One thing I love about vectors is the representation of  people.  So I tried drawing a person by tracing one of my favorite photos of a friend with the pen tool.  I really like how it came out!

Oh Jessika...

The snow has subsided and it seems spring is here to stay, but I still loved the winter we had here in the ‘burg.  Jacob has attempted to harness my powers into a brand new project.  The project actually calls for vector images so Photoshop has taken a backseat to me learning a different program Inkscape.  I went through the programs tutorials and I really enjoy all the key stroke commands.  Annoying at first but they grow on you.  And you do not need to use layers to keep things separated like I’ve been doing in Photoshop.  But they each have a purpose, and I love adding tools to my tool-belt.

Coloring pages are really fun to make, and they look really sharp as vectors.  Here is my first attempt at one.

Winter Coloring Page

Happy Birthday

My husband is 25 years old today.  I know, old man right! I actually cannot be with him today, however we celebrated earlier with a date night to go see Avatar, and as a bonus I made him a card! I thought I would share the card I made him.

I still can’t believe I won free business cards. I absolutely love how they turned out. They came really fast and are beautifully glossy.

My first score off giveaway blogs:

Oooohh Shiny!

Thank you Ruth for your cool giveaways. I would of course read your blog anyway but free stuff is fun for both of us 😀

All that's missing is the rabbit

About my second project, was this magic hat.  I’m really struggling trying to figure out the pen tool, but practice makes perfect!  I’m really grateful for this cool tutorial that introduced me to gradients.

I won a contest on my friend Ruth’s personal blog.  She was giving away some free business cards!  I was excited to participate in her first contest so I entered.  And then I won!  Woot.  She had given us some interesting ideas to used the cards for alternative things (since most of us readers have no reason to need business cards, you know students, moms etc.) but with my new excitement for graphic design and my own cool email, I decided to make a simple card to hand out my email on.

Simplified Glassware

I had a lot of fun making some simple glassware a while ago.

Jacob really liked them and had the brilliant idea to make letters out of them.  So I made my initials in glassware.  That way I can hand it out to people in academia (and laugh because I’m a chemist) or to potential graphics contacts and it will be appropriate both ways.    Here is a sneak peak:

My Business Card Design

I’m still struggling to learn how to use the pen tool but one day I hope we will be close buddies.  Until then, I will continue to awkwardly ask it to play with me sometimes.

I found an interesting tutorial about making and envelope. It was a bit advanced for me, as I have no idea what gradients are or how to customize them at all. The tutorial describes a lot of the steps very clearly, some even with screen shots but gradient knowledge is assumed, hopefully I can gather some soon. But considering all that, I’d say it came out pretty well.  And it was fun personalizing it a bit.

PSD Tute: Envelope

Jacob suggested a great website to get me back in photoshop action, PSDTut.  I scrolled through and my first creations were following some of the interesting (yet beginner level) tutorials at their site.

It had a nice tutorial on drawing an anime character.  I think it was more for people with tablets but I don’t mind, and my drawing, although very rough (as is the coloring), is quite a miracle.  So instead of hiding my first (and  somewhat embarassing) creation I am going to boldly begin my blog by posting it.

PSD Tute: Cartoon Guy

I do think I will stick to the simple clip art and web design than going for humanoid figures again any time soon.  But I look forward to sharing more of my creations!