My Avatar

Well I have been working on some things... just not sketching:( But I did finally finish my icon/avatar. I'm sure it will change as I get tired of it. I have been working on it using Ilustrator's Live Trace tool and I haven't been very impressed (!) I was really afraid that it would be the end of digital illustrators... but I don't think anyone needs to worry. You still need to do a lot of clean-up and of course layout and composition and line quality; the things that everyone takes for granted. Basically you still need to be an artist.

I found a new vector conversion tool at http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/. A colleague said her friends think it is better then Live Trace. It is good, but you don't have the same amount of control, although you can edit individual paths more easily. I combined the two, and still had to do a lot of clean-up. I would rather do it by "hand" with the pen tool. I will post some old digital illustrations I did in school. At my art school they did not focus on digital illustration and I had to figure it out on my own... I'm sure it has changed a bit, but they are mostly about cranking us out into the industry.

As for the one below, it still needs some work to mesh the two styles. (But) I felt like I really needed to put my identity up and it looks better smaller!

Here is one that has a fixed ear! Couldn't stand that dark line (looks like I'm wearing a headset!) :) 1.4.08 julie

I have been a blog slacker... and I haven't been sketching either... I should know better, as soon as Halloween hits the holidays have begun and I don't have time for myself (and I am too broke to go to the life-drawing sessions at the Ruby Room). It seems like it is non-stop planning, shopping, and celebrating starting there. My son's birthday is 30 days after, and of course Thanksgiving is about a week before that. This year is especially hard because Thanksgiving is so early and daylight savings happened so much later. It has thrown off more than one person's schedule, so I've heard.

We also had a family tragedy that happened a little over a week ago (very sad). The family is recovering slowly. We all had our own plans for Kadyn, but we especially feel for Angie and Steve; as a parent you worry about this from day one. I know that I don't understand the exact feelings they are experiencing, but I know how it would devastate me. I am a "struggle-through-on-my-own" kind of person and would get lost in the pain, but they have been surrounded by this huge supportive net of family and friends- I hope they know how much they are loved and how much we wish we could help take way the pain they are feeling.

Anyway, here is my tribute to Kadyn Robert Lewis. He was a really beautiful baby that we are very blessed to have known.