When I think of SVS, starting with its founders and extending to the entire community, a line from a Tennessee Williams play comes to mind: “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

I won’t detail my predicament here, but it’s contained in the post that begins “HELP! I committed to a logo” (my new mantra is “Just Say No to logos”). Coming from traditional graphite/watercolor experience with no design skill and digital limited to Photoshop touchups and Procreate pencil sketching, I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to do this favor for a friend.

When I turned to the SVS community for help, I was overwhelmed by the support, the suggestions, references, draw-overs, ideas for communicating with difficult (non-paying!) clients and technical education offered. @animatosoor got me going in the right direction to simplify and sparked contributions from those with solid graphic design experience like @Erin.Cortese, @ClCanadyArts, @Adriana-Bergstrom , @NessIllustration, @hannahmccaffery , @StudioLooong, @Braden-Hallett & @Nyrryl-Cadiz.

They got me from here

to here, where I was struggling to get the dog head in vector format from my procreate drawing

A very special thank you to @Erin-Cortese for vectorizing this head to make it sync with my vector “baby steps” on the body and scale. She also educated me about the need for all lines to be “expandable” to print proportionally when scaling up & down. I was getting wonky results when downscaling. This is yet another example of the value of a graphic designer’s expertise for logo design.

As a person seriously intimidated by my CS5 version of Adobe Illustrator, I am also grateful to @Adriana-Bergstrom for enlightening me about Affinity Designer for iPad. At least I could learn enough to understand some of the issues of vector design and complete most of the logo elements in vector. But the head was way above my skill level, so I am beyond appreciative of Erin’s help.

I usually don’t comment on the forums because I don’t know enough to offer constructive help like I received, but the people who do are always generous and kind in their feedback. This is such a wonderful community!

@Jellen said in OCTOBER CONTEST: The experiment worked! Penny was so relieved to have her dog back from the dead.:

The experiment worked! Penny was so relieved to have her dog back from the dead. She had never dabbled in necromancy, but her grandmother had a great recipe.

great job!

“Life is a lot like jazz...it’s best when you improvise.” -George Gershwin

‘’Life is a lot like jazz...it’s best when you improvise.” -George Gershwin

@Braden-Hallett accountability posting daily practice

Long lines the most difficult, especially curves—still working out what will be my daily practice to fill one piece of paper.

No concept or story, but decided on a whim to go back to scribbling, something that spontaneously occurred during inktober 2017 and was surprisingly freeing. I forgot about it until I discovered scribble-hatching is actually a “technique” by participating in the inking class with @Braden-Hallett & friends. My challenge was to work digitally in procreate (technical pen), complete each scribble as quickly as possible and (gulp) go public on instagram.

After posting my late-to-the-party #inktober5k scribble on instagram, @clcanadyarts referred me to a very interesting Ted talk by artist Phil Hansen who was advised by a neurologist to “embrace the shakes” after suffering permanent nerve damage (from single-minded pursuit of pointillism). https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=anujFqvCJsk. For those of us stuck on preoccupation with outcomes/products, the concept of destruction is thought-provoking as well.

Daily-sortof-accountability

I’ve been checking the SVS home page daily through December in anticipation of the new foundation Perspective & Light and Shadow courses. I want to revise both perspective and lighting on my Christmas card and thought I could revise lighting on the existing watercolor before doing a redraw of the perspective. When I saw this graphic around minute 2 of the intro, my heart stopped as I thought “that looks a lot like math” Imagine my relief when @Lee-White said “instructors tend to over-complicate this stuff” and “we’re NOT going to be tracking shadow lines back to the horizon point...I think I can do it in a lot simpler way...does it look believable?” Yay!

I’m only on lesson 1 “Local Tone” and I can already see how my final painting tones don’t match my initial idea of the local tones when I change the painting to greyscale (and problems with the initial values drawing). I’m especially looking forward to the shadows lessons. This is going to be such a helpful class Thanks!
Initial value sketch:

Final painting in greyscale:

@Heather-Boyd I keep looking at the work here and try to figure out “how did they come up with that?!” It’s becoming clear I may still be on the first 4 exercises by the time everybody else has finished . I tried to work quickly in an attempt to “play” in #8 and not run off the page. In #13, #14, #15 I tried to think of a location (but forgot about usability) as @Nathalie-Kranich suggested.

The “beach-house” seems to have become yet another village that bears no resemblance to the house that was in my head-it is almost as if my pen is on auto-pilot, detached from my brain! #14 was supposed to be a lighthouse next to its adjacent lightkeeper’s residence, but the actual residence shape was so boring I couldn’t think of a way to make it interesting aside from adding on projections that don’t make sense and again, I trailed off the page. #15 is supposed to be a gingerbread house, where I noticed my tendency is to work top-down, rather than establishing a footprint and working up as @demotlj suggested.

Thinking trees may be less frustrating as @Heather-Boyd found, but am already quaking at the thought of turning a silhouette into an objective drawing (still wrapping my head around that concept, as I’ve never heard it before)

Back to the week 1!

@Braden-Hallett at first I thought this would be a good opportunity to get beyond the sketch pencil on my ipad/Procreate and try digital inking, but now I see it as the perfect vehicle to work on fine motor control on paper. That became an issue for me 4 years ago, so I broke down and bought an iPad Pro. The undo/redo in Procreate made drawing a lot easier, but I have not moved forward much in regaining fine motor skill. The initial exercises don’t have the pressure of a product, but really help identify which movements and goals need most practice. I also need to learn to post struggles and be publicly accountable, so I am very happy you initiated this Braden! My daily practice will include exercises that require long lines, pressure and consistency using a technical or ball point pen for most.

@Coreyartus yes, posting my cry for help with a logo in that category yielded incredibly useful replies!

@chrisaakins I skimmed through the replies and so many resonated with me. I think most of us not at a pro level do not feel confident that any criticism we offer will be as helpful as what I find from so many others on this forum (I don't want to leave anyone out, but @TessaW @Nyrryl-Cadiz @NessIllustration @Braden-Hallett come to mind immediately).

I have viewed you as a pro because of your background and I only offer positives (or informational) to pros. I have not been on the board recently because of a family situation, but I remember seeing this piece and thinking I thought the boy looked old (I gave Will one of my "old kid" drawings to use in a critique, so I recognize that ). Unlike the pros, I couldn't say how I would "fix" it.

I think people like me should probably look at requests for criticism by pros as a kind of dream portfolio exercise, trying to identify more specifically what we like about a piece instead of just posting "like it". Maybe then it wouldn't feel so intimidating (like "who do you think you are" commenting on this? kind of feeling).

I have to add that when I posted a cry for help with a logo (just-say-no-to-logos btw) under serious critique wanted, the response was incredibly helpful. I never would have been able to complete that ill-conceived commitment without this group!

I was blown away by your inktober mice concepts compositions, especially in awe of your perspective! Have you thought about (and maybe you did it but I missed it) going back to some of those so that it's just the digital painting you're working on?

@Coley love how this turned out 🥰

@Coley adorable

@Olga-Herrera I'm in love with that doggie-with-attitude watched your progression on IG and the final version is terrific!!

@sarahlash This is lovely! Congratulations on such a beautiful first entry

@TessaW so great!

@sigross This is truly unique

@idid said in Is Caran d'Ache Luminance Colored Pencils much better than other brands?:

Question for those who like trying out different art supplies.
Just wonder if anyone has tried Caran d'Ache Luminance Colored Pencils, what is its difference from other brands?
It is over $5.4 per pencil, while other decent ones, such as Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencils cost only $2 each.

Worth buying a whole set?

Thanks!

Ask @mrsdion she does beautiful color pencil work

@TessaW said in WIP- Is the perspective convincing enough?:

@Zachary-Drenski and @Nyrryl-Cadiz Thank you so much.

Ok, I played around a little based on the feedback. Some things are still rough and not 100% settled, but what do you guys think overall. Which one feels best- most intriguing?

Thank you guys so much for your help.

I am the last person in the world able to comment on perspective, so I can only say #2 appeals to me because the background room seems farther away so the read for me is girl, kids in tree and background room. I love #3 too!
The illustrations make me want to know more about the story