to explore choices for that type of advice. (Ideally, some of the site's products would be in that book!)



The only concern I have about the above widget is that the "bounce" could distract site visitors from the content on the page. I like the bounce, though -- page selection and placement will be important when incorporating any object that moves or changes, i.e., fades in and out automatically.

On the right, I'm testing out a "cloud" which is set up to list cell phone products. Hover over the text to see how it works. Note: After the class ended, I removed the "cloud", as it was unattractive and just one more thing to make the blog slow down when loading. :)

Below is the Amazon Carousel Widget. I like this one because it is attractive (clean, professional look), and does not have continuous automatic movement. It only spins once when the page loads. But you can press (and hold) on an arrow and watch it spin anytime you want!

Note: Amazon Carousel Widget removed.

Ilustrator Lesson Four

Created a simple landscape with the pen tool, made the dog into a symbol and added several smaller versions. Created a tree with the pen tool and also made it into a symbol. Played around with the transparency options a little. :)

Inspiration

Today I was inspired by one of Gary Paakkonen's photos - it was of a heavily streaked window. I just knew I had to place a reflection on the outside of the window...

The image of the woman and tree is titled "Pray", which is available on iStockphoto by IB. I toned down the streaks a bit so that the reflection would be visible.. I know I will be having more fun in the future trying out different techniques with Gary's windows!

Click here to see the original window, and here to see the original woman by the tree.

Where will your footsteps lead?

What impact will your footprints leave on others, on the world? Will they inspire, will they lead you to your dreams?

















Every choice, every step, forever leaves footprints upon your heart and the hearts of others.























May the footprints you leave today bring sorrow to none, and give birth to ripples of joy for all.

Dinner with H. G. Wells at the Time Machine Tavern

Note: Click on the image to view a larger version.

When I was about eleven or twelve years old, I read The Island of Dr. Moreau, by H. G. Wells. It was certainly an amazing and memorable story!

In this dinner scene I show myself and Mr. Wells having dinner within the "Time Machine Tavern" (my version of a time machine is a transparent sphere, in which one sees the time/place being visited in the background of the sphere). Our waiter is Lynx-Man and on my plate is Toad-Spider. Carpy-Fish is dismayed to discover that both he and Toad-Spider are being offered on tonight's dinner menu! The Invisible Man is also here, but, of course, he is invisible. A red planet is off in the distance, planning yet another War of the Worlds. Oh, by the way, the photo of myself is 20+ years old... but we're in a time machine, so that's okay!

Technical notes:

Outer space: Fill a layer with black, then use Filters>Noise while black and white are selected in your foreground and background colors. Then use Levels and increase the dark, and lighten the light. You'll have stars! Next, make another layer filled with black, and use Filter>Render>Clouds. You have to play around with this a bit... Push things around with the smudge tool or use Liquify. Later, lower the opacity... and carefully erase parts you don't need. Put a Hue adjustment layer on the cloud layer, and add a tint.

The blue and red planets were made by taking an image of hot coals burning and go to 3D>New Shape From Layer>Sphere. I added a gradient to all of them and a an outer glow to the largest one.

The time machine sphere is a "bubble" from an earlier project. I lowered the opacity, added an outer glow and a gradient.

On the two wine glasses I used the
Advanced Technique for Masking Glassware - Russell Brown Video

On many of the images I used the technique shown in Deke's video, where you select a color channel and Command Click on the channel icon, and it automatically selects the light areas. I then would make corrections, invert, and copy it to my main file.

The red dress was drawn with the pen tool, converted into a shape, and then I put a pattern on it, gradients, and a color overlay.

This project was composed with the following photos:

Eight iStockphotos: lynx, carp, toad, scroll, table w/plates + man's hand + man's suit,waiter with wine bottle, wine glass. (I don't normally purchase photos, as I prefer to take my own photographs, but I felt I could use these again on other projects, so they were worth purchasing.)

Photos that I took: spider, Hawaiian background, Dora.

Items created within Photoshop were: Red dress, text, outer space: stars, planets, clouds (nebula), and bubble sphere.

Channel Mixing, Calculations, and High Pass

Below are a few channel assignments that I did from Chapters 9 and 10 of Deke McClelland's book, Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks.
























































This is a screen shot I took of one of the masks - I liked it, so here it is!






































In Chapter 12, we worked on advanced calculations and using "high pass". I haven't listed all the steps I took - writing about masking is not easy. Thank goodness Deke wrote a book about it for us!

This first image is actually just a shot of a one of the channels that I liked - I've found that I often like the effects that appear in the channels. :)
























Advanced Calculations Mask:























High Pass Mask: