Digital Art

In a previous post, I had wondered about my desire (ability) to ink in all of my illustrations by hand.  It's permanent and I could seriously mess up an otherwise lovely image with one bad move.  So, for a graduation gift John got me a Bamboo pen and tablet.  It is the coolest thing ever.  I get to use a pen instead of a mouse to draw on the computer, so I can have all the effects of a hand drawing without the permanence of ink.  Here's some examples of what I've done with it so far:

Before

After

Before

After

Pretty cool, right?  (As always, you can click on the image for a larger view)  You can check out the
Bamboo for yourself if you want to.  As predicted, I needed a lot of "oops" room, especially on the Eiffel Tower.  I wasn't quite sure what to do in a few spots, so I did and redid (and redid) a few different attempts.  Had it been a real pen and not my digital one I would have been stuck with the first, unfortunate attempt.

The Bamboo does take a bit of getting used to, though.  One thing that is especially hard for my brain to communicate to my hand is that the tablet writing space is basically a shrunken computer screen.  So in order to draw, I either have to draw much small than I think I should or I have to enlarge the image I'm drawing over.  But with practice, it has gotten a lot easier!

Thanks, John, for an awesome (and useful!) gift!

The End

The end of law school, that is.  Although I can't believe it, three long years have come and gone.  The actual graduation ceremony is May 14th, but I am officially done with all of my work, papers, and finals for law school.  There have been plenty of highs and lows throughout the years and I'd like to share a few (mostly highs, I promise not to be too depressing) while I'm feeling reflective.

The first semester of law school was rough, to say the least, and I seriously considered dropping out during the first semester.  But, later that same school year came one of the highest points of law school for me: 1L year T.O.R.T.  For those of you who don't know, T.O.R.T. stands for theater of the relatively talentless and is a musical put on and written entirely by law students every year.  Being a part of this group gave me some of my favorite memories of law school.  A small group of T.O.R.T. graduates (self included) will even be singing at graduation!

In addition to T.O.R.T., there were some other pretty enjoyable things about law school.  Women's Law Student Association (I designed the logo!), studying abroad in Ireland (well documented on this blog), and meeting John were all great things to come out of law school for me.  But, classes weren't that bad either (some of them anyway).  A few memorable class quotes:

"The defendant was driving a truck,
who turned going west and was struck,
by the plaintiff who sued,
Claiming negligence proved,
even without an attempt to slow up." (Torts)

"We have doctors for a reason - so people like Nurse Jackie can tell them what to do." (JTY)

Student: "Can I say something?"  JTY: "No."

"I like to cite Queen Latifah as often as possible." (Hasday)

Dr. George Jackson to completely confused student: "Where the **** have you been all semester???"

While I will miss the funny quotes and the chances to perform at the Pantages Theatre, I certainly won't miss the stress and anxiety that law school brings.  I am ready to walk across that stage and graduate!  Now if only I had a job... :)

Variations on a Theme

Just a little something I've been working on:

After my initial sketch of Duck, I decided to see if I could draw this little guy in a few different poses.  The redundant rain boots (wellies!) were Stella's idea for London and I think very darling.

And to end this post with another dose of cuteness: my friend from college, Dani, makes goodies to sell on Etsy.com and she recently posted some adorable lady bugs that she made out of felted wool.  Aren't they cute?

You can check out her shop, too!

I See London, I See France

I'm still trying to decide which setting to send Duck and Ladybug to first (character names still pending as well).  But, I have been working on a few pictures.

I'm pretty happy with how they've turned out, but I still need to do the inking.  While this is all by hand so far, I've been thinking that I might not want to do all the inking by hand.  It's a pretty permanent thing.  Watercolor can be softened, blended, or covered and pencil can be erased, but you're stuck with the inking when the pen hits the paper.  So, I'm toying with the idea of a computer program so I can do the ink work that way instead.  It would still be by hand, but I would have a little more "oops" room.

Also, while the scanner and some adjustments to brightness in Paint.net have helped to make the colors pretty true to the in-person paintings, I'm wondering about using a camera instead- taking a picture of the art and then transferring the photo to the computer.  Does anyone have experience with this?

Eating Our Way Down the Aisle

John and I had a day chock full of yummy food.  We started the good eats at Maria's on Franklin, where we met with Judge Reilly, our wedding officiant, for lunch.  They serve breakfast all day and it was delicious!  Judge Reilly was great to chat with and gave us a copy of what will be a lovely ceremony.

Later in the evening, we went to our venue and had a tasting.  We tried eight different appetizers while we were there.  The top ranking ones were the chicken marsala friand (not pictured- we had already gobbled it up) and the bacon wrapped apricots.  Other samples included bacon wrapped scallops, chicken cordon bleu (served cold, very strange), zucchini boats, roast beef crostini, and shrimp skewers. 

Much to our surprise, the tasting also became a wedding planning session.  Our coordinator was there and wanted to hash out a LOT of details: how many guests we expected, table layout, wedding day time line, acoustics, decorations...  I know that these are all important things, but it was a little unexpected and made the evening not quite as relaxing as we had hoped.  In fact, it actually became pretty stressful (and Holly + food + stress = no fun).

Stay tuned for more wedding plans and for updates on my project!

We've Moved!

No, John and I haven't moved again, but my website has!  So change your bookmarks because instead of hollyovergaard.blogspot.com, my new web address is www.GoesLightly.com.  Hooray!

I decided that it was about time for me to buy my own domain name, but the address isn't the only thing that's changed.  Also changed are the comments.  Now, anyone can give their feedback on the blog!  Another perk of the new location is that readers can send me emails if they'd like: Holly@GoesLightly.com.

Just in case anyone forgets and tries to visit my old site location, no worries - you should be redirected to the new site automatically.

Embarking on a New Adventure

When I was a little girl, I spent a large amount of my time drawing and writing.  I tried to write many stories, but they were all either terrible, or abandoned before they could become terrible.  In undergraduate I even took a creative writing class, but nothing came of it and I eventually pursued a more academic study of literature.

Before I left for Ireland, I came up with an idea to do sketches everywhere I went and turn them into a pretty little children's book.  Of course, I took more pictures with my camera than I drew while I was there.  But now that law school is done, I figure that I can go back to my photos and do sketches from them of the various places I visited.  I've given it a lot of thought and I would like to introduce you to my main character and his little insect friend:

The colored-in little guys are the ones I'm using: duck and lady bug.  The rest are just doodles I tried and rejected :)  The idea is that Duck will travel the world, checking out the major sites in each place he visits.  He'll be found on every page along with Ladybug.  I've envisioned it as (an educational) children's book that adults can enjoy looking at.  Sort of a mash up of Madeline and Paddington Bear with a hint of Eric Carle.  It's an ambitious aim, I know, but I may as well shoot high.  I plan to do pencil sketches with water coloring and black inking for the illustrations. 

So I'm pretty sure Duck is just about the cutest thing around, but the big question is where he should visit first: London or Paris? (please don't let your vote be affected by my jacked up sketch of the Eiffel Tower!)

Let me know what you think!  Whichever gets picked will become my first *real* attempt at writing a book and Duck's first stamp in his passport.