Tall House Illustration in Highland Park, NJ
I worked on this tall house illustration back in December, and I’m presenting it to you today with a little secret. Shh, it’s not quite official and may be going slowly, but this house illustration and the house illustration I posted in late December will be part of a new “mural” painting that will appear on my leoraw.com home page. I came up with the idea about two years ago to redo my home page completely and give it a “Highland Park, NJ” look – to me, that meant the old houses of Highland Park. And some trees. An old-fashioned suburban look perhaps. I started working on the actual “mural” or banner earlier this week – it needs a third house, so that is on the list to be done.
My next step will be either cloud or tree illustrations – which should it be? Clouds or trees, anyone?
Laura says
I like your mural idea. My vote is for trees next.
Leora says
Great. Trees it might be. I collected some illustration-style trees about a month ago. After Purim, I'll play a bit.
The cloud may be a way of getting the text to be on a white background while the rest of the sky is blue.
Lorri M. says
I love this house! It reminds me of houses where I grew up on the south shore of L.I., a small town called Babylon (of all names).
I love your mural idea, and am sure your final product will be lovely. I like the ideas of trees...can you add a pink-blossomed dogwood into it? LOL. I know you aren't taking reservations...I couldn't help myself.
Leora says
Ooh, Babylon, great name.
"pink-blossomed dogwood" - well, if you find a tutorial for creating dogwood trees in Illustrator, let me know. The trees I will try will be highly stylized - not sure if you will be able to say it's an X genus or whatever.
Lorri M. says
Yes, it is a great name, and my house was four blocks from the L.I. sound.
I was kidding...just dreaming of their loveliness.
Leora says
Dogwood flowers might be fine for digital illustration. Then again, it might ruin them. Photography is a good medium for the beautiful dogwood flower!
Jeri says
Trees sound more appealing to me than clouds. I've yet to try any computer-aided drawing, and I downloaded iDraw months ago. I need to find some good tutorials.
Leora says
Funny, how you call it "computer-aided." I think of computer makes it more challenging!
The style I've adopted (for digital illustration) is basically about adding shapes, lots of them, to create the image. This is a totally different approach to how I do fine art on paper or canvas (usually, pencil first, sketch in the idea and the frame, then examine for lights and darks and a color palette ...).
I haven't found many tutorials that are not for Photoshop or Illustrator. In fact, most are for Photoshop. Tutorials for iDraw would be helpful, because it has that added dimension of finger drawing. Tricky stuffy, managing a finger!
Ramblingwoods says
I love the mural idea... Clouds or trees... I like both
Leora says
Oh, I will do both, eventually. Thanks for the "love."
Hannah says
It is a very neat painting, Leora! I like the idea of trees. You have shown us a lot of trees in Highland Park so I associate your hometown with them.
Leora says
True, we do have lots of trees here, and many different kinds. Thanks for the perspective.
Donna@GardensEyeView says
Leora it sounds like a wonderful idea!
Leora says
Glad you like it, Donna.
Sherryl Perry says
Leora,
When you shared this on Google+ and asked "tree or cloud", I honestly thought you were talking about cloud computing! :) I wondered what you were up to. This illustration is lovely. Why not both?
Leora says
Oh, I plan to do both! It is was just a question of which to do first.
Funny, how you had cloud computing in the brain. Yup, I mean good old-fashioned clouds - in a digital format.
Carver says
Charming house. I like clouds and trees equally so I can't pick one.
Leora says
I will have fun with this no matter what I do next. It's more fun to share bit by bit than doing the whole thing on my own by myself.
Susan Cooper says
I love the idea, but then you probably knew I would... :-). I would do both trees and clouds, but I would... huh. :-)
Leora says
I see I have to be careful about wording - you are not the first to assume the question was either or! It was what to do next ... but that's fine. I like your response that you want both!
Must tend to my clients, but I will return ...
Susan Neuhaus says
Charming! I vote sky with clouds, a bright or intricate tree might distract from the architectural detail. Nice work!
Leora says
Thanks so much, Susan! I worked on trees in May: http://www.leoraw.com/blog/2014/05/flat-illustration-trees-leaves/
Please leave a comment! I love to hear from you.