A quickie baby

November Sun 29 2009

Category: 60 minute sketch

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I’m almost at the end of my last assignment for the semester (and I sigh when I say that because the next semester starts next week – darn, no break) and am about to tear my hair out with frustration over my apparent writers block.

So to try and recharge the batteries, here is a quick Photoshop treated photo that I took from our apartment in Manila. The camera I used was the one in my mobile phone – LG KC910. I actually really like taking dusk and night shots with this camera, because I find that it treats light differently to point and shoot (which is an Olympus of some model I can’t remember right now).

Sunset in Manila

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Another short break

November Tue 24 2009

Category: Daily life, Experience

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I’m back in Manila again, but I have two assignments due this week so I don’t really have time to add anything new here at least until next week (I’m working with the Gradient Mesh tool on a new piece, but it will take a bit more time to perfect).

So as an interlude, accept my favourite animal photos from our trip back to Sydney. We went to Taronga Zoo for my husbands nephews 2nd birthday. The Red Panda is one of my favourites, simply because they look so adorable and their faces are so expressive.

Red Panda

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Self Portrait – version 3

November Wed 11 2009

Category: 60 minute sketch

Tags: , , ,

I’ve been practicing techniques in Illustrator again. Once again, focusing on what I do worst… portraits!

This image was drawn in Illustrator first, and then a series of treatments were applied to it in Photoshop to create the muted style. Once again, I was a bit lazy with the hands, which is why one of the fingers looks something like a sausage. Lol.

Self Portrait - v3

Because of the treatments all the highlights I put through the hair are invisible, but I rather like the overall effect.

All of  these recent posts are geared towards one purpose – a new and more cohesive design for this site. Inspiration is still alluding me. First I think I have an idea and then it doesn’t come together. Either that or I create a design that I think is really beautiful but it doesn’t come together once it is translated into HTML and CSS. It’s so frustrating!

Anyway, I’m heading back to Sydney for 10 days tomorrow, so there probably won’t be anything new until the end of the month. Take care until then!

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In the summertime

November Fri 06 2009

Category: For fun

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I started sketching out a new designs for this website, and had this idea for summer and sunshine. This vector image was going to be a part of the design, but once it was done I realised it didn’t really fit in with the original idea. Rather than let the image go to waste, I thought I would publish it here.

In the summertime

So the overall image was done in Illustrator (btw, I love using CS4 now – it is such an improvement) and the background and frame are done in Photoshop.

It took about 10 hours to complete the Illustrator image and I’m thinking I will redo it in a more cartoon style. Looking at the final image there are a few areas I would like to fix up – particularly around the face, which I always have trouble with. I would also spend a bit more time on the fingers on the hand (now that the image has shrunk, they kind of look like mush) and I think would smooth smooth the shadows and highlights with an airbrush as a final treatment (which I didn’t do this time because my mouse keeps jumping and screwing it up).

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Preludes

November Mon 02 2009

Category: 60 minute sketch

Tags: ,

I’m absolutely exhausted. My assignments completely wiped me out and to be honest, I’m really stressed about the last one I submitted, because it was such poor quality. I had to spend so much time on my group assignment (group work when it’s over the internet and your group doesn’t seem to want to do any work can be a tiring chore) so I didn’t get to spend as much time on the other assignment as I wanted to. Fingers crossed I at least pass.

Anyway, last week was a really hard one for me. Emotionally, mentally, even physically because I didn’t even get to go to the gym. My mentality was that there was light at the end of the tunnel – after a really hard week we flew to Cebu on Saturday morning, and had a lovely weekend away.

I still have those lingering stress feelings (possibly because I only finished my other uni tasks for last week today), which is why this simple 60 minute composition is well, so simple.

Preludes

The extract is from a poem called “Preludes”, by T. S. Eliot. It was one of my favourite poems in school and I think the juxtaposition of dark and light, soft and hard, really sum up the last few weeks for me.

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