Illustrator

Review with Swirly Gigs

swirly gigs
Swirly Gigs created in Illustrator – for the sole purpose of putting some swirls on a post

I’m not sure what the above represents – does it need to represent anything? I’ve been practicing swirls in the software program Illustrator. You can also create patterns with Illustrator. Maybe what this design needs is some nice patterned wallpaper behind it. Stay tuned to see if I play around with it more.

On My Blog

Interview with Debra Walk

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

  • Thinking and praying for Michelle as she writes about her breast cancer. Her surgeon said mastectomy, but “the good news is that there probably isn’t any invasive cancer and that this is treatable by removal.”
  • Ilana-Davita has been reading some scholarly posts – check out this one on Hapax Legomenon (and don’t let the title scare you – it’s not hard to understand).
  • Lorri has been reading and reading some more – read her review of The Life of an Unknown Man.
  • Laura posted Asian Roasted Broccoli – yum, great picture.
  • Update: a bloody artsy post has gone up … by the kids of Mrs. S.

Roof Goes Up in Illustrator

roof illustration
Roof of house and second floor, too

I have been painstakingly working on a project to illustrate three roofs (typical of Highland Park house roofs). Before Pesach (way back in March?) I photographed many of the roofs on our block. I’ve been sketching them, and I finally “put up” one roof today in Illustrator (using the pen tool), and here is the result. My plan is to do three of these, each one unique but about the same size. Then I will play with them in Photoshop, adding color, texture and details. And maybe a watercolor look with a Photoshop watercolor brush or two.

As you, the readers of this blog, are my cheering squad, I decided I would share with you this one black and white frame of a roof.

Live Trace: Tomatoes at Market

Farmers Market, Highland Park, New Jersey
Farmer's Market, Highland Park, New Jersey

I decided to play a bit with the Live Trace tool in Illustrator and came up with this version of one of my photos of the Highland Park Farmer’s Market. I want an illustration for my upcoming soup post, though this one won’t be it. But the tool has potential for other projects.

For more on the Live Trace tool, see this Illustrator tutorial.

Use this Design For?

hello_design_retro
I spent a little more time working on the design I started in this post. Lots of opportunities to utilize a variety of tools (pathfinder, burn and dodge, subtract, blend, drop shadow to name some) in both Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop came up because I followed Chris Spooner’s tutorial.

So what do you see in the design? What could one use a design like this for? For example, if you replaced the text with something other than hello, what would you say?

A Design, For Fun!

hello_design
I was playing with the ideas in this tutorial by Chris Spooner last night, and I thought, why not post what I did. Not sure what I am going to do with this design, but at some point, making those fun swirly objects will be useful! I used Illustrator to create the vector designs (the rounded blobby things) and Photoshop to put it all together in a collage.

Below is the same exact illustration, but one thing is different. Can you guess what it is?
hello_design