Now I know it’s a couple of months away but Christmas for me started in the summer with this year’s Chrismas cards, gift tags and stickers: line drawings mostly done with 0.05 black unipin fine line pen from Mitsubishi Pencil, scanned and re-coloured. There are 5 basic designs: swirls, stars, cones, cityscape and baubles. Here’s a taster for the moment, but look out for image uploads in the gallery, with instructions for availability/ordering.
Of course the process wasn’t completely stress free (except the drawing part). Because the pen line was so fine, the computer found breaks in lines that I had to re-touch: it was much easier to work in tiffs so I re-scanned all images. My drawings are ‘rough’ and I naturally leave gaps for the eye to complete – try telling that to a ‘fill’ command which is looking for enclosed areas: more re-touching required. Then with fine lines and some tiny shapes, using the mouse was a bit fiddly.
Most of the detailed editing would have been much easier/more fun with my graphics tablet/pen, but I don’t have that working at the moment (long boring story). Note to self – sort it before you scan and colour your next set of drawings.
Last but not least there’s deciding which ones to use for what product and the ‘fun’ of uploading all the images after converting back to jpgs. Still it’s all done now and we have the final product to look forward to (and then package).
Most of the detailed editing would have been much easier/more fun with my graphics tablet/pen, but I don’t have that working at the moment (long boring story). Note to self – sort it before you scan and colour your next set of drawings.
Thanks to moo I have lots of different colour schemes with extra colours available in tags and stickers. Next part of the countdown are the Verulam Christmas Craft Fair and St Albans Gift Fair. I’ll be selling at both – see you there?
Hillary Taylor Art Blog 