Exploration!

After a long break I finally felt the strong urge to draw pull me back to my computer, where hours flew past without my even noticing. It was amazing, and felt so good to illustrate simply because I wanted to again. This is the product of locking myself in my room for hours on end when I have the desire to just keep working on art. It is an original character of mine that I have not drawn in a few years. Done completely in Photoshop CS4 with a tablet.


Whenever I illustrate my original characters they tend to come out in a much more detailed, cell-shaded style that strays quite far from my children's book or editorial style...so this time I decided to make an attempt to combine them- depict my character in my children's book style...and I would say it strongly resembles it, yet there are quite a number of ways that it varies as well. However, I am happy with the result!

And before anyone asks, yes he is a goth. His name is Zairin. He was conjured in my mind during an interesting period in my life, but he really is quite nice at heart. Previously I did not see myself illustrating tween/teen novels, but I could see this in some of those novels I see on the shelves today.

Any thoughts? Please share them! I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!

Until next time!

Time for an update!

Well, now that school is out job searching has become my full time job. However, in addition to that I have been asked to illustrate a children's book! I have been developing the characters and am now starting to play with fonts for the cover design for my client.

I do not want to give away too much information about the book, as it is not under my copyright, but I will say that it is about a boy who wants a teddy bear and how he goes about getting one. The boy is what I assume will be the main character drawn, along with a few other people and finally the bear. Currently I am still uncertain about whether the finished works will be done digitally or with dip pen and ink with watercolor, but I am working on the sketches digitally.

Below are a few examples of different layouts with three possible fonts for the cover. The three fonts I use are Garmond, Myriad Pro, and Optima. My favorites (Baskerville, Gill Sans, Helvetica, Didot, Cochin, ect.) just didn't work with the illustrations or feel of the book.





I'm sure to some these all look the same, and for that I apologize, but there are differences! I am playing with the size of the text versus the illustration, the type, as well as the placement of the title and author/illustrator names.

Anyway, I just felt like an update was necessary, and thus you have this. Hopefully there will be more soon once we have decided how the text will be dispersed over the 24 pages- then I can begin working on thumbnails for the double page spreads!

Best wishes to all of my followers, and enjoy! Until next time!
~Liz

Another Birthday Card!

Well, it's about time I update this!

This is the outside of a birthday card I designed and illustrated for my boyfriend. Happy Birthday!!
And this is the inside design and illustration. For those of you who have seen the emperor Palpatine "Goooood" youtube video, this card was inspired by that. Enjoy!
This was created completely in Adobe Photoshop CS4 with my wonderful tablet. Also, I did design the faux barcode, it most definitely is not a legitimate barcode.

Until next time!

This is a design for a Valentine's Day card that I sent out, as I am a huge fan of Johnny Depp, especially as Jack Sparrow. It was an overnight assignment so that I could send it out on time. Sketched traditionally, scanned in, then done in Adobe Photoshop CS4.

Enjoy!

And Happy Valentine's Day!

Shakespear and Puck

For my final in Type and Image I designed a double page spread for my favorite of Puck's speeches from the play A Midsummer Night's Dream. As it is a magical play with faeries and the mysterious night, I attempted to create a magical feeling that takes place during the darkest hours of the day.
Done digitally in Adobe Photoshop and InDesign CS4 and CS5.

Belated Birthday Card

This is a belated birthday card for a dear friend of mine. She loved the style in which I did the portrait of Ginny the dog for the Colors Magazine in Italy, so I attempted to simulate the same style in this card.
"I missed you and your birthday! Welcome home, and happy belated birthday!"

Oyster Roast!

The real gold is found inside the delicious oysters!
A sketch for an oyster roast, done in Adobe Photoshop CS4.

Birthday and Holiday Cards

If given the option of buying birthday cards or making them, I much prefer the latter, and as I am an illustrator I see no reason not to! This was a birthday card for a very close friend of mine.

These are two of this year's holiday cards that I was commissioned to do. The front and back of each can be seen respectively. All were done completely digitally in Photoshop CS4.

Card 1

Card 2

I have been commissioned to do 1-2 more and those will be up shortly!

Pirates and Brushes!

When I bought Adobe CS4 I decided to experiment with creating a variety of new brushes as well as share my love for pirates by creating my own pirate, Lady Lily. I created my own pirate who travels around the world, as I intend to do. Japan is high on my "To Do" list, so I had Lily make her way over to Japan and tower over a Geisha.
I later realized that this is a wonderful representation of the struggle between my inner Tomboy and my desire to be a living work of art.

Bay State Parents

This illustration will be seen in next month's issue of Bay State Parents with the feature article "Playdates and Birthday Parties for the Special Needs Child." The article focused on autism, which I tried to illustrate in this image.
Done completely in Photoshop CS4 from sketch to finish.