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Strangely enough I seem to find myself doing loads of robot work lately without realizing it. This are some character illustrations a PR agency in London commissioned me to do, each one of the characters was going to be used by their staff for their business cards, putting a bit of fun in PR.

Today I finished an illustration in Ilustrator CS3, inspired by the story of a boy with a very bad temper I recieved an email from a friend the other day. I was inspired to use it for my CRE Prep class so I re-wrote it for younger children and illustrated a book cover in colour. The pages will be in the form of a colouring book so the kids can read and colour in the pages. I will update my blog

Here's a robot illo I did for a project coming up soon. Final is pretty big - 90cms sq.
What you think?



My blog

Have I been idle? Noooooo way! -I have been very busy and productive lately.
Have I been painting? Well no…

However I have been doing a lot of freelancing on web sites and graphic design.

I was playing with my old friend “Illustrator” this week and boy did I have fun. It is hard not to get completely distracted with Adobe programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator. There is not a week that goes by I don’t check out something new or inventive in the programs I use. The possibilities with these programs are endless. In recent months I have been mainly working in Photoshop and Indesign and Illustrator hardly got a look in but it was great to get back to using Illustrator this week.

Twilight tour flyer design: Mountain District Christian School.
I have some freelance work for another Christian school; Mountain District Christian School, creating their annual flyers and doing some ad work. This past week I put together a few ideas and developed the most appropriate concept for the first flyer design into an almost finished flyer. The design concept was screaming for a touch of fun vector graphics, and so I starting playing with my old friend Illustrator. Once I started, all I want to do is keep exploring the possibilities but I stayed focussed temporarily. I guess it is not unlike the flow I get into when I start painting. I can totally loose myself in anything creative especially when the subject is a happy theme. I love conceptual work and instead of just adding information to a flyer, I like to send an immediate message in the design. The flyer was for an open day which they inventively called “twilight tours” as the tour was in later part of the day. I focused on the main graphic being appropriate to twilight tours.

I used Illustrator to create the graphics and introduced the school’s images and text into the design. I presented the design to the school and they loved it. I had so much fun creating it. Some days I just LOVE my job and this week had been great. I always love it when I have work that I can spend time on and explore the possibilities (creative licence).

Stock Illustration: Debutante / wedding vector graphic.
Hooked on playing with Illustrator, I got my teeth into this illustration for a stock image I plan to submit to www.istock.com I thought I would try stock illustration and see how it goes. My daughter was the model for this vector drawing which will be appropriate for a wedding stock image, debutante ball / presentation ball stock image, formal stock image, or anything girly.

I am not a huge fan of beautiful language in novels. That sounds horrible for a writer, I know. I want strong, effective, surprising language, but lyrical language doesn't do a ton for me. That's usually too much (for me) contemplation, not enough action, and no plot advancement. And if a book opens with a lyrical segment, that's often a death knell for my interest in the book.

But.

My Favorite Book This Week (see sidebar), Song of the Sparrow, by Lisa Ann Sandell (Scholastic, 2007), has an amazing, haunting, lyrical opening.

I am Elaine
daughter of Barnard of Ascolat.
Motherless.
Sisterless.
I sing these words to you now,
because the point of light grows smaller,
ever smaller now,
ever more distant now.
And with this song, I pray I may
push back the tides of war and death.
So, I sing these words
that this light, this tiny
ray of light and hope may live on.
I dare not hope that I
may live on too.

What a mood setter! It creates the perfect tone for this Arthurian novel in verse, which I thought was just terrific. It makes me want to hear the rest of her story/song and learn her fate.

What's the first paragraph or line of the book you're reading right now? 

Tonight I finsihed this 12x12 inch scrapbook paper design keeing to Illustration friday's theme this week: Hats

"HATS" This week’s theme for Illustration Friday is Hats. Here is my submission. A quick vector illustration created in Illustrator today. I just started playing in Illustrator and built it up without any real pre-planning or sketches

You have only 23 words to grab somebody's attention in Google Reader. Don't lose RSS feed readers on your first sentence.

Make your first sentence count. If you need some help with that, read Copyblogger every day.

That blog will teach you how to craft better openings, closings, and middles for your blog writings.

Dig it (and the 40 comments it generated!):

"A great headline mixed with a lame opening is like inviting someone into your house, only to slam the door in their face as they approach. So, here’s 5 ways to open your post that will capture the reader’s imagination and pull them deeper into your content."

When you finish reading Copyblogger's post, check out Claire Zulkey's hilarious post that breaks every rule.