Jennifer E. Morris

Adorable Felt Pig and Cow Puppets

2012-02-01T15:07:00.003-05:00

I have a thing for puppets and these guys are just too cute. This little piggy and cow were needle felted by Laura Lee Burch. Makes me want to try needle felting again but alas I'll just end up stabbing my fingers.

Comics on the Run

2012-01-31T08:27:00.005-05:00

My new comic is dedicated to people who don't have enough hours in their day. Most of this comic was done during all those little down times during my day. I worked on it at the car dealer while waiting for an oil change, at my son's Taekwondo practice, at the doctor's waiting room and at the Chinese restaurant while I was waiting for my hubbie. Most of it was done with a Pentel Brush Pen. They are very cool, they allow you to use use brush and ink practially anywhere.

I did do the lettering and speech bubbles in Photoshop and I also cleaned up my messy messy ink drawings. (I didn't realize how out of practice I was using a real brush - Eek!) I would have rather done this story using the same technique as the other ones in the series, but I didn't think I would have them done in time for Valentine's day, besides, what would I have done at Taekwondo practice?

The whole story will be posted over the next two weeks in the free comic section of my website.

New Steve and Wessley Comic

2012-01-27T16:13:00.002-05:00

There is a new Steve and Wessley comic available. The last page was uploaded today.

New Alfie the Alligator Activity Blog

2012-01-27T10:58:00.004-05:00

Alfie the Alligator now has his own blog. It will make it easier for me to add new coloring pages and other fun things for kids. So please visit the site and print out your own dancing alligator puppet. Or better yet print a whole bunch and have them dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Updates to my Website

2012-01-20T16:18:00.002-05:00

It's a new year, time to spruce up the ol' website .

ComicPress and WordPress

2012-01-19T21:42:00.003-05:00

Lately I've been puttering with comics and wanted a way to share them online. It seems like a lot of folks are using ComicPress, an add-on for WordPress for this sort of thing, so I thought I'd give it a try. I knew nothing about either product until this week, I've always been a Blogger gal. But I know more now, and I thought I'd share my initial findings. Oh, you can see my ComicPress site here.

To get started, you need to know there are two flavors of WordPress. I found a bit confusing at first. There is www.wordpress.com which allows you to build a free blog. Your blog content lives on the Wordpress.com server so there is no need for you to pay for a hosting provider or anything like that. It's similar to how blogger functions.

But there is another WordPress site, www.wordpress.org, where you can download all the necessary files and run WordPress on your own web server. Why would someone want to run WordPress on their own server? Well, you have to, if you want to use ComicPress. Luckily I already have a hosting provider, so that part was easy. You will have to make sure you hosting provider has mySQL and PHP support.

I won't go into all the steps necessary to set up WordPress. You can read all about that at the WordPress website. Same goes for ComicPress. But suffice to say, you need to have a little technical knowledge to get things up and running. You'll have to uploading files to your server and you'll need to set up a mySQL database.

I had a few false starts, partially because I screwed up the naming of my comic files.* But ComicPress has a really neat feature, if you create a directory on your local computer with all your comics in it and name them using the following format; YYYY-MM-DD-PostTitle.jpg (I think they can be .png or .gif also). You can then zip them all into one file and upload it using the ComicPress Manager tool and it will then post each comic on the proper day with the proper post title automatically. Which would be an super time saver if you were posting often.

I think for what I'm doing, which is publishing one, 10 page comic every couple of months, comic press may be overkill. There are a ton of formatting options and settings that I have only begun to figure out and the installation took a little time. But for someone publishing a daily comic, or at least publishing on a more regular schedule, ComicPress would be a very nifty tool that would be worth looking into.

* A side note on naming files...
Since I didn't know what I was doing at first, I spent a bit of time naming and renaming batches of comic files, which is a pain in the fanny using Windows File Manager. So I found a little tool to help with that. It's called D-fileMU It's kind of a weird name, but it's a simply little tool that made renaming batches of files much easier.

Christmas Comic 2011

2011-12-07T21:34:00.004-05:00

I've been feeling a little blah about my work lately and thought maybe trying something new was in order. So for Christmas this year I made little comic books to give out instead of Xmas cards. I've never really done much with comics, but this was a lot of fun. I've already got ideas for other Steve and Wessley comics.

You can see the whole comic here.

Chris VanAllsburg at the Wegmans in Northborough

2011-11-22T23:48:00.004-05:00

Wow, it's true Wegmans is truly a grocery store that has everything. They even have Caldecott winner Chris VanAllsburg, at least for one day anyway. Chris VanAllsburg will be doing a book signing at the Wegmans in Northborough Mass on December 10th from 1:00-3:00. Details can be found at www.wegmans.com

Still Learning Flash

2011-11-22T10:28:00.006-05:00

I'm still on an Adobe Flash kick and for the past couple of weeks I've been knee deep in ActionScript. Well, maybe more like neck deep. But after lots of Lynda training and lots more reading on top of that, I feel like I'm FINALLY getting the gist of it. My animation skills are still pretty rough, but I've been having lots of fun programming the ActionScript. Here are two games that a I created so far...

Here's the first one I did. It's a cookie game (of course Alfie the Alligator would need a cookie game)

And here's a train multiplication game I created for my train obsessed son to help him learn his multiplication tables.

If you try either game and find a bug, of if you have any comments or suggestions, I'd really appreciate it if you let me know.

Bob Doodle

2011-11-15T19:56:00.006-05:00

I needed an image to use as a demo when I talk about creating under paintings at the NESCBWI Illustrator Day this Saturday. So I started doodling and came up with this character. Can you tell I didn't bother looking up any reference for the clothes? Even so, he kind of reminds me of Bob Cratchit.

Here's what the under painting looks like...

Amazon Rankings

2011-11-15T10:16:00.005-05:00

I confess, I'm guilty of watching my Amazon sales rankings. Okay lately I've been sneaking a peak every morning because for some reason "May I Please Have a Cookie?" has been doing crazy well (under 1,000). Sales rankings are one of those things I never paid attention to before I had a book in print. But I think everyone who is published has been mildly obsessed with checking sales rankings at one time or another. And of course I also check and see if there there are any new customer reviews. If you write a customer review on Amazon, I don't know if anyone other customers will read it, but I bet you the author of the book will.

I found a funny post by Bex Huff where he checks everyday to see what books are more and less popular than his. It sort of puts ones work in perspective.

So I thought it would be fun to see how my book fit into the the scheme of things. Since my book is written for preschoolers, I thought it would only be fair to compare it to other picture books. So today, Noverber 15, 2001, "May I Please Have a Cookie?" is less popular than "If you give a Dog a Donut" But more popular than "Rah Rah Radishes." Which just goes to show, everything is better deep fried.

NESCBWI Illustrator Day, Nov 19th

2011-11-03T09:14:00.005-04:00

I hope you will join us on November 19th in Manchester, New Hampshire for Illustrator Day. This is a program sponsored by the New England chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) The very talented Carlyn Beccia and myself will be doing an encore presentation of our Digital Painting Duels program that was first given at the 2011 annual conference. Here's a class description.

Digital Painting Duels

Are you new to digital painting and wondering what program to use? Or maybe you are an experienced user and would like to learn more than one program? Welcome to the Digital Painting Duels where artists Jennifer Morris and Carlyn Beccia spare off to demo Adobe Photoshop vs. Corel Painter in the bloodiest. knock-out, digital brawl of the century. See some of the hottest digital painting tricks including; secret brush techniques to mimic traditional media, creating rich textures and patterns, and ways to fix compositional problems. Learn which program to use in your art and place your bets on who will be left standing.

It's much more amiable than the description implies. Let's face it, we all know Photoshop is the most amazing product on the face of the Earth (wink). But we did cover lots of nifty tricks and tips that will help you with your digital artwork. If you missed our presentation in the spring, I hope you'll be able to join us on the 19th in Manchester.

Digital Painting Lecture and Demonstration

2011-10-27T09:56:00.003-04:00

Come say hi on November 1st at the Lunenburg Public Library, Lunenburg, MA. I'll be giving a talk on digital painting techniques. Oh and best of all, it's free. I'll even bring some left over Halloween candy. :)

Drawing From Life - Day 7

2011-10-25T13:57:00.003-04:00

The other side of the room done in, what else, Sharpie.

Drawing from Life - Day 6

2011-10-24T09:44:00.005-04:00

Today is my 6th day of drawing/painting from life. As a bonus, I think my coffee mug painting also works for this week's Illustration Friday topic, fuel. This was a pencil sketch that I scanned in and painted in Photoshop.

Sponge Bob Drawing Tips

2011-10-23T20:25:00.004-04:00

Check out these composition pointers from Sherm Cohen, storyboard artist for SpongeBob. These are great things to keep in mind when doing all sorts of illustrations not just goofy aquatic invertebrates. I've definitely been guilty of most of these things at one time or another.

Bloo Walk Cycle Test

2011-10-23T11:56:00.000-04:00

I spent many hours trying to get my bird to walk. But my kids were much more impressed with this little animation of Bloo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. I found instructions on how to create his walk cycle from Cold Hard Flash.

Learning Adobe Flash

2011-10-22T11:44:00.003-04:00

I have been wanting to learn how to use how to use Adobe Flash for quite some time now. So this month I've finally forced myself to sit down and start hacking away at it. It has a bit of a steep learning curve but it's a lot of fun. Most of the art I create is not vector based so for my first stab at getting something to more across the screen, I wanted to try and animate something that I created in Photoshop. So this is what I came up with.

Drawing From Life - Day 5

2011-10-21T12:00:00.001-04:00

One full week of drawing/painting everyday from life.

Drawing From Life - Day 4

2011-10-20T10:45:00.003-04:00

LPC's, little plastic cows. A pencil sketch scanned in and painted in Photoshop.

Drawing From Life - Day 3

2011-10-19T16:13:00.004-04:00

Didn't do much work today because I had a bunch of errands to run but I did get my drawing in. Did these pencil sketches at the coffee shop, in the car and at the orthodontist's office today.

Drawing From Life - Day 2

2011-10-18T10:23:00.006-04:00

I love Sharpies. When I was painting this I realized printed under the Sharpie logo it says, "Not for Letter Writing." Who says!?

This is day 2. 33 more days to go. (This was done in Photoshop.)

Same Tree Different Finish

2011-10-17T15:54:00.004-04:00

Maybe it's just me but I feel like the pencil phase and the final art phase are two completely different things. This is the same pencil drawing that I started with for the other tree, but finished in a different way. Also done in Adobe Photoshop.

Happy Fall!

2011-10-17T15:18:00.004-04:00

I've been flipping through my new Peter de Sève book today and puttering with Photoshop. This is the result. This is a pencil drawing colored in Photoshop.

Drawing from Life - Day 1

2011-10-17T10:17:00.005-04:00

I've made promises to myself for doing things daily in the past, exercising, drawing, picking up the house, and they never stick. Well eight weeks ago, I pledged that I would exercise every weekday morning for a lousy 20 mintues. 20 minutes isn't much so I figured maybe, just maybe I would stick to it. Twenty minutes is better than nothing, right? And voila, it seems like 20 minutes is my magic number. I've stuck to it for 8 weeks. SOOOOO, now I'm going to try drawing/painting from life everyday for 20 minutes. My goal is to stick with it for at least 7 weeks (35 days). Here's my entry for day one. I did spend more than 20 minutes today. Party because I was playing with ArtRage. This was done in Photoshop and ArtRage.

Character Study Silhouettes

2011-09-29T16:06:00.004-04:00

I have been in serious need of some inspiration lately so I bought some new art books. One of which was the Skillful Huntsman. This is a book of concept art that could either be inspirating or just depress the heck out of you. Are there really folks that talented out there?!?

One technique that I got out of the book was creating silhouettes to explore character design. And since I got a nifty new Pentel pocket brush pen, I thought I'd take a stab at a monkey character for an idea I've had banging around for a while.

It seemed like when I tried to deviate too much it immediately stopped reading as a monkey. It was an interesting exercise, and it really made me think about what makes a character recognizable as a monkey.

I'm loving the brush pen BTW. I like it way better than those felt tipped brush markers. This is actually a brush with bristles, very cool!

Illustration Friday - Ferocious

2011-09-23T16:52:00.004-04:00

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves..."

LEGO Logo

2011-09-22T14:37:00.006-04:00

It has been quite a while since I just did something for fun. Our First LEGO League team needed a design for their t-shirts this year. So I had all the kids draw up designs. Since I didn't want to just take one kid's idea, I merged elements from all the designs into one. I took the ultrasonic sensor eyes from one design, cape and crown from another and the lightening from another. (I couldn't resist spiffing it up a little in Photoshop.)

It felt good doing something just for fun. I hope the kids approve.

Illustration Friday - Influence

2011-08-25T13:34:00.005-04:00

I was in the car driving through Vermont Monday and there were some spectacularly fluffy clouds in the sky. And I don't know what it is about clouds but they always start to look like things. This one started looking like some weird big nosed spaced ship to me. It was starting to shift and break up by the time I found my phone to snap a picture. (I wasn't driving in case you were wondering.)

So here is cloud influenced space ship... the USS Proboscis.

Yard Sale Finds

2011-07-20T11:17:00.003-04:00

A friend was commenting today that artists like to collect things. And I would have to agree. My favorite places to hunt for treasures are yard sales and flea markets. It drives my husband crazy, because if something makes me laugh, I'll buy it.

What is the oddest, funniest, creepiest thing you ever dragged home from a yard sale? I'd have to nominate the "Soupers," a family of stacking soup mugs.

"Don't Panic Annika!" Release Party

2011-06-06T11:37:00.002-04:00

Video from the release party for "Don't Panic Annika!" The party was held in England so I wasn't able to make it, but it looks like everyone had a great time.

I'm a new fan of Terry Border

2011-05-23T09:08:00.003-04:00

Check out Terry Border's work. What he does with wire and household items is brilliant. His little creations just make me smile - not easy to do on a gloomy Monday morning. I just found out my local book store has a copy of his book "Bent Objects" I may have to make a trip later this week.

NESCBWI 2011

2011-05-15T22:45:00.006-04:00

What a great weekend at the NESCBWI conference. The organizers did a great job of herding over 500 cats (I mean attendees) this year.

And as a bonus my Cricket in Times Square poster that I blogged about earlier won second prize in the poster showcase! My friend, and annoyingly talented artist, Carlyn Beccia won first place in the published category this year. I won 2nd place last year too but that time it was to another very talented guy, Robert Squier.

I think next year I'm going to have to pull a Tonya Harding and start breaking knee caps so I can win first prize.

But seriously, I had a wonderful time. It was so nice to see so many old friends and also make some new ones. And hanging out at the hotel bar with a big group of illustrators including the amazing Tomie DePaola was a pretty neat bonus.

Photoshop - Using Photos to Create Texture Brushes

2011-05-04T13:14:00.018-04:00

I like creating my own texture brushes from all sorts of things. This tutorial will show you how to create texture brushes from your own photos.

Texture hunting makes for a fun afternoon. If you have little kids, it can be a fun family project. With digital camera in hand, and start looking for interesting patterns and textures. Rocks, trees, carpets, clouds are just a few things that can make neat texture brushes.

Once you have a some photos,upload them and open in Photoshop. This is a photo I took on vacation of a rock outcropping in Central Park...

This photo was already fairly monochromatic but that's not always the case, so the first thing I like to do is desaturate the image (Images->Adjustments->Desaturate). Then I create a levels adjustment layer. I want to boost the contrast in my image to make the texture more noticeable in the final brush.

Altering the levels isn't mandatory, you can leave more gray tones in your image, it will just mean that the textures will be more subtle. Experiment and see what works for you.

Next I use the round marquee tool to select a circle out of the middle of my photo. I then click Select->Modify->Feather and feather the edges of my selection about 10 or 15 pixels.

I then copy and paste my selection to a new file. So I have something like this...

Now I can create a new brush by clicking Edit->Define Brush Preset. This is what it looks like when I try and paint with it.

It's okay but I think modifying the brushes characteristics will make it a lot better. So I open the Brushes Palette and make a few modifications. First I increase the spacing. Right now some of the texture is getting lost in the overlay of the individual brush strokes. By increasing the spacing a little the texture will show through better.

Next, I find it bothersome that the pattern repeats so regularly, it gives it a mechanical feel. So, within the brush palette, I select "Shape Dynamics" I set the Angle jitter to 100% and checked the Flip X Jitter and Flip Y Jitter check boxes. This way the brush is getting flipped and rotated every time the brush tip is laid down. This makes it much more random and natural looking.

The last modification I'm going to do to this brush is to select Transfer and set the Flow Jitter Control to "Pen Pressure" so if I press lightly I get a lighter application of color. Once I did all that, I made sure I saved my new brush. If I didn't save it, then all my tweaks would have been lost the next time I went to use this brush.

Now lets try out this new brush. I selected my new "rock brush" and set the opacity to 60%. I then filled a page with overlapping scribbles of different colors. And I have to admit, I like the outcome. I thought I was making a very sharp texture but it turns out that it's capable of making a nice smokey sort of a texture.

Here are a couple of other brushes that I created from photos. This one is a photo of a ceramic bowl with a crackled finish from my kitchen cabinet.

I guess I shouldn't have put that one in the dishwasher. But oh well, it makes a interesting Photoshop brush...

And here's one that is made from an image of a circuit board.

This one, surprisingly, makes a nice texture that looks almost like fabric.

So again, I encourage you to create you own texture brushes. Here's an idea, the next time you're on vacation or visiting a special location, take some photos to transform into textures. It will make your art even more personal and special.

Why DID the chicken cross the road?

2011-05-04T12:21:00.006-04:00

Sorry, I don't know.

But Henrietta here is going to help me with the talk I'm giving on Photoshop painting technqiues at the New England SCBWI conference on May 15th. I'm going to be deconstructing this image and talking about the Photoshop brushes I used and how I created them. I'm giving the talk Sunday morning with Carlyn Beccia. We'll be covering various painting techniques using Photoshop and Corel Painter. Carlyn is very talented and knows a lot about Painter, so I'm hoping to learn a few things myself.

Cricket in Times Square - 5

2011-04-29T18:03:00.002-04:00

This is the last cricket post. I just wanted to share the little cricket I added to the top of the mat. The music notes are on a circle of acetate, his feelers are cloth covered florist wire.

Illustration Friday - Bicycle

2011-04-28T14:41:00.003-04:00

I wish I had time to make a new illo for this week's topic but since it's already Thursday, I'm afraid it ain't happening. This is a little piece I did for an Illustration For Kids promo last year.

Cricket in Times Square - 4

2011-04-27T22:43:00.007-04:00

Okay, here's the final art. But now I'm wondering if the other layout would have been better. Oh well, if I have time between now and the conference I may try and redo it.

Cricket in Times Square - 3

2011-04-23T22:27:00.007-04:00

Well after weighing the options and and reading the feedback - thanks for the comments everyone. And thanks so much to the person that offered me easy ways to mail gift baskets to Bangladesh. I've decided to go with thumbnail #8. I was debating between 7, 8 and 11. But since this is a contest, I thought 8 would probably be showiest plus I was trying to appeal to that 3rd grader that stuck her nose up at the old cover and both of my kids opted for the versions with the bright city lights.

So next step is to clean up the thumbnail. First I wanted to get the perspective right on the buildings so I created a perspective grid and redrew the buildings. I used a vertical vanishing point to make it seem like the animals are looking up at the tall buildings.

To make my guides I created a bunch of lines in Illustrator emanating from a central vanishing point.

Then I copied and pasted those guide lines into Photoshop. I positioned one set of guide lines where I wanted my horizon line to be and a second off the top border of the image for the vertical vanishing point.

Following those lines I was able to clean up the perspective on the buildings. They are still really rough but better than before...

Next I'm going to start working on the characters.

Cricket in Times Square Cover - 2

2011-04-22T09:49:00.006-04:00

So I'm back working on my book cover remake for the New England SCBWI conference exhibition. Today I'm going to brainstorm different layouts. My goal was to come up with at least 10 different ideas for the cover.

The cover of the paperback version of the book is approx 5" x 7.5" so I made a page of thumbnails in those proportions. It's so annoying to design something and then have to wrangle it into a space that is fatter or skinnier, so best to start out with the right proportions. The other thing that I think is useful is to do the initial thumbnails in color. Maybe the colors will change but at least you have an idea of what it will look like. Sometimes images I love in black and white fall totally flat when I start adding color.

I was able to come up with a dozen ideas for the cover. These are messy and probably a bit hard to read, but is there any that catch your attention? (Click the image to enlarge)

Cricket in Times Square Cover

2011-04-21T17:34:00.006-04:00

I signed up to participate in the poster contest at the New England SCBWI conference this year. This year's theme is to redo the cover of a book that you consider a milestone in children's literature. I decided to do "The Cricket in Times Square." I chose that book for two reasons, one, because I really enjoyed it as a kid and two, I was helping out in the library at the elementary school last year and I recommended Cricket in Times Square to a third grader. When she saw the cover she curled her lip and said, "gee, it's sort of old looking."

So in the next few days I'll try and post my process for redesigning the cover for what it's worth. Maybe it will help someone else.

First, I was very lucky to happen to by in NYC earlier this week so I was able to take some reference photos of Times Square and actually sit down at a table and draw for a while and try to soak up the atmosphere. Note, right behind a police horse isn't the greatest location to draw.

Next I went to the book store (I went to Books of Wonder - Great kid's bookstore) and bought a copy of the book.

Then I started doing some online research. The first thing I did was google "Cricket in Times Square" I had remembered an animated version from when I was a kid and I also wanted to see if there were any other illustrations out there. I didn't want to duplicate something that's already been done. But check out what I found. The original cover art is actually up for auction! Sadly I don't have an extra $10,000 laying around. But it's pretty neat to see the original separations.

In the News

2011-04-21T09:16:00.002-04:00

Here's an article from the newspaper in Chambersburg PA about my virtual author visit there last week.

New Spring Postcard Mailer

2011-04-14T17:23:00.005-04:00

Front

Back

My new spring postcard mailer. I printed these a few weeks ago but now with the spring peepers going to town outside my window, it seems very appropriate.

Virtual Author Visit via Skype

2011-04-14T14:14:00.007-04:00

I just had an author visit with a group of kindergartners and first graders 430 miles away at the Corpus Christi school in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. And I didn't even have to put my shoes on. How cool is that!

One of the moms was kind enough to send along a photo of what things looked like from the other side.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well Skype worked for an author visit. The classroom was equipped with a smart board which they used to display the Skype call. On my end, I had a monitor set up at the far end of my desk so the kids were able to see me and also where I work. Skype even allowed me to share my screen with the kids so they can watch me draw on the Cintiq. I also used the screen sharing feature when I was reading my books. I had previously scanned in the book pages and set them up a power point presentation. That way the kids can see the illustrations nice and big and my mug didn't get in the way.

The main drawback that I could see was the delay. If I said something funny (or at least something I thought was funny) I didn't hear any laughter until halfway through the next sentence. It makes it a little hard to tell if you are knockin' them dead or dying a slow death. But luckily I did eventually hear laughs at all the right places.

If any other schools are interested in trying this, please email me. I'd be happy to discuss.

Photoshop Brushes - Flow Vs Opacity

2011-04-08T14:22:00.012-04:00

I'm giving a presentation next month with my friend Carlyn Beccia at the New England SCBWI conference. I get to speak about Photoshop painting techniques. And I thought this would be a perfect time for me to really look at some of the features of the Photoshop brush tool.

When you click on the brush tool you have an option to set the flow and opacity of your brush. This is one of those things that I found very confusing in Photoshop. What the heck is the difference between Flow and Opacity? They both have to do with the transparency of the brush strokes, but depending on the brush you are using they can seem to do pretty much the same thing. But there are some difference between the two.

According to the Photoshop help file, flow sets the rate at which color is applied as you move the pointer over an area, where as opacity sets the transparency of color you apply. Umm, I don't know about you, but that really didn't help me a whole lot.

So let's take a closer look at each options. Let's select the hard round default brush. If we draw with this brush it looks like a think solid line but when we open the brush palette and increase the spacing we notice that this brush is lots of circles being laid down really close to one another, if you lay them down close enough together they look like one continuous line.

So for now let's leave the spacing kind of wide so the individual circles are touching slightly, somewhere around 70%. Now if I set the opacity to 100% and the flow to 100% and draw a line with this brush I get a sort of rippled solid blue line. No surprise there. If I leave the flow at 100% but reduce the opacity to 50%, I get the exact same ripply line only 50% lighter. But if I reverse it and leave the opacity at 100% and reduce the flow to 50% I get something a little different. Now, each little dab of the brush is reduced to 50% but where those little dabs overlap the paint coverage is actually darker than 50%.

Okay so that's not too confusing. Now what happens if I start reducing both the opacity AND the flow? This is where is can start hurting your head.

I like to think of opacity as being the main transparency governor. If I set the opacity to 75% then no part of my stroke will ever be stronger than 75% transparency. Within that 75% range I can decide how transparent each dab of the brush will be from 1 to 100%. So let's say my opacity is set at 75%, even if I set my flow to 100% my stroke will still only be 75% of the original color.

Right now you might be saying, well, that's great, but how is that going to help me with my painting? Look at these four samples. In each one, I scribbled around and around in circle until I could go no darker. As you can see the center of each dot is the same color (75% opacity) but you can see when I used a lower flow rate, I needed more little dabs of paint to get to that color. At 5% flow I was scribbling quite a lot longer than I was at 100% flow. So flow gives you a way to gradually build up to your darkest color where opacity lets you define what that darkest color will be. You can use this to your advantage to make your brush strokes more or less pronounced.

Photoshop Tutorial - Watercolors (sort of)

2011-04-06T12:59:00.011-04:00

When it comes to digital art, there is a school of thought that feels that the more digital artwork mimics traditional mediums the better. Unfortunately, anyone who has tried to replicate watercolors knows that a computer tends to fall short when it comes to copying those "happy accidents" that are inherent in watercolor painting. So I say, why try? Instead of slavishly trying to replicate watercolors, this technique takes inspiration from a loose airy style of watercolor painting and incorporates it into something new and a little different.

This illustration started off by scanning in a finished pencil drawing. I sometimes do my final line work in Photoshop using various grainy brushes, but sometimes it just feels good to pick up a pencil and paper.

After I scanned in the drawing, I selected Image/Adjustments/Desaturate to convert the image to black and white. The paper I was using had a slight yellow cast to it and I didn't want that showing up in the final art. Next, I selected Image/Adjustments/Levels. I clicked on the white eyedropper and then clicked on the white of the paper to make paper really white. Next I selected the middle slider under the Input Levels graph and slid it slightly to the right to darken the pencil lines just a bit.

Once the pencil drawing was adjusted and looking right, I moved it to a layer above the background layer. The way I do that is to open the Layers windows and click and drag the background layer down to the "new layer" icon at the bottom of the layer window, it's the icon next to the trash can. This creates a duplicate of the background. Name this new layer, "outlines." Set the blend mode of this new "outlines" Layer to "Multiply" Next I select the background layer and click Select/All and fill the whole background with white. So now my image looks like this...

And my Layers window looks something like this...

Next I create a new layer between the background layer and the outlines layer and name this new layer "colors".

On the new "colors" layer I select the paintbrush tool and using a hard round brush and 100% opacity I start coloring in the picture. I purposely leave gaps here and there to leave bits of white showing between the colors just as if I was painting wet watercolors next to each other. If you aren't seeing the colors, make sure you have the outlines layer blend mode set to "multiply."

So now the image looks like this...

And the Layers window should look like this...

Now make a duplicate of the "color" layer. Lock the original color layer so you don't inadvertently mess it up, you may need to go back to it later. On the new "color copy" layer use the magic wand tool to select a flat blue area of color on his PJ's. Using various texture brushes and different shades of blue I added some variation to color. I also like to sneak in bit of different colors here and there. For more info on creating textures see my texture tutorial. Continue to add textures to all of the areas of the image. With all of the image textured, I have this...

The last step is to add some shadows to give everything a little dimension. I do that on a new layer called, you guessed it, "shadows". I set the opacity of this new layer to 20% and then using black and a grainy chalk-like brush I add some shadows.

Here you can see a closeup of the final art. As you can see, no one would ever confuse this with watercolors but hopefully it still has the same airy whimiscal quality.

New Promo Piece - Theme: Playtime

2011-04-05T21:20:00.003-04:00

Technology allows you to do everything quicker and more efficiently, including screwing up!

This is a piece that I did for the new Illustration for Kids postcard. I was thinking about changing some of the colors, but I inadvertently overwrote the original file that had all the Photoshop layers. DOH!

High Five Story

2011-03-23T08:30:00.003-04:00

The April High Five Magazine arrived yesterday with the Mr. Wind story I illustrated inside. I was honored when High Five Magazine asked me to illustrate a 6 page story for them.

Mysterious Package

2011-03-21T13:29:00.005-04:00

Okay, this could be the start of a writing exercise.

The other day, I received a little orange tickets in my mailbox telling me that there was a package waiting to be picked up at the local post office. The next day, I went down and presented my ticket to the man at the counter. After a few minutes, he returned plopped a large heavy blue sack on the counter. Ummm, really? for me?? The bag read, "Royal Mail - Great Britain" and it was held closed with a heavy plastic tie. There was a customs tag fastened to the bag. Yep, that was my name and address on the tag. I jokingly asked the man if there was something alive inside. Deadpan, he said, "dunno, but whatever it is, it's yours now." When I got home, I cut through the plastic band and inside was...

Well, luckily it wasn't alive. But it was still something exciting. It was advanced copies of the new book I illustrated, "Don't Panic, Annika!," written by Juliet Clare Bell and published by Piccadilly Press of London. Sadly, this book is not being sold in the US at this time. It's available in the UK through Piccadilly Press and it's also being published by Koala Books in Australia and De Vries Brouwers in the Netherlands.

New England SCBWI Conference

2011-02-15T09:20:00.004-05:00

Don't forget, registration opens today for the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference begin held in Fitchburg, MA on May 13, 14 and 15th. I'm so excited that this awesome conference is practically in my own backyard.

I'll be there all weekend. And on Sunday, I have the privilege of giving a two hour presentation with my friend, and very talented illustrator Carlyn Beccia entitled, "Digital Painting Duels." If you are familiar with Carlyn and her work, you know that she loves Corel Painter. I, on the other hand, am a Photoshop kind of gal.

Of course, we could spend the two hours fighting over which platform is the best. Which would be silly, because we all know Photoshop is WAY better. But seriously, both software packages have there own strengths and weaknesses, which is what we will be exploring during the course of our talk. Hopefully the audience will walk away with a better appreciation for both tools, as well as a few new tips and techniques they can take back to the studio with them. By the way, does anyone know where I can get a Photoshop t-shirt to wear?

Alfie Goes Gold!!

2011-02-11T08:30:00.002-05:00

My in-laws are so sweet, when I told them that there were one million Alfie books in print, they wanted to mark the occasion. There is no equivalent to a gold record in the book world, but they did the next best thing. They presented me with a golden Alfie. Lots of people have gold records but I bet there is only one gold alligator. Yay Alfie!!!

Updating my Portfolio Website

2011-02-10T08:15:00.000-05:00

I spent a good part of last month with a ginormous* book called "HTML, XHTML, CSS for Dummies." And why was I dragging around a 10 pound computer manual? (Seriously this thing is over 1000 pages.) Because it's a new year and time to update ye ole website. I think the goal of any illustrator's website is to make it was easy as possible for potential clients to browse your work and determine if you are the right person for their project. I don't think I'm quite there yet but I think I'm moving in the right direction. You can see my new, and hopefully improved site at www.jemorris.com. I'm still tinkering with the layout, but here are the things on my wish list that I've accomplished so far...

1. Update the pieces in my portfolio - My portfolio was pretty out of date, which is rather pathetic, considering that's my main source of advertising. So I went through and decided what sorts of work I would like to do in the future and tried to showcase those sorts of pieces. One of my resolutions this year is to review my portfolio the first of every month and cull out the weaker pieces. No more letting it go for 6+ months at a time!

2. Make the site more maintainable - By changing most of the formatting over to CSS, I hope to be able to change the look and feel of the site just by tweeking the CSS files. At least that's the plan.

3. Make it more mobile friendly - Another thing that I could do by putting the formatting in CSS files, I was able to create a style sheet for iPhones and another one to display on smaller tablet screens.

4. Add a licensing section - I hope to expand this section soon but at least I have a place holder at the moment.

5. Have a way for folks to access individual images in my portfolio - Actually, I fixed this last time I updated my website. But it's a feature I was felt was important to keep. And something you might want to keep in mind if you are setting up your portfolio. A few versions back, I used frames to create my site and it was hard to bookmark a particular image or email a link to an image to someone.

So if you have time and want to let me know what you think, I'd appreciate any comments.

*BTW, did you know ginormous is a real word? Me neither. It's in the dictionary, who knew?

Alfie the Alligator T-Shirts Now Available!

2011-02-09T07:32:00.004-05:00

Some folks have contacted me and said that their kids enjoy Alfie the Alligator so much that they would like an Alfie T-shirt. Thank you, thank you! As you can imagine, I was happy to oblige, so now you can get your very own Alfie the Alligator shirts (and coordinating coffee mugs.)

Coloring Pencil Drawings - Arthur Rackham Style

2011-02-07T11:01:00.015-05:00

I thought it was time for another Photoshop tutorial. This tutorial will show how to color a drawing to give it an Arthur Rackham type feel. Now, before you say it, I know, I'm no Arthur Rackham. I just want to show how to give a drawing that aged sepia tone sort of look that he was known for.

The technique I'm going to use is very similar to the one I showed a while ago with Coloring Line Drawings in Photoshop, but with a few extra steps. So you might want to go back and take at look at that tutorial first if you are a Photoshop newbie.

This image started out as as a pencil drawing that I scanned into Photoshop. You could also start with a pen and ink drawing, charcoal, whatever you want. Below is exactly how it was scanned in, and I don't know if you can see it, but the whole image has a pinkish cast and lots of pencils smudges.

The smudges I'm going to leave, I think they will add to the feeling that I'm going for. But I want to get rid of that pinkish tint to the paper. So I click Image->Adjustments->Desaturate (or SHIFT-CTRL-U) That converts the image to greyscale.

For this technique you need to have the line drawing on a layer above the background layer. The way I do that is to create a copy of the background layer. You can either right click on the background layer and select "duplicate layer..." or you can drag the layer down to the little "new layer" icon right next to the trash bin. Rename this new layer, "Line Drawing". Now, go back to the Background level and select all (CTRL-A) and fill with a solid tan color. Your image won't look any different yet, but your layers window will look like this...

Click again on the "Line Drawing" layer and create a new adjustment layer (the little icon at the bottom of the layer window that looks like a black and white cookie.) We're going to create a "gradient map." Experiment a little with the gradients, you'll find that you can tinker with it in all sorts of ways to get lots of neat effects. You can see that I chose a gradient that goes from dark brown to white with an orange/brown color in the middle. This gives a warm, sepia tone to the drawing.

This might be a good time to make a backup of your file just in case you want to get back to this point. Once you've made a backup copy, select the gradient map layer and the line drawing layer and merge them. Next, set the blend mode of this new merged layer to multiply. My image now looks like this...

If you aren't completely happy with the results, you can go back and fiddle with the gradient map again until you like the results. Next, create a new layer between the line drawing layer and the background layer. Name this new layer "color". I left the blend mode of the "color" layer to "Normal," but I set the opacity to 70% so some of the tan background color shows through. Then with the "color" layer selected, I started coloring in various areas of the image using the airbrush tool set to 100% opacity. I chose to use subdued colors for my palette, keeping with that Arthur Rackham sort of feel. I didn't want anything too bright here.

As a side note: You don't have to use a boring airbrush tool here like I did, you could use all sorts of brushes to add textures and effects. Play around with it and find what works for you. Adding textures to background layer might also be an interesting option. If you are interested in learning how to create your own custom textures I have another tutorial on creating texture brushes in Photoshop that you might be interested in.

This is what it looks like so far...

If I hide the pencil drawing layer, it looks like this...

I think it's getting there, but the lines need to be darker. So I created a duplicate of the line drawing layer. Since this new layer inherits the blend mode of multiply, it darkens everything nicely. It also makes those smudges more pronounced, which is exactly what I wanted.

The last step, was to darken and add a little texture to the edges using a custom made texture brush. The final result is the image that you see at the top of this post.

So, like I said before, I'm no Arthur Rackham, but hopefully this has giving you some inspiration to experiment and come up with your own techniques for coloring your pencils drawings.

Drawing from Life #4

2011-02-03T16:53:00.005-05:00

Today I parked myself in the children's section at Barnes and Noble. Little kids are a challenge to draw because they are constantly moving. So it wasn't so much drawing from life today as it was taking inspiration from life. I love those little fleece hats with the pointy ear things. I think the kids look so cute in those.

I also puttered with adding some soft colors in Photoshop.

Drawing from Life #3

2011-01-31T15:21:00.000-05:00

Here's the local Barnes and Noble. Chai tea latte - yum.

Janet Saw - Yummy Jewelry

2011-01-28T14:06:00.003-05:00

How cute are these caramel cream tart earrings by Janet Shaw! Ahh, jewelry and dessert, two of my favorite things. She's got all sorts of yummy jewelry on her Esty site. I want to gets me a pair, I just can't decide which dessert to order.

Lisa Lichtenfels' Sculptures

2011-01-26T07:11:00.005-05:00

I've been a huge fan of Lisa Lichtenfels work for years. Her work is just stunning. The first time I saw photos of one of Lisa's sculptures I didn't believe they were made out of wire, batting and pantyhose. In fact I had trouble believing it was a sculpture at all it looked so real. Yep, that is pantyhose! When I saw her work in real life I still couldn't believe it. I even bought her books on soft sculpture techniques. I experimented a little bit but let's face it, this woman has more patience in her pinky toe than I have in my whole body.

Alfie is in the Scholastic Book Club Catalog

2011-01-25T21:51:00.004-05:00

The flip book version of Alfie is featured in the January Firefly catalog. The flip book version isn't available in stores, so get 'em while they last.

Drawing from Life #2

2011-01-24T15:12:00.002-05:00

So far, so good sticking to resolution #1. Hopefully I can fill up a sketch book this year. These are some random kids at Taekwondo class. It's a tough place to draw because they never stand still. BTW, the baby wasn't taking Taekwondo she was waiting for her big brother.

Jennifer Morris Beads

2011-01-19T08:15:00.000-05:00

I love the beads made by Jennifer Morris. It's tempting to take credit for these lovely baubles but alas there are two of us in the world with the same fantastic name.

New Year Resolution #1 - Draw More from Life

2011-01-17T14:59:00.003-05:00

Okay, I make this resolution every year. And every year, it falls to the bottom of my to-do list and I never seem to get around to it. But this year, I'm going to try my best. Even though most of what I draw isn't realistic, I think drawing details from life enlivens any illustration.

So here's my plan. I have, or should I say, my son has Taekwondo on Mondays for 1 hours and on Wednesdays my daughter has dance for 90 minutes. So even if I draw for those two times every week that's more than I did last year. At least I'm progressing in the right direction.

Here's my drawing from last week's ballet class. I eventually want to start going outdoors and doing some plein air work but it's January in New England, so for now, I think a warm Panera Bread sounds much more inviting.

Not Your Grandma's Needlepoint

2011-01-14T13:38:00.005-05:00

I bet everyone has seen brick-a-brac at yard sales made from plastic needle point canvas. In face you may have a Kleenex box holder lurking in your house made by your aunt Bernice. And I have to admit I never gave needlepoint much thought. But I'm loving this Polaroid One Step camera created by Nicole Gastonguay. Ah, I loved my One Step camera when I was a kid. In fact, I just recently passed my One-Step down to a young friend and photography enthusiast who is still using it.

Check out the rest of Nicole's gallery. The jar of pickles (is that crochet?) is just too cute.

Don't Panic Annika is Now Available in the UK

2011-01-10T11:21:00.002-05:00

"Don't Panic Annika" written by Juliet Clare Bell and illustrated by yours truly is now available on Amazon UK in hardcover and paperback. I was pleased when Piccadilly contacted me to illustrate this book because a story about a little worrier was near to my heart.

Unfortunately, the book isn't available in the US yet.

Here's a little peek at one of the inside illustrations...

Amazon Provides Sales Stats

2010-12-10T08:30:00.004-05:00

Authors, now when you log on to Amazon Author Central they give you sales stats for your books. They even have a neat report that breaks sales down by geographical location. It looks like my aunt and uncle in Michigan have been buying lots of Alfie books lately. :)

The data is coming from Nielson Bookscan so it's not just Amazon sales. They claim it represents approximately 75% of all print book sales (both online and instores). Pretty neat stuff.

Christmas Reindeer puppets

2010-12-05T16:13:00.004-05:00

Merry Christmas! Here's a super simple Christmas puppet craft. All you need are printouts of the reindeer puppet and some crayons to color them in. There is no glue and no cutting needed. To make your own reindeer puppets, download the reindeer puppet activity sheet and the folding instructions. Now all you need is some orange construction paper so you can make them some carrots.

Merry Christmas

2010-11-29T17:09:00.005-05:00

Here is proof that I save everything. I was looking for some papers this evening and found these Xmas card designs that I did about 15 years ago. I think Santa was done in watercolor and gouache and the snowman is colored pencil.

In Search of a 6 Sided Snowflake

2010-11-22T08:16:00.012-05:00

As an illustrator I am probably more aware than most of holiday illustration snafus. I'm sure most folks could care less if the snowflakes on their paper plates or their wrapping paper are the eight-sided or the more accurate 6-sided variety. I'm not one to get too riled up about things. But I, and illustrators like me, spend literally hours drawing those little innocuous crystals and darn it they are suppose to have 6 sides. Six, do you hear me! Not eight. And I'm not the only one that is irritated by this corruption of one of nature's wonders. NPR had a story about this last holiday season. So as I go about my Christmas shopping I'm always counting the sides on the snowflakes. And just this morning on TV, I saw a car commercial that was bedazzled with 9 sided snowflakes. Nine sides?! Someone actually has to work to be that inaccurate.

It's time for an intervention.

Here are some instructions for drawing a SIX-SIDED snowflake in Adobe Illustrator. Of course like many things in life, this is just one technique, if you have another one that you prefer, I hope you will share it. I think we need to spread the word and rid the world of erroneously sided flakes.

In Adobe Illustrator create a new document, and using the pen tool create a vertical line. Then select the line and click the rotate tool. With the rotate tool active, press the ALT key (sorry I don't know the Mac equiv off the top of my head) and click on the lower anchor of your line. The rotate dialog box will pop up. Enter in an angle of 30 degrees and click the copy button. You should have something like this...

Now select those two lines and lock them (Object->lock) These two lines are going to be your guide lines. Now, using the pen tool, make a zigzaggy line between those two guidelines. Stay inside the guidelines, and make sure the begining of your zigzag starts on one guideline and ends on the other. You'll have something like this...

Now select your zigzag and click the reflect tool (the shortcut is the "o" key). With the reflect tool active, press the alt key and click on one of the anchor points of your vertical guide line. The reflect tool dialog will pop up. Select vertical axis and click the copy button. You'll have the first arm of your snowflake. It will look something like this...

Now we need to make that snowflake arm into one continuous object. Using the direct selection tool and select the points of your two zigzag lines that meet on your vertical guide line, and select (Object->Path->Join) or (CTRL-J) Now your snowflake arm is one continuous line.

Now for the fun part. Select your snowflake arm and click the rotate tool. With the rotate tool active, press the ALT key and click on the BOTTOM anchor point of your guideline. When the rotation dialog box opens, select an angle of 60 degrees and click copy. You will have a new arm of your flake...

All you have to do now is click CTRL-D which is the shortcut for "Object-Transform-Again" to create the rest of the arms. When you have all of the arms, select the whole mess and click CTRL-J again to join all the paths into one continuous object.

Voila! you have a 6 sided snowflake.

Now to rid the world of images of polar bears and penguins living together...

Ichabod

2010-09-29T11:44:00.002-04:00

Ichabod Crane - Black and White.

A 2 color version.

Illustration Friday - Acrobat

2010-09-21T11:37:00.003-04:00

Just For Fun - Manga Girl

2010-09-15T15:11:00.002-04:00

Here's another thing I did just for fun and to fiddle with photoshop brushes. I was looking through one of my daughter's manga books - can ya tell?

Art for the Lunenburg Library Fund Raiser

2010-09-13T11:04:00.003-04:00

The local library is sponsoring an event called "Tray Bien" Artists from around the area have decorated wooden trays that will be auctioned off in October. Proceeds will go to the Lunenburg Public Library. Here is my submission - of course my daughter suggested the bird be a robin. I hope there are no rules against bidding on your own tray because it matches my living room :)

Now that's one tough bird...

2010-09-10T09:10:00.005-04:00

We were in Central Park a few weeks ago and we were sitting on the benches near Cleopatra's Needle. As we were sitting there a woodpecker flew down and landed on the monument. I didn't actually seem him peck at the granite but I had a vision of him pecking out elaborate hieroglyphics Woody-Woodpecker-style.

For Fun - Katniss

2010-09-02T08:57:00.006-04:00

I, like a lot of folks lately, have been re-reading the Hunger Games and Catching Fire. So I had Katniss on the brain when I did this week's doodle.

For Fun - Evil Dentist

2010-08-26T21:02:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I get so busy with kids and deadlines and life in general that I forget why I like being an illustrator. When I was a kid, I used to draw and paint just for fun and I spent hours just drawing and not really having a clear direction where it was going. Sometimes I have to remind myself to do more of that. In fact, I think I'm going to try and post one "for fun" illo every week. This week's entry is evil scientist guy or scary dentist guy. Open wide... :)

Whale Watch

2010-07-26T08:02:00.002-04:00

We went on a whale watch out of Gloucester Mass yesterday. I took lots of pictures, most of which look like logs floating in the water. But I thought I'd share these two. These are humpback whales. And one was kind enough to jump out of the water and say, "hi". You can see by the boat in the background just how big these guys are.

Another Alfie

2010-07-12T09:39:00.003-04:00

I received a nice email the other day from a proud daddy in England. He wanted to know if he could get a signed picture of Alfie the Alligator for his son because his name is also Alfie. How could I say no to someone this adorable? Happy very first birthday Alfie!

Illustration Friday - Giant

2010-07-02T11:16:00.001-04:00

Giant Squash. (I must have had the "Great Pumpkin" on my mind when I did this because the girl's hair ended up looking like Sally from the Peanuts.)

David Wiesner's Flotsam for Real

2010-06-17T07:25:00.003-04:00

I love David Wiesner's children's books. How cool is it that one of them came true - sort of. A sea turtle found a digital camera in a water proof housing and managed to turn the thing on and record himself. He's not a very good cinematographer, in fact, I imagine he was probably trying to eat the camera. But it's still neat. Even neater was that they actually tracked down the owner of the camera, a man who lost it scuba diving in November 1,000 miles away.

I wonder if frogs will start flying next.

Cutest Pigeon Picture Ever

2010-06-15T09:16:00.003-04:00

I was Googling pigeons this morning looking for some photo reference for a project I'm working on and I found, what has to be, the cutest pigeon/monkey photo ever. I just had to share. Everyone, all together now... AWWWWW!

I guess this little monkey was orphaned in the jungle and brought to a rescue facility. The workers their put the pigeon in his cage with him to keep him company and they bonded.

Illustration Friday - Ripple

2010-06-11T21:09:00.005-04:00

Kelly Light is a very talented illustrator and also has a very big heart when it comes to the animals of the Gulf coast. She has a great idea for a fund raiser. Ripple Sketches is a site where you can buy pieces of art by making a modest donation to either the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies or the International Bird Rescue Research Center. I hope you will consider contributing.

3D Sidwalk Painting

2010-06-11T18:17:00.006-04:00

What does this have to do with this weeks Illustration Friday topic, ripple? Um, there are ripples of water inside the bucket. yeah, that's it.

I'm fascinated by these artists like Julian Beever that do 3D sidewalk paintings so I wanted to try my hand at it. I didn't have much time (or much chalk) so I thought I'd start with a portrait of a plastic bucket. Finally, after 25 years I've finally found a use for those trigonometry formulas I learned in high school! What a neat art/math project this would be for high school kids. Next your kids ask, "what will I ever use this trigonometry junk for?" You can tell them that someday they will want to draw a three dimensional drawing of bucket on their driveway and they will need to know how tall to make it. :)

I was kind of eye balling this and it came out a little crooked. I'd like to try again, but next time I will draw out a neat grid with a chalk line before I begin. I'll also have to buy more chalk. The rough black top eats it up fast.

This is what it looks like from the side. As you can see even a small object like a bucket has to be pretty long and skinny...

Illustration Friday - Trail

2010-06-04T09:33:00.001-04:00

Hoping to hit the hiking trail this weekend.

Patio Visitor - Gray Tree Frog???

2010-06-03T09:02:00.004-04:00

I went to pick up one of our patio chairs the other day and found this little guy. He looked so wise and serene, I just had to take some pictures. I think he's a gray tree frog but I'm not sure. Does anyone know? He never moved a muscle even when the camera was six inches from his face.

New Lane Smith Book

2010-06-02T11:00:00.003-04:00

Very cute book trailer. Thanks to Elizabeth Dulemba for the link.

Two Nice Reviews For Please Write Back!

2010-06-01T23:15:00.002-04:00

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 1—In this easy early, early reader, Alfie, a crocodile, sends his grandma a letter that says, "I love you. Please write back." And then he waits. And asks the mailman. And waits. That's the entire plot. With the appeal of a bright green croc that has expressive eyes and the concept of sending and receiving mail, this book is bound to capture the interest of youngsters. They can read the letter and the address on the envelope, and enjoy the crocodile stamp. Grandma's reply finally comes—inside a box filled with cookies. The book is perfect for its intended audience. There is good repetition in the text for early reinforcement and the pictures are just delightful.—Susan Lissim, Dwight School, New York City

Children's Literature

Any kindergarten or first grade teachers planning a unit on letter writing will want to have this delightful book on hand for their students. Alfie, the main character, writes a letter to his grandmother telling her he loves her and asking her to write back. Not only will readers see Alfie writing, but they will see his handwritten note, illustrating the format for a friendly letter. Alfie is also shown addressing and stamping the envelope, again modeling the correct format. Alfie waits and waits for his grandmother to write back and is ultimately rewarded with not just a letter, but also a box of cookies. Young readers will readily identify with Alfie?his joy and sense of accomplishment in writing to his grandmother, and his dismay at not receiving a prompt response?not to mention the ultimate reward for writing, a batch of homemade cookies! In an indirect way, this book emphasizes the human need for communication, and the letter as a still viable means of communicating. It also provides young letter writers with a handy reference for checking the format of their own missives. Reviewer: Maria Lamattina

Alfie The Alligator.com

2010-06-01T09:49:00.002-04:00

I have put up a new website dedicated to all things Alfie called AlfieTheAlligator.com. It's a work in progress, but do let me know what you think. If you are an educator or a parent and can think of something I can add to make the site more useful, I would seriously LOVE to hear from you.

Letters from a Philatilist

2010-05-28T07:25:00.005-04:00

How nice to get a letter in the mail. So many times all that's in the mailbox is junk mail and, even worse, bills. It's doubly nice to receive a letter from a stamp museum. These letters are from Mr Henry Lukas is the education director at the Spellman Museum of Stamps and Postal History where I did an author visit a couple of weeks ago. I love how he stuff the corner of the envelopes with all sorts of stamps. It like a little art museum on every letter.

Also during my visit I met lots of new friends including my buddy Nicholas who sent me this wonderful picture of a tarantula. Thank you Nicholas!!

BTW, if you are in the Boston area, the Spellman Museum is having another family day on July 4th.

Photoshop and Wacom Tablets

2010-05-27T07:57:00.006-04:00

When I first started using the computer to create illustrations I primarily used Adobe Illustrator. This paper plate design was the first image in which I used Photoshop. I also used a mouse to create all my work (yep, I did that jungle plate with a mouse.) Wacom tablets were/are expensive, and I thought $400 was a ridiculous amount to pay for one. Oh, did I mention that I'm a cheap skate?

But then a friend of the family, who happened to be a graphic designer came to the house and saw my workspace. And she said, "you idiot, go buy a pen tablet!" I'm sure she said it much more diplomatically than that, but that was the gist. And she was right. If you want to use Photoshop for painting, a mouse will only take you so far. You really need to invest in a tablet. The good news is they have come down considerably in price.

The really difficult part of using a tablet is that you draw in your lap but your brush strokes show up on the monitor. That incongruity takes some getting used to. And honestly, I never found it as natural as drawing with paper and pencil, although I know some artists that don't have a problem. But a couple of years ago I upgraded to a Cintiq. The Cintiq is basically the Cadillac of the Wacom line. It's a monitor with a Wacom tablet built into it, so instead of drawing on a separate tablet you draw directly on the monitor. Sound cool? It is wicked cool, and much more natural feeling to me. I can't tell you how much I love my Cintiq. One of the function buttons was sticking the other day on my precious baby and I was fretting as if one my real children had come down with the flu. What would I do if my poor Cintiq became ill?! Luckily it recovered on it's own. Phew!

Programming the Wacom Function Keys

When I first started using a Wacom tablet I didn't make good use of the available funtion keys. I still had one hand on the keyboard to do things like hit "b" (the hotkey for the brush tool) and "e" for the eraser tool and my all-time favorite "CTRL-ALT-Z" for undo. But I have since started programming my Wacom for the way I work and it has definitely streamlined up my work flow.

Think about the tools that you use most in Photohsop and try bringing that functionality down to the tablet. I spend most of my time switching between the brush tool and the eraser tool. So in the Wacom preference utility, I set the left function keys to "b", "e" and "CTRL-ALT-z". The preference utility can be accessed in Windows by going to "Programs -> Wacom Tablet -> Wacom Tablet Properties" Notice how I can specify that the keys only have this behavior within Photoshop. You can set up different behavior for use in other applications (Illustrator for example)

The other thing that I have found very useful is to reprogram the buttons on the actual Wacom pen. I have set the top one to the left bracket and the bottom one to a right bracket. "[" and "]" are hot keys that are used in conjunction with brush tools. The they will resize the paint brush up and down in incremental steps. That way I can increase and decrease the size of my brush just by tapping my finger against my pen.

I recommend playing around with various button configurations and see what works for you.

Note: I think the newest Intuos 4 tablets have a different function key configuration so my preference screens may look different than yours.

Half Drop Repeats in Photoshop

2010-05-24T09:13:00.000-04:00

Here's a little addendum to yesterday's post about creating repeating patterns in Photoshop. This variation of of the repeating pattern technique, makes creating simple half-drop repeat in Photoshop is really easy.

First create a new document the size of your final pattern. Make sure it's an even number of pixels high and wide. Make a note of the size because you will need that info later.

Next set the background to the desired color. For this to work you must make it a solid color (no gradients or anything like that) Remember I said this was a "simple" half-drop repeat. Next create a new layer above the background layer and create or cut-and-paste your pattern here. For my example I cut and pasted this little pig from another file and dropped it in here.

Make sure your image does not bleed off the edges of document and that it is on it's own transparent layer. Your layer window should look something like this.

Next create a duplicate of your image layer. Photoshop automatically named my new layer "Image Layer copy"

Next, make sure the "image layer copy" layer is selected and click "Filter -> Other -> Offset." Set the horizontal offset to half of the total width of your document. In my case my file is 500px wide so I will set the offset to 250px. Also set the the vertical offset to one half the total height. Again, my document was also 500px high so I set the offset to 250. (This is why we needed an even number of pixels when we initially created our document.) Also check "Wrap Around" for the Undefined Areas. When I click okay my original pig is still there but the new pig has been shifted to the corners.

Now, click "Select -> All" and "Edit -> Define Pattern" and you have a simple half drop repeat. Hmmm, I think I need some pajamas made out of my new "pig party" pattern. :)

Quickly Creating Patterns in Photoshop

2010-05-21T09:11:00.016-04:00

As I was unpacking my materials from the NESCBWI conference this week I realized that I completely forgot to cover one of my presentation topics. I'm so annoyed with myself, because I thought it was one of the neater things that I was going to cover. I can't believe I forgot it. Oh well, at least I'll post it here on my blog. Better late than never, right?

I discussed this technique a while ago in the context of creating polka dot patterns but I think it's worth repeating. Many folks like to create collage images but are concerned about the copyright implications of using other people's fabric or paper designs in their work. This is a quick way to create all sorts of repeating pattern of your own in Photoshop.

First create a new document in Photoshop. It doesn't matter what size you make it as long as the height and width are an even number of pixels. I'm going to make mine 200px wide and 200px tall. Make note of the size, you will need it later.

Next draw something. The only rule is that you can not touch the document boundaries with your drawing. You can change the background to different solid color if you want, but make sure your drawing does not touch the edges of your image.

You can add textures, shadows, what ever, get as fancy with this as you want. Here I set the background to a light blue and drew a flower.

Now I could stop right here. If I click "Select -> All" and "Edit -> Define Pattern" I will get a pattern that will look something like this...

It's not bad but I want something less grid-like. So I'm going to modify it. First if you used more than one layer to create your image (which I did) you will need to flatten it into one layer. Next, select "Filter -> Other -> Offset" You will need to set the horizontal offset to one half of the total width of your image. In my case that would be 100 pixels. You will also set the vertical offset to half of the total height, again, in my case, that will be 100 pixels. Lastly, you will check "Wrap Around" for the undefined areas. If you click on the other options you will quickly see the difference. Once I run the offset filter I have something like this...

Now I can again draw something in the middle. But again don't touch the edges of the document. I can even draw over my original drawing and modify it just as long as I stay away from the document bounds. I drew another flower and one of the green curly cues overlap my original flower.

Now if I click "Select -> All" and "Edit -> Define Pattern" I get a more fluid looking pattern like this...

As you can imagine, making new patterns is rather addictive and before you know it, you will have a whole library of your own patterns to choose from.

ADDENDUM: I didn't make it very clear what to do after you click Edit -> Define Pattern. So here goes...

After I hit Edit -> Define Pattern. I like to save the original pattern file. So for my flower pattern I would save it as "flowerpattern.psd" I like to save all my patterns to a directory I called "PatternFiles" that way if I ever need to change one I have the original file to work with.

Once I save it, I can close the original file I won't need it anymore. Now I can create a new file. Make this new file larger than the first pattern file. For example, my flower pattern was 200px X 200px So I made a new file that's 800x1125 (it doesn't matter how big it is - just as long as it's bigger than the pattern file so you can see your pattern repeating) In this new file I make a selection. I wanted my pattern to fill the whole file so I clicked Select -> All then I clicked Edit -> Fill and when the dialog box comes up, I selected "Pattern" for the "Contents Use" dialog. And down below where it says custom pattern I click the little arrow next to the pattern and my new pattern should show up in the list. I select it, and when I click okay my new file should be filled with the flower pattern.

Hope this clears up any confusion.

Rounding Corners in Adobe Illustrator

2010-05-18T19:59:00.005-04:00

I was creating a shape in Illustrator today and lamenting yet again how lame the "Stylize -> Round Corners" command is in Illustrator. I was hoping they had improved it in CS5 but alas it's still the same old function. I just want to be able to select a corner of a shape and apply a radius to it. Rarely do I want to round all the corners of a shape like Illustrator does.

That's why I was so thrilled to find this page on Hiroyuki Sato's website today and I just had to share it. Thanks to funkatron.com for the link. If you download the collection of Illustrator scrips on Hiroyuki Sato's site you will find one called, "Round Any Corner" If you select one or more corners of your shape and run that script*, it will ask you for a radius and apply it to just those selected corner. It makes so much more sense to me than the "Stylize -> Round Corners" command. Some of the scripts didn't seem to work for me. I don't know if I was doing something wrong of it's because they aren't compatible with CS5, but the round corners one seems to work okay.

*To run a script select "File -> Scripts -> Other Scripts..." Or you can make it show up in the menu by putting the .js file in the "Program Files\Adobe\IllustratorCS5\Presets\Scripts" directory.

NESCBWI

2010-05-17T08:20:00.005-04:00

I had an awesome time at the New England SCBWI conference this year. All the presentations I went to were wonderful and I feel so recharged and inspired to get back to work. Thank you Marla Frazee, Matt Phelan, and Richard Michalson for your great workshops. I really wish I could have stuck around on Sunday. There were more talks that I wanted to go to.

And it was also great meeting lots of new friends and catching up with old ones. There was a hugely talented group of illustrators attending like Melinda Beavers, Hazel Mitchell, Lucy Payne Pollack, Carlyn Beccia, Andy Smith, Jennifer Meyer and Robert Squier just to name a few.

Although if Robert wasn't there I might have won first place in the poster showcase. My entry (shown above) came in second after his. Curse you Robert Squier!! :) But seriously his poster entry was very very cute. Congratulations!

I think the one thing that stuck with me the most was something Cynthia Leitich Smith said during her keynote. And that was, "do at least one thing every week to promote your work." It doesn't have to be a big thing but do at least one thing. That's something I'm going to try live by.

New England SCBWI Conference

2010-05-14T08:05:00.003-04:00

I'm packing up my bags and heading out to the New England SCBWI conference this afternoon. I'll be moderating an "Illustrating with Technology" special interest group this evening. Hope to see some of you there!

I'm also getting things ready for Letter Writing Day at the Spellman Museum of Postal History on Sunday afternoon.

3D opitical illusion

2010-05-13T08:28:00.003-04:00

This is so cool. Thanks to James Gurney for the link.

Creating a Texture Brush in Photoshop

2010-05-11T08:50:00.010-04:00

I'm working on a Photoshop techniques presentation for the New England SCBWI conference this weekend and I thought I'd share with you one of the techniques I'll be discussing on Sunday. The following tutorial will show you how to create the texture brush I used to create the image above.

This is a fun technique for creating custom brushes that will add texture and interest to your images. By the way, I'm using Photoshop version CS3 in this demonstration.

First get some white paper and some black paint (yep, I said paper and paint) I used some copy paper and cheap black acrylic craft paint. Then I used sponges, Saran wrap, leaves and anything else I could find to make irregular shaped blobs on the paper. You can even get your kids to help with this part.

Once it all dried, I scanned in some of my blobs. Here's one that I created with a wadded up piece of Saran wrap dipped in paint.

I selected the blob using the marquee tool and then clicked Edit -> Define Brush Preset and hit OK.

If I then use the brush tool using my newly created brush, I get something like this...

It's interesting, but too mechanical and repetitive for what I want to do. So I'm going to open the brush palette (Window -> Brushes) and make some changes.

I clicked on the Shape Dynamics on the left-hand side of the dialog to open the shape dynamic options. The first thing I change is the size jitter, I set the Control to pen pressure. But I don't my brush size to vary too much in size, so I set the minimum diameter to 70%.

Next I set the Angle jitter to 100% and also check Flip X jitter and Flip Y jitter. This will give it a more random look, like I was dipping a sponge in paint over and over again twisting the sponge as I went.

As you can see from the preview window in the bottom of the brush dialog this is looking a lot more random now. Of course I encourage you to play around with all the brush settings and see what sorts of effects you can come up with.

It's very important to remember that once you change the brush settings, you need to save it as a new brush. Or the next time you go to use the brush it will revert back to the old settings.

Now if I use this new and improved brush to scribble over my image. I get something like this...

And if I go over it again with another color, little bits of the blue will still poke through here and there...

By layering more and more colors I can get a nice subtle texture. This was all done using that same brush. I did lower the opacity on the last few passes to get a softer overall look. This is how I created the frog image at the top of this post.

Hope you found this useful. I encourage you to experiment and come up with your own texture brushes.

Another Old Watercolor

2010-05-04T12:39:00.002-04:00

I usually don't work this loosely but I have always really like this painting, unfortunately it must have been done on cheap watercolor paper because it has yellowed pretty badly - I tweaked the colors in Photoshop. This beach scene was done at Chautauqua Institute in Chautauqua, NY where I spent a summer studying art.

Yet Another Old Piece of Art

2010-05-03T12:43:00.004-04:00

This one is a pencil drawing of my daughter when she was about 18 months old. She is now rolling her eyes and asking if she can go to the mall with her friends :) This was another piece that I've always really liked but I really wasn't planning on it turning into anything and I drew it dangerously close to the edge of the illustration board. The top of her head is almost at the edge of the page. Thank goodness for Photoshop.

Old Watercolors from my Closet

2010-05-03T12:33:00.003-04:00

I've been doing some spring cleaning the past few days. Well, spring cleaning might be a misnomer in my case. Can you really call it spring cleaning when you only do it every two or three years? But regardless, I have been shoveling out my studio. And I've found some old watercolors stashed away in a portfolio in the back of the closet. I thought I'd share a few over the next couple of day before they go back into hiding. Or who knows, maybe I'll even frame a couple.

I thought this one of magnolia blooms was appropriate since here in New England the Magnolias just finished flowering. This painting is approx 15" x 22"

Spellman Museum of Stamps and Postal History

2010-04-28T12:04:00.003-04:00

The Spellman Museum in Weston, MA is hosting Letter Writing Day on May 16th from 2:00 to 4:00pm.

Please join me at the event as I will be reading my new children's book, Please Write Back! I will be doing a drawing demo and will also have activities on hand for the kids.

Also at the event, author Lois Barry will talk about her adult book, Always First Class - The Pleasure of Writing Letters. I'm looking forward to meeting Lois and picking up a copy of her book.

There will also be free stamps and prizes for the kids. So if you are in the Boston area, please stop by. It should be a lot of fun. I think I'll go dust off my old stamp collection.