Shades

I drew out these cute little, icon like, pictures in my car. i sometimes find it easier to become inspired if i'm not im the house. I knew that at least one of these mould make a cool shirt/screen print concept.

After scanning these little guys, i brought them into illustrator where i used the pen tool to rebuild these sketches with vector shapes. I also I gave them some colour while doing this.

I really enjoyed the way these turned out, but I felt that there was too muck colour, and this was distracting from the sunglasses (shades). Instead of playing around with the colours, I brought the vector objects into photoshop, and desaturated all the unnecessary colour. After this i decided that each of the three elements would make their own shirt so i split them up and here they are!

Thanks for reading!

Eric

My Stag & Doe

Hello Friends, Family, Teachers... Other People with Money!

So... i just thought i would put this out there... my stag and doe is coming up and i am selling tickets so if anybody is interested, they are $10.00 and the party will be in Cambridge Hespeler on June 8th 2012! So come find me!

ps if you can't come, there is a door prize draw you will be entered into anyways!!!!

Eric

The Factory and The Art Crawl

The FactoryHamilton's Media Arts Center

If you have an idea of what you want to make your movie about, but aren't sure how to get started or don't have the equipment to create such a thing, this is the place you need to visit.

The Factory will help you find people to work with, they will provide you with the right equipment and they will teach you everything you need to know about producing your film. For $325 The Factory will provide you with a 36 hour program, teaching you how to story board, control and produce with professional quality lights and audio, Direct a film, and produce using Adobe Premier. Once you've finished this program The Factory will give you $300 in Factory Bucks, which can be used as real money at The Factory for Camera and equipment rentals. Camera rentals are less than $100 a day. This is a deal that people should be rushing to get.

The Factory also offers Affordable and Free workshops such as: 
-Stereo Cinematography, with Tim Dashwood-Introduction to The Red Camera,  with Jesse Hunt-Screenwriting, with Derek Dwyer-Final Cut Pro, with Terrance Odette-Recording and Editing in Garage Band, with Nathan Fleet


So go check out The Factory, you will not be disappointed!


also...

The Art Crawl on north james

I traveled down to The Factory on Friday, the night of the famous Art Crawl on North James, they impressed everybody with a unique lineup of Media Arts. I was planning to see the Cybernetic Orchestra but by the time my fiancée and I were finished Hanging out with the Hammer City Roller Girls at This Ain't Hollywood, The Factory was packed. We wondered the streets, checking out different stores like humblepie and White Elephant. We headed back to Cambridge around 10:30 and The Art Crawl seemed to be crawling with thousands of people. If anybody is interested in attending this event, The Art Crawl will happen again, every second Friday of the month, until September. September will be a Big One, so make sure you don't miss it.

Emotional labour- employment enjoyment

If you’re working at your job, roofing a house, thinking to yourself “i just wish i was cooking!” Then, You should find a job cooking! You’re not going to do the best job you can when you’re doing something you don’t enjoy. By putting your heart, your soul, your time, your life into something, like roofing, that you aren’t passionate about, you are going to bring your clients down, you’ll bring your co-worker down, and you’re ultimately going to bring yourself down. I’m not saying everyone out there should quit their jobs and find new ones, because that would be crazy. Instead I’m saying, “start doing what you love” and “start loving what you do” 

Creating and maintaining a Blog is a great way to start doing Emotional Labour. Providing pictures and information about your projects, so that other people can see what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, is a great way to start networking with other people that have the same interests. People will learn from your experiences and want to share their own experiences with you. EXAMPLE: cook a dish, take a picture of it, give the recipe, and post a brief story about your experience with the recipe. Other people will want to try this recipe. they might have suggestions on how to improve your recipe. There’s even an opportunity there that maybe somebody will commission you to cook your recipe for them! 


This "visions" doesn't happen by just posting a bunch of stuff on the internet. You need to do some more Emotional Labour. Go find some blogs that are like yours, comment on them... be friendly! give suggestions, try their recipes, share your experiences directly with them. they're going to read your comments just like you would read theirs. They will probably want to read some of your blog too! Or try going to work tomorrow with that dish you've been daydreaming up and share it with your roofer coworkers, i'm sure they would love a nice, home cooked meal for lunch...they've probably been eating sandwiches for the past few days... maybe they'll ask for the recipe! you could send them to your blog! but if that doesn't happen... at least you'll look forward to going to work tomorrow.

mythandrafenner.wordpress.com/ by: Mythandra Fenner

I follow this site, and look forward to receiving an e-mail every few days with a new blog post, poem, or design. Mythandra Fenner Loves what she does. Fenner puts in the effort to constantly produce blog posts that inspire. All i need to do is click a button or two, and i have access to tons and tons of ideas and concepts that i otherwise never would have seen.  

As an artist Mythandra has illustrated some  incredible designs. Instead of creating these illustrations, giving them to the client, and forgetting about them, Fenner has made them publicly available for viewing. Anybody that feels obligated to give the artist a suggestion or critique can do so by simply typing to in the box underneath the picture. These designs have made it to the magazine, there is really no reason why a designer would need to even think about the design let alone write a blog about it. but because Mythandra has done this. all kinds of artists and designers, and other random people can keep coming back and looking at these for their own inspiration. Not only that but when they come back, most likely, there’s going to be another set of inspirations there to look at.

http://www.atulperx.com/photoshop/photoshop-poster-tutorials-35-awesome-tutorials-for-poster-design/ Photoshop Poster Tutorials – 35 Awesome Tutorials For Poster Design

This is a website that i often go to when i want to spice up my designs in Photoshop. There are 35 different Photoshop tutorial LINKS on this site. The author, and one point or another, found 35 different blogs, wrote a short description about them and linked them all to one site because he or she thought they may be helpful.

kuler.adobe.com - colour schemes!

this is a web site that allows people, who have done their own emotional labour, to submit colour schemes for Adobe. i use this site all the time when i’m stuck on a colour scheme.

When you care about what you’re doing... it shows!

Thanks for reading!

Eric Kools

Popularity...

I discovered that the word of the week @ IllustrationFriday.com was Popularity.
At the same time I was "flickering" and  found my inspiration!

ps. this flicker set is...well... pretty awesome! so check it out!

All rights reserved by loupiote (Old Skool)

THIS IS HOW i...

Created a Two colour screen print design that mimics the style of 

Grattan Condon's Illustration found in...

Blue Book magazine
Illustrated by Grattan Condon
October 1944

i chose this illustration to base my design on because...

...I Really like how Condon used, just a splash of white, to build 

visual excitement  to an otherwise bland colour scheme. 

i drew an "emo kid" 

i didn't like the look of my drawing. It lacked the messy street art appeal

of my original inspiration!

...so i threw a piece of marker paper over it 

and grabbed my black pencil crayon... Then i scribbled!!!

NOTE: i use the term "scribbled" loosely!      i don't want to confuse 

the viewer. i want to maintain a clear picture/silhouette that contains enough 

information; i don't want people to think the guy is an airplane... or a bird... or something.... 

Now my "emo kid" had the look i was imagining

next: what i did WAS...

i added a microphone into my composition and "re-scribbled" my 

design onto another sheet of marker paper. (left)

i used yet another piece of marker paper by laying it on top and 

scribbling in what will be my "splash of white" (right)

i wanted the word "popularity" flow/explode out of his mouth; so guess what i did! 

I used marker paper!!!

Note: the reason I use marker paper: 

1. it's translucent like tracing paper

2. it's thick enough to build up your pencil lead so you can shade and stuff!

3. it's good for a lot of medians

smaller note: it helps if you use a light table

Then...

i brought all these elements and aspects, into photoshop and did a 

little tweaking/colour separating... it turned out something like this:

i wanted this "emo kid" to have an audience. i decided that a bunch of 

"scribbly people" along the bottom would look good, match the comp., 

and provide a "border" for emo kid to sit on.

...so i 

1. drew some people

2. scanned them into photoshop

3. copied and pasted

it ended up looking like this

then...

i made some photoshop magic and... 

...voila!

NOTE: i also made the word Popularity wave out of emokid's mouth.

i still felt like my design was lacking...something... it felt empty and emotionless.

after a bunch of "playing around" with ideas...

... ... ...

i fell in love with ThisOne:

i know there's quite a bit of rambling in this blog so i'd like to say...

thanks4reading

if you just looked at the pictures i say...

thanks4lookingat thepictures

Please leave your comments and advice!

Thanks again!

Eric Kools

TWIRL

I've been aching to create some sort of a "stick man" design for a while now, and 

the word "TWIRL" seemed to speak to that ache.

I've Created a vector one colour screen print. 

Here are the simple-ish steps i took to create my desired look

First i drew up my "road map" paying attention to the spacing of the different elements.

I brought this sketch into Illustrator and drew over it with the pen tool. I found that, the 

solid movement lines, seemed a little too much like, physical objects, rather than 

"figurative expressions of movement" as they were, so I broke them up into dashed lines 

(by, broke them up, i mean i checked off the little box that makes illustrator do it for me)  

Note: I used the circle tool to create the shapes for the hands and the heads (command+c command+v)

I created some visual interest and sense of dimension by tripling up the the dashed lines, 

and creating some solid colour areas in the heads, hands, and top step of the slide.

The Final touch to the design was the was fulfilling each of the character's individual need 

for direction. I did this, in illustrator, by creating a small line with the pen tool. i then checked 

off that "dashed line checkbox", and changed the profile of the stroke from Uniform 

to Width Profile 4. When I was happy with the overall look of my small line segment...

I (command+c command+v)'d 

Here is an idea of what this design would look like on the t-shirt!

Thanks For Reading!

Eric Kools

International Women's Day, 2012 Poster (Part 2)

 I have been asked to create 

a poster for International Women's Day, 2012.

The final artwork will be rendered in acrylic paint.

I sketched out, the USA Coat of Arms (My Interpretation) 

for my final artwork, i need to figure out all the angles, 

sizes, proportions, excreta...

I also traced Judy's face... off my screen... does this void the warranty?

I combined the Two Designs and created One Large Piece of Line Art

Up Next... 

Paint!

Here is a little peek into my colour scheme!

Colour Swatch Provided By:

kuler.adobe.com

See International Women's Day, 2012 Poster (Part 1)

http://erickools.blogspot.com/2012/01/international-womens-day-2012-poster.html

Thanks For Reading!

Eric Kools

Prepare

The Word is Prepare! My Goal is to create a Two Colour Screen Print-
able Design. Imagination and concept are up to Me! My theme is Construction.
My inspiration for this piece is…

Publication unknown
Attributed to George Albertus
Year unknown

ThankYou Leif Peng
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leifpeng/sets/72157607303301242/


My Idea is to create Simplified Graphic Icons to represent Safety Work Ware
and somehow incorporate the word Prepare. This design may be of some interest
to a contracting company in the future.

My Thumb Nails looked something like this…

The Process Begins!

I found some Reference Pictures via Google Image Search, aranged them
on my computer screen and took a screen shot. I proceeded to print, trace, scan,
and vectorize these "icons" and stylize them to suit my needs.

I then Prepared my text... and arranged my Composition to satisfy the eye...

I Decided to take this One Step Further to show, whom ever is interested, how

this design would look like if i were to prepare it for Screen Printing...

I know i said it was to be a Two Colour Design... But... I decided to, while i was 

colour separating this design , create an aditional layer for this screen print. Now 

my design can be printed with 2 or 3 colours!

And Here You Go
Final Concept!!

Thank You for Your interest!

Eric Kools

...and ThankYou to Illustration Friday for your Inspiration

http://www.illustrationfriday.com/

...although i missed the deadline... :(

Grounded

I am creating this graphic with the intention to apply it to a T-shirt.
Designed to illustrate the word Grounded, using a piece of illustration
artwork from the past as inspiration, striving towards creating an
interesting, fun, and intelligent, Four Colour Screen Printable product;
I created this Vector Artwork with great enthusiasm and am planning to
try this style again in the near future.


Here is my Inspiration Art Piece
Woman's Day magazine
Illustrated by Robert Jones
February 1961

I like how Robert Jones used the "colour white" to illustrate 

the subject madder, and reinforce the idea of importance.  

The Monochromatic Simplicity in this illustration is what 

really caught my eye.

Here are my thumbnails and illustration development scans

This is my Final Product.

I'm always open to improving my design, so if anyone has any 

productive suggestions please feel free to comments.

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely: 

Eric Kools

International Women's Day, 2012 Poster

In this Project; I have been asked to create 

a poster for International Women's Day, 2012.

The final artwork will be rendered in acrylic paint. 

I have chosen Judge Judith Sheindlin as 

my Woman Of Inspiration

My inspiration for this project is Al Parker's composition in...

Cosmopolitan magazine

Illustrated by Al ParkerSeptember 1954

My Plan is to have "Judge Judy" in the foreground, sitting 

up high behind "The Bench" in bright, high contrast colours, 

and a lot of fine detail. And the American Coat of arms 

will be in the background, in dark low contrast colours, and 

thick strokes.

I was also given the idea to include the words "International 

Women's Day, 2012" in scroll like banners on one side of the 

poster and "Judge Judith Sheindlin" on the other side 

in another "scroll"

Here are some Thumbnails to give you a better idea of 

what i'm planning

So there is where i am and i'll be posting progress as i go

thanks for your interest

cheers!

Eric Kools