abe: family, projects, ideas

Simple, unoriginal thought

I am rediscovering the world.  Through Isaiah’s eyes.  Do you remember the smell of grass, the feel of digging in dirt, the wiggle of an earthworm?  Do you remember playing despite cold?  When was the last time you were happily uncomfortable?  Climbed in a tree?  I am rediscovering the world through Isaiah’s eyes.  What a joy.

1 comment April 6th, 2008

Quaker thoughts

I was raised Quaker. Quakers sit in silent worship, communing directly with God. We believe that if you listen God will speak, and help guide you in life. I love the philosopy, open-mindedness, and quiet of the Quakers. Moreso, I love the lack of priests - it’s just you and God. I attended Quaker Meeting until I was 18, but have only recently started re-attending with Franny (raised Catholic) and Isaiah.

I have never been “lead” by the Lord. Not quite true, but hear me out.

Reading Quaker literature, you read of the church founders having incredible spiritual moments where God spoke loudly to them. I’ve never quite believed this; certainly I have never had such an experience myself. I’ve lived my entire life bringing hard decisions to the Lord in quiet prayer, waiting for his advice and direction. And I’ve never heard any. So I’ve made the decisions that seemed right at the time, and life has been good to me. (Who knows, maybe my “feeling right” about a decision is how God speaks to me, if so it’s unprovable :-)).

I have been “warned” by the Lord. My extended family is Catholic, and I joined the Catholic church as an adult. The priest who confirmed me used to state that sins cannot be enumerated, they are personal, between an individual and the Lord. Sin, he said, was anything that caused a rift in your relationship with the Lord. I agree - it is my experience that when I have “sinned” (cigarettes, drugs, meanness) I have felt it injured my relationship with God. And there was always a voice, sometimes quiet, sometimes very loud, telling me where I was going wrong. That I should not be going down a given path. That if I continued, I would be unhappy and disconnected from God.

God, or conscience? So that’s it - God has never spoken to me. A little voice has told me what I shouldn’t be doing. God? Or my conscience? I frankly don’t know or care. I believe in the Lord, even if he never speaks to me. Even if there is only this one life, and then nothing but dirt and worms. My faith doesn’t require a rebirth, it doesn’t require miracles. It just is. I am just thankful for this life, for the path I have been able to follow, for all the random events of life leaving me alive, married, with a beautiful son, wonderful family, and caring friends.

Add comment April 6th, 2008

Final Version & Art Process

I’ve finished the Francesca and Isaiah piece. Check it out here, or peek at the thumbnail below. I’ve had pieces of this composition floating around in my head for a while - I knew I wanted to draw Franny, even the pose & meadow setting, but couldn’t make it all fit in my head. I finally sketched it out and realized that Isaiah was the missing piece. I’ve wanted to draw the Laundry dress too - that was tough but well worth it.

Art process - maybe it’s just me, but I love the drawing process as much as the finished work. I love reading artists websites where they share their creative process with others. (1) you can learn from each other, and (2) it’s just great to see how everyone ticks. Plus I find the art itself beautiful at every stage. Click through to see my art process from sketchbook to this image.

Overview of the process: tools - sketchbook, pencils, MacBook + PhotoShop CS3 + Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet (11 x 9 inches). I sometimes start in a sketchbook, other times I just sketch directly in PhotoShop using the Wacom. If I start in my sketchbook, I scan into computer then finish in PhotoShop. I work at very large resolutions (this image was done at 70 x 50 inches, wound up at 250MB). This way if I squiggle a little while drawing, downsampling smoothes everything out. It also helps to be able to zoom in and do details at high resolution.

PS - Click the images to see the full size originals in my gallery.

1. Character sketches - sketchbook & pencil (or pen), or direct into PhotoShop. This image started in the sketchbook, then I traced over the image on the tablet.

2. Detailed Inking - Wacom & PhotoShop, regular round brush, stroke dynamics. Isn’t Isaiah a cutey?

3. Coloring - for real people, I match colors against photos. I use a big brush to fill in large areas, then add detail with various appropriate PhotoShop brushes.

4. Clothing (Sketch, Ink, Color) - call me strange, but I need to draw clothes on top of a body. Even if they totally obscure the body. So after I’ve completed my nudes, I add the clothes. For Isaiah’s simple onesey I didn’t bother with a sketch, but you can see from Francesca’s complicated dress that I started with the blue sketch, followed with black inking & lots of color / detail work.

5. Finished! Francesca and Isaiah are now done - that took about 3 hours. The dress took most of the time - I had to get the actual dress out to see what the patterns were.

6. Background started - if I can start with a photo I will, here I found a nice meadow picture that suited my mental image of the final product. I scaled it to match my canvas, and resized & placed my subjects.

7. Background sketch - I go faster with the background, so broader sketch strokes to help me place the color later.

8. Background color & detail - just like with the people, I add detailed ink, broad swaths of color, and then more detail. I use assorted brushes here to give the natural feel to the wildflowers and sun highlights on the trees. Again, I do color matching from the original photo.

9. Horizon and sky - the flattened image above doesn’t show this, but I left the sky transparent, allowing me to add a sky layer below the background layer. I then added a little gradient and some fluffy clouds, as well as a few horizon hills in darkening colors. Almost there!

10. There is no step 10. All done! Actually, I added a little shadowing and detail under Francesca & Isaiah’s feet to plant them in the scene. I’m more or less happy with this outcome - I’d had the idea in my head for a while and it finally came together. I may re-use the Francesca & Isaiah images in a simpler desktop image, but that’s for another day.

Thanks for reading!

1 comment April 6th, 2008