June 2008 Archives

I'm lovin the color orange right now. It just says summer without it being too loud.

Look, how cute is this handbag? My husband bought this handbag for me from the Bon-Ton. This was a definate splurge because I would never spend what he did for this handbag. But I love it! And it definately gets noticed.

Okay, rule of thumb handbags and shoes don't have to match, but these shoes are so cool looking and yes, they're orange.

These Marciano Lucite wedge slingback sandal are to die for. I love shoes, but have really small feet. I wear a size 5 to 51/2. These come in 6 (so I won't be buying them) but you can get them from Victoria's Secret online store at

I buy the majority of my shoes at VS because they have a wide selection of shoes that come in my size.

Last on my list of Orange accessories is nail polish. O.P.I. nail polish is great. The color selections are plentiful and the quality of the product can't be beat. And Target now carries the O.P.I brand.

Okay, if you haven't noticed my blog looks a little weird. That would be me trying to make it look cool and different. Only now my blog entries aren't lined-up correctly.

Under the Design pull down menu there is Styles tab, don't go there!!!! Or you're blog will be messed up like mine.

This is a vector based illustration. Here are the steps that got me to the finished lamp.

Everyone seems amazed at the fact that I am able to draw on the computer and how do I do it. They also are under the impression that it must take a real long time to create something on the computer. Well, not exactly. In this first step I have draw only the left side of the lamp using the pen tool. Which took about 5-7 mins.

Now, for a shortcut. I use the reflect tool And what this tool does is make a duplicate copy. I will then use this copy of the left side image to make the right side and thus create the whole image

Using the gradient tool I'll add color and dimension to the lamp.

My lamp is not quite done. I want to add a light source inside my lamp. To do this, I first make a copy of the three greenish window panels of the lamp. Then I turn them into what's called a compound path. I then use the flare tool and create a flare. I then take my compound path and bring it in front of the flare and create a mask. The mask contains the flare effect and gives me my internal light source.

And again here is the end result.

I bought Monster’s iCarPlay Wireless plus

I don't know how I drove my car without it. iLove it!!! All my favorite iTunes neatly organized on my iPod now can be easily listened to in the car. It's so easy to setup and I can preset three radio stations to play my iPod through.

What's on my playlist:
Everyday is Like Sunday by Morrissey
Yellow by Coldplay
Viva La Vida by Coldplay
The Last Thing on Your Mind by Lights (featured in the Old Navy commercial)
Hands to Heaven by Breathe
How can I fall by Breathe
Big Girls Don't Cry by Fergie

There about 10 other songs on this playlist, but when I get this far I end up hitting the back button to start the playlist again. So, I have been listening to the same seven songs about 20 times a day.

Here is a pencil sketch I did for a story about recycling centers in the York area.

Again, I scanned the image into photoshop. I set the pencil sketch layer to multiply. I set the sketch layer to multiply so that the white part of image becomes invisible, and allows for me to add color on a layer beneath easily. I also boosted the contrast of the sketch in levels bringing up the shadows, midtones, and holding the highlights. This brought out the texture in my sketch drawing since I was using a regular pencil. Drawing pencils are different, and come in a variety of heavier lead weights so you can add contrast to your sketch drawings. But, I didn't have any drawing pencils on hand, so I made do with what I had.

The final page design is set to print in this Sunday's paper.

Here, is my final page design for “The Incredible Hulk”

“The Incredible Hulk” opens in theaters Friday. In honor of his return I designed a news page inspired by the ‘Hulk’ and all things that are green. For instance, did you know there are 16 variations of green Crayola crayon colors?
http://www.crayola.com/colorcensus/history/current_120_colors.cfm
My favorite is ‘Inch Worm’ green.

Another fascinating and perplexing question that I had about the ‘Hulk’ was how is it that when Bruce Banner changes into the ‘Hulk’ his shirt completely rips off his body, but his pants just have a few rips in them?

Well, Chris, the sports editor sent me a link explaining this mysterious wardrobe malfunction. http://www.nypost.com/seven/06102008/entertainment/hulk_s_pants_at_a_glance_114827.htm

Here is the preliminary sketch I created.

I added some more details, sketching in a torn paper effect.

I then scanned my pencil sketch into Adobe Photoshop. I changed the pencil sketch layer's opacity to multiply. I then created a blank layer below it and, on this layer is where I added my color.

In this last image, I added another layer to give my art some texture to mimic paper.

Another detail in this last image is the size of the hands. I lassoed the hands and cut, then pasted them onto their own layer. This way I could resize them to make them bigger.
To see the final design, open tomorrow's York Daily Record/Sunday News paper.