Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Random thought: shopping
Monday, February 8, 2010
Inspiration of the week

Thursday, January 21, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Sketch post

Sunday, January 10, 2010
Some inspiring things



Grady McFerrin, who I met sort of recently at the AI-AP party. Love love love love letterpress-inspired things.
Wayne Brezinka. More appealing type integration with a hand-drawn look.


Fashion photography. I've been pulling a lot of my color schemes from fashion photography lately. These are from the wonderful Lace & Tea blog.
Heavily textured web layouts. I've always worked traditionally, and since the outlet for my work has switched to entirely web-based media for the time being, I've been looking for ways to bring traditional to the web. I really admire web designs that remain clean and easy to use but look like you could hold them in your hand and play with the stuff. In addition to having a really cool layout, Design Sponge has really cool stuff on it too.

Stuff that looks like it's been cut out. I know that's a really weird and specific category of things to be inspired by, but I've had to do a lot of Flash animation lately and I've been trying to add a traditional-looking element to that too. The cutout look gives me a little flexibility for animating. Also, owls. I still have a thing for owls. My boss once asked me "what's with young designers and owls these days?" And even though I have a thing for owls, I was completely at a loss. Above: something I pulled off ffffound and put in my inspiration folder (sorry, I don't know the artist... that's really terrible of me), Jessica Hische again, and a blog divider thingy from Shabby Blogs.Sunday, January 3, 2010
Holiday haul
Monday, December 14, 2009
Christmas ornaments
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Dr. Sketchy's


Saturday, November 14, 2009
A sketchbook post in which I ramble a great deal more than I sketch
On Labor Day I went to the renaissance faire for the first time in my life. I walked into Under the Mango Tree and, in spite of all the evidence I've collected that the sketchbook itself, no matter how awesome, does NOT in fact make me want to sketch, I purchased an obnoxiously expensive little (like maybe 4") journal with cotton paper in it. The rationale was it could probably take watercolor, and maybe the thumbnail size of it would be less intimidating. So not only was I ignoring all former evidence, I was also assuming that this little book was not only going to make me draw stuff in it, but also GO BACK to it later and hit it with watercolor. What was I thinking? Of course it's been sitting empty in my bedroom since Labor Day.
Last weekend I went up to visit Rochester. While I was walking from my car back to my boyfriend's apartment, I had a Moment (Moment, with a capital M, is the term I use to define a stupid ordinary occurrence that for some reason sparks an emotion followed by a long rambling train of thought in my head. I have lots of them). It was twilight and the sky was blue and lavender and everything against it was almost black, and right as I was approaching this rickety old telephone pole I happened to look up just as a flock of crows flew by the open space between the top of the pole and some bare trees. It was cool. And I stood there for a second just kind of thinking about how cool it was and trying to burn it in my memory. And I thought about how I wished I had a photo of it, except a photo totally would have made it look cheesy. Then I realized what I really wished was that I had my sketchbook and a pocket set of watercolors so I could paint it quickly.
That was the beginning of my long train of thought. At the end of it I realized that I've had this really twisted backward outlook on keeping a sketchbook. It sounds weird, even to me, but I never thought of it as a means to capture these little moments in the world, like a more permanent version of a mental snapshot. And that's like a huge DUH. I think if you asked any random person on the street, artist or not, to define sketching, that would more or less be the gist of their definition. I think I always tried to capture the sketchbook page rather than whatever it was I was sketching. I've seen so many wonderful sketchbooks, and I've just wanted so badly to HAVE one of them, that I've been obsessed with the end and completely ignored the means. Of course, my lack of means has produced me no end, which I suppose is why I keep giving up.
Yesterday my eyes needed a few minutes' break from Flash, and this new thought, which has been sort of nagging me for the past few days, actually made me want to sketch. I'd say it was the first time, except I think the same thing happened when I went to go draw that barn in the woods a couple of months ago; I just hadn't realized it yet. I went to my bedroom window and just drew the light in my backyard:

So, as it turns out, the paper in this lovely little journal I bought does not AT ALL take watercolor. Now I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I really like the size...
Then, returning to my old friend smelly Italian sketchbook, I did something I NEVER do: I tried to sketch the crow scene from memory. Drawing from memory, just barely squeaking by caricature, is my biggest artistic weakness. I'm upset I can't do the scene justice, but nonetheless I felt it ought to be in my sketchbook. I had a little help from a different telephone pole...

That sketchbook doesn't take watercolor much better. It just kind of sits on the surface and doesn't get dark. Maybe I need a watercolor sketchbook.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Bernie Fuchs



