An old friend from my high school days found these early drawings of mine in our old high school art & lit magazine. (Not that we’re old or anything…) So I thought some of you might like to see what kind of stuff I did as a teen ~ ancient history now (even before the rubber cement period) ~ when #2 pencils and I were starting to move into a more serious relationship.
Computers are magical. Young designers don’t know how good they have it. Back when the earth’s crust was cooling and dinosaurs roamed freely, there existed the most horrendous, antiquated processes for creating a finished design project.
I worshipped computers the minute they eliminated rubber cement and laborious hand-cut color separations. T-squares and triangles and type galleys. It was a downright primitive experience. The production aspect was neither fun nor a walk in the park, although you did acquire a fairly intimate relationship with the inner workings of color and tone and bandaids (for the exacto blade cuts).
With computers you can take a piece of handmade art and ~ *presto!* ~ it becomes digital, ready for use in a multitude of ways on a multitude of products.
Of course, there are varying levels of *presto!*, so that what looks clean and effortlessly polished is very often laboriously and painstakingly rendered behind the scenes.
I’ve recently been working with a great client on a project that falls precisely into this category. The end result is a pretty picture, but getting to that point is literally a matter of connecting hundreds of little dots, like these:
And a strange thing happens when you get into a groove like that ~ it starts to take over your subconscious mind. It’s kind of like when I draw a lot, I see things in shapes and shadows, lights and darks … except in this case I start seeing things as if they were pieces of vector art**.
Just the other day while driving a winding stretch of road, my mind decided to imagine the curves as they would be drawn on the computer. It was a pretty weird sensation. I wonder if dreaming in vector is next.
Dreams or no dreams, the laborious elements of yesteryear’s graphic design have really only changed in terms of the tools used. Personally, I still adore illustrating classically with a pencil or paintbrush ~ but for design, I remain ever grateful that paste-ups hit the dust long ago.
**in brief, for those who may not know, vector art is the use of computerized lines and anchor points to create shapes that in the dark ages would have been done by hand.
proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.
This week’s inspiration came from a friend in Tennessee who saw a cool “P”, took a picture and sent it to me. I love the image, and imagine the inhabitants settling in, holding court and squawking defensively at the parking lot below.
And the thought it provoked is this: that life… wherever it calls home, wherever it thrives, feeds, flies, laughs, cries, loves … is precious. Yours, mine, the new baby’s, the old man’s, the birds in flight, the rivers and trees and fairies and whales and clouds and rocks and deserts and mountains and suns and moons.
It reminded me that life is a gift, a tapestry of twists and turns, of madness, hopes and dreams, offering a nest of precious treasures in sometimes unexpected places.
Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos. ~Don Kardon
(above illustration from the Pencil Point series)
You do understand what this means, right? You can have ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner ~ any time is ice cream time!
It also makes it a bit more “legit” for those of us who already imbibe freely…. for those of us with a couple of quarts in the freezer at all times and hot fudge at the ready …. And it provides another opportunity to show that it’s next to impossible to be anything but happy while eating ice cream.
What’s your favorite? We have the whole month to explore… scoop up!
proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.
Peas may be petite, but they sure pack a big positive punch.
Did you know that peas have twice the protein of most vegetables? They also help lower cholesterol, strengthen the immune system, maintain level glucose levels in the blood to keep energy levels consistent, promote healthy bones and boost cardiovascular health. Not to mention their high vitamin C content is a great natural antioxidant that protects the body from cell damage. Plus, they happen to be yummy, especially fresh from a garden.
So, do like Mom said, and eat your peas!
This doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll see more magical winged creatures than usual ~ but if you do, be extra kind.
“The fairy poet takes a sheet of moonbeam, silver white; His ink dew from daisies sweet. His pen a point of light.” ~ Joyce Kilmer
proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.
Why not? Can’t you just imagine them huddling in their pens, planning some nighttime fun? Their wings (invisible during the day to avoid alarming the humans) coming alive, carrying them effortlessly through the air under a shiny new moon; pigs and piglets soaring above field and fencepost, performing weightless pirouettes over the barn, their squeals of delight breaking midnight’s stillness as they tickle treetops and wreak havoc in the hen house.
Ah, if pigs could fly… Maybe they’d teach us to lighten up, be a ham, play in the mud sometimes ~ and every now and then, perhaps, to enjoy our own small acre from a loftier, unexpected, improbable, fantastical and quite extraordinary point of view.
The book cover I’m wrapping up for author Sam Moffie has an interesting story on the back relating to Kurt Vonnegut. Hearing Vonnegut’s name triggered the memory that he was not only a successful author, but an artist as well ~ making him fit snugly into my “creative duet” series.
Dubbed “America’s greatest satirist” back in the late 60’s, Vonnegut’s best-selling, and most powerful novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, is pretty much considered classic literature at this point. His novels are dark, complex, persuasive, and controversial.
I can’t say that his art strays far from that description, either. There’s no hint of romantic artistic fancy here, but a continuation of the Vonnegut mind, a unifying sense of something off-beat that intimates deeper meanings despite a deceptive simplicity. His art is as unconventional, and almost as successful, as his writing.
Vonnegut stepped into the graphic arts with illustrations for Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions, his favorite tool being a felt-tip pen. Later he developed a greater passion in art for its own sake, creating silk-screen prints, which I find have an intriguing, “Picasso-esque” feel. And a kind of cool tidbit of note is that his 2004 album cover art created for (the band) Phish is included as part of a traveling exhibit for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Vonnegut’s career as novelist and essayist spanned nearly 6 decades. He died in 2007 at the age of 84.
(More art prints and more about Mr. Vonnegut can be found at vonnegut.com. There is also a lengthy, informational page at Wikipedia)
proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.
“People who look through keyholes are apt to get the idea that most things are keyhole shaped.” ~ Author Unknown
So much of life is about our point of view. Are you so close to something that you miss the bigger picture? Or do you soar above, taking in a broad view, missing the details?
Is your view softened by “rose-colored glasses” or do you see only the hard, harsh angles? When you walk, do you look up, look down, look straight ahead?
Are you near-sighted? Far-sighted? Do you look back, look forward? Do you see what’s right in front of you? Do you consider situations from all sides?
Our perspectives change, of course. But like all thought, we can direct that perspective towards the best possible light.
Soon to be a revolution – or maybe a revelation! – or then again, just another dragon tale. Either way, thought you’d enjoy the illustrative progression. (see prior dragon entries)
Garth / © Patricia Saxton
