Behind the Scenes: "Building" a Snowman (a work in progress)

As I often do, I tried to cram one too many designs on my "to do" list for my 2010 holiday designs. I was done and then decided to do "just one more". I was mostly done with it when I lost my head of steam. When this happens with a seasonal piece, I put it aside until the next year rolls around--which is what will happen with this snowman sketch.

Poor little snowman... it isn't his fault.

Then I decided he would be a good behind-the-scenes subject for a blog post. So Mr. Snowman does get to have some fun this year after all!

Above is the rough scan of the pencil sketch of Mr. Snowman. I do all my preliminary sketching by hand in one of my various sketchbooks (one for small sketches, one for large sketches and one for on-the-road sketching).

After I've scanned in the pencil sketch, I bring it into Photoshop CS3 and perform clean-up with the help of my Wacom Cintiq digital tablet. I do this because I want all the specks and flecks that are picked by the scanner up from the white paper to not transfer when I print out the outline sketch onto watercolor paper.

Next I print out the snow man on a piece of 12x17 watercolor paper using my Canon Pro9000 ink jet printer. I choose this size because that's the largest I can scan once the painting is done. Even if the original sketch isn't that large, I enlarge it to fill the paper.

Then I secure the watercolor paper that has the printed outline on it to my painting board, I break out the watercolors, and I begin painting.

Oftentimes, I will scan the painting after completing one stage (in this case the black hat and coal buttons). This is a good practice for me just in case I do something I don't like later in the painting process. If I do, I can always reprint the outline and repaint the elements I didn't like and then digitally marry them with the elements I did like from previous scans.

There is a quality of painting that I can only get with watercolor and haven't been able to replicate digitally. I paint the shapes and elements that I want to have that quality. In this case, I wanted a certain look to the shading as well as a certain brushstroke for each piece of the fringe of his scarf. At that stage, I scanned the painting again and brought it back into Photoshop CS3.

After some clean-up using the Wacom Cintiq again, I decided to apply one of my photo textures to Mr. Snowman to make him look more like he was made of snow (see the texture below).

Click on texture above to download for free

I also added some additional shading and highlights over the top of the snow to get this...

Although Mr. Snowman may look like he's done, he really has a way to go. I have to paint the additional elements like the holly berries for his hat and the patterns for the gifts he's carrying. Those will get painted separately and added digitally. Mr. Snowman is also going to need a snazzy background so he isn't floating in white space. And I'll have to design the layouts specifically for each thing he goes on. A 5x7 card layout is much different than an iPhone case and that's different from an e-card/e-vite (the list can go on and on). I may even offer him with different colored scarves and mittens... I don't know. All that work will happen when I begin putting together my 2011 holiday designs.

Mr. Snowman will wait until then. Luckily, he won't melt.

Behind the Scenes: Little Halloween Witch (and her kitten) from sketches to painting

It's time for another "behind the scenes" post about my latest painting "Little Halloween Witch" so you can see the progression I went through to create it.

Every painting always starts out as a rough pencil sketch in one of my sketchbooks (I have several). Usually the sketches aren't in scale with one another. Rarely are they the size of what the finished painting will be. And often elements of the same finished composition aren't even on the same page in the sketchbook! Sometimes I don't know if I'm going to combine elements into one composition until much later in the process.

The sketching phase is the time to just get shapes and elements worked out. LOTS of erasing happens during this phase (you can even see my eraser lines if you look closely).

Once I like a sketch enough to take it on to the next phase, I scan it into the computer using my Epson Expression 10000 XL flatbed scanner that has a large glass especially for art. The digital version of the scan is cleaned up in Photoshop so all the eraser lines and boo boo's. It's at this point that I correct any proportion issues within the sketch by cutting and pasting pieces.

I'm left with a clean sketch that I reduce the opacity on so it looks like a light pencil sketch. I print the sketch onto regular watercolor paper that I send through my Canon Pro 9000. Even though my Canon can print up to 13x19 prints, I cut the watercolor paper down to 12x17 so it's the maximum size that my scanner will take once the painting is done.

Next, I tape the watercolor paper to a drawing board using white drafting tape. Then it's time to get out the brushes and paints! This is my favorite part. I love turning on iTunes and painting.

This painting process can take hours or days. Sometimes I can sit down and do a painting from start to finish all in one sitting (the black kitten for this painting was like that). But usually I work on different pieces of the painting, set it down, walk away, and then come back with fresh eyes and a clear head after a long break (sometimes overnight). I often do that several times. Even though I paint with a portable fan nearby to dry the paints quickly if need be, sometimes it's good for me to let the painting sit and let all the moisture in the paper really dry so I don't have to worry about cross-bleed between colors that are touching one another. That's the real secret to watercolors. Dry paper works like a "dam" with the paint that will usually only spread on moist or wet paper. When I'm painting something like the little witch's hair against the black hat, I definitely can get bleeding from one to the other. I have to let the paper completely dry or it would ruin it. That's when overnight drying is essential.

Even though the paintings look like they're done at this point, they usually aren't.

I scan them into the computer again using my flatbed art scanner. Then with Photoshop, I clean up any "oopsies" that happen (like when my hand spazzes and the paintbrush flies across the painting leaving a trail of purple paint in its wake).

After clean-up, I go in and digitally paint highlights like the little white sparkle in the eyes. I could do this last step with watercolors, but I have more flexibility if I do it digitally. I can try various placements and opacities on the highlights without altering the original painting.

The final step is to take the finalized art and place it in a composition so it can be used as stationery or reproduced as a print. Sometimes the two compositions will look very similar to one another and only differ in size to accommodate the end product. But other times (like this time) I can get creative and do a crisp "tight" version for use in e-cards/e-invites and then an "artsy" version for prints.

I still can't decide which one I like better. I think I like them both for different reasons.

Click here to send this e-card/e-invite for free

Click here to see this painting in fine art reproduction prints, canvases and cards

Behind the Scenes with Sachi

My brother and his wife have an adorable purebred Shiba Inu puppy named Sachi. Shiba's are a Japanese breed so her name, Sachi, is a Japanese name that means "girl child of joy, bliss, happiness or good fortune". At 16 weeks old, Sachi lives up to her name in a big way! Although capturing video of her is pretty easy, getting portrait photos of her can be a bit challenging.

I wanted to show how I worked my "magic" using Photoshop (PS) to take a run-of-the-mill chance shot of Sachi sitting still, and turned it into multiple versions of one of her first portraits.

To begin, I'll show you the shot SOOC ("straight out of the camera")...



Taking photos in indirect sunlight is good, but it can cause color issues. You can see there is a blue tint to the photo. This is caused by inappropriate white balance. Don't be scared off at this point... the term "white balance" describes something very basic. It simply means what the camera sees as true white. For a realistic photo, the goal is to get the camera to see white things in the shot as true white, because it uses that as the baseline for color balance throughout the other colors in the shot. Most digital cameras have auto white balance settings, but still they can be off (as seen above).

But never fear...

Clicking the shutter to take the shot with a digital camera is really only half the work. The other half happens once the shot is brought back to my computer and downloaded for me to do post-processing. Since I shoot in RAW format, the camera doesn't process any of the data it records when I click the shutter. It just records it so I can download the RAW data into my computer and tweak to my heart's content within a post-processing program (I use Camera RAW because it came with PS, but most pro's use Adobe Lightroom). I can do post-processing on images I shoot in jpg format but I get the most flexibility with RAW.

So with a bit of tweaking with the color balance, I can bring the colors out of the blue range and back to what it looked like in person...



You probably noticed that there's something else different in the shot above from the original. Sachi isn't wearing her harness or leash anymore. It really is the same shot... I promise. I used the patch tool in PS CS5 to carefully remove the harness and leash. Normally, I use PS CS3 for everything because the user interface is more friendly to my needs. But PS CS5 has a powerful "content aware" ability to patch things like this. So in this case, I pulled the image into PS CS5 temporarily to do the patch work, and then brought it back into PS CS3 to play and finish up. For less complex patching, I just stay in PS CS3.

The next step is what I call "playing" with PS actions. Actions are a way for a PS user to record a long list of steps they've performed so they can use them later or share them with others. I've collected a few actions from various users that share via their blogs or websites. I often will take a shot and run action after action on it to see the results I get--hence the term "playing". As long as I've saved the file up to the point that I start running actions, nothing is permanent and I can undo anything I don't like. It's really fun to watch the image as it goes through the action script and wonder how it will look when it's done.



For the shot above, I used the PS action "Soft Autumn Glow" by Rita at Coffee Shop Photography. I really like Rita's actions because Rita writes her actions so that the layers aren't merged once the script is done. That way I can go back and tweak any layer and customize for the specific image I'm working with.



For the shot above, I used Omar the Radwan's "Lomo Effect" action (another fave resource of mine). His lomo effect action always produces a cool, dramatic, and edgy look. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I never know until I run the action. [If you're wondering what the "lomo effect" is, click here for a great wikipedia write-up.]

Sometimes, I decide that I really want to get in there and be creative with a shot. That's when I break out my Wacom Cintiq digital tablet, my textures, and my drawing skills.



In PS, I can stack layers on top of the original image much like I'd put tissue paper over the top of a real print to trace it. My Cintiq lets me draw or erase directly on the image just like I'm holding a sketchbook. So I use my stylus like a pencil to "draw" and "paint" the image as I erase away textures that I've put on top of the original image.

I used a number of textures for the piece above--working one layer completely before adding another. I have my own library of textures but I also use the textures of others creatives that generously share through flickr. I used textures from playingwithbrushes and swimmingintheether.

I also used the burn and dodge tools on the original image layer to brighten up whites or darken shadows to get the painted or pastel effect.

Finally, I cropped the final "formal" portrait so that it would print at 11x14. Digital cameras shoot in non-standard sizes, so I think about that if I'm doing something for someone else that will possibly need a standard size for framing.