Wednesday, May 19, 2010

my creative space



still going on the digital colouring . . . this is an older drawing i decided to work on. i spent hours and hours cleaning up the paper reflection/glare/yellowing around the lines of the drawing! i still haven't found a quick way of doing this! playing with the levels seems to jeopardise the soft quality of the pencil lines, which i want to keep. so, i ummed and ahhhed as to whether or not i really want to spend that long making these and thought i'd re-evaluated after finishing one. the possible colour combinations are endless!
i also tried drawing with pens on smooth paper ~ much easier to get rid of the background. but the lines are flat/mostly solid colour ~ see second pic {a quickly made example}.

some feedback from our art-teacher friend who was holding the original drawings and standing near the computer: 'i don't want to look at that' {the computer}!!

i'll keep weighing up the options :)
to see more creative spaces or play along, visit kirsty here.

:: a shop called Milton is having the official opening tonight from 6-9pm at 153 greville street, prahran. come along if you feel like it. i'm hoping to get there by 7 :)

13 comments:

chococatania said...

As Usual, a great creative space...Also, I noticed this (of yours) on the front page of Etsy! :)

june at noon said...

I really like the new colors you're playing with. Time-consuming, maybe, but worth it!

74 Lime Lane said...

They still look great. So hard though sometimes to push a medium into the tech world though! Good luck with the discovery.

flowerpress said...

These are so delicate and I love the colours!
Have you tried brightness/contrast to get rid of some of the texture? Just a thought :-)

Kate said...

I adore that ferny type of thing in the bottom picture. I am fascinated by the translation process with artists moving between real and digital. Have a great night tonight.

mizu designs said...

I so know what you mean re photoshop and working with original art work. I too have spent hours erasing shadowy bits that come up from scanning drawings so that I can then manipulate the colour. I know no short cuts, sorry.

Anna Betts said...

Very cute! I have the same problem getting rid of sludgy whites. I take it you're using photoshop...
Try this:
Layer - New from background
Select - Colour range (click on white area on image with eyedropper and play with tolerance)
Backspace/Delete the selected area
Layer - new layer
Fill new layer with white using paintbucket
Drag white layer to bottom of layer list so your image sits on top of it

I hope that makes sense. I used this method to build up line drawings on top of each other, very handy!
xx

caroline said...

it's always fun to see/hear about what you are working on. lovely drawings! :)

Janelle said...

I know what you mean - shortcuts only work if that's the effect you're going for. Otherwise it's time consuming. I try not to think of my digital work as being the same as my on-paper work so that I can try different things...sort of like how I feel about drawing vs. oil painting.

And I want to try Anna's technique - it sounds like it could work really well in these cases!

Kathryn Mitchell said...

Kudos to you for doing the digital fiddly thing. I've tried but failed many a time! I must say a big thank you to you for following my blog...thats a big compliment to have someone as clever and creative as yourself interested in my work :) so Thank You!

Kellie Christie said...

Your illustrations are beautiful, I love the soft colour combination's. My friend is an illustrator, she mainly works with pen and then scans it to create colours via the computer. I'm sure that she would be happy to help you with any tips. http://www.beljohnstone.com/

inaluxe said...

Hi Belinda, I love all your new work - those fan like fern shapes in particular are glorious! It's amazing when you get into the digital colouring aspect of things, and so confusing, and frustrating at times too. I spent almost a year (way back now) just colouring all my work on the computer, until I realised it lacked a certain sharpness, and texture. I use a bit of both now, and do prefer to not sit here for hours going blind with colour combinations, but sometimes, I'm so into it. A tool just like any other - somedays it's gonna work, other days not! lol. hugs, and have fun! xo K

helena / little mo said...

like explosions of little dust particles:) sigh.

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