NannerTrain

Art Deco isn't really trendy right now. Still, it's one of my favorite genres. I haven't tried to create an Art Deco-inspired piece in a long time, so this was a lot of fun for me. The emphasis on strong, angular shapes makes this style really well-suited for vector illustration. If I were able to use gradients, I could have created a closer approximation of the style.

I know it's been a while. I know how far behind I have fallen. I had doubts that I would ever come back to this. My eyes have turned to the next big thing - though maybe a bit prematurely. I want to continue to study vector illustration. My plan is to subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, get acquainted with Illustrator (re-acquainted I suppose), and work on bigger and better portfolio-worthy pieces (in larger formats with more colors). Also, a portfolio.

That's a bit down the line. I won't be abandoning the stickers. It was just really easy to get distracted when I got lost in this project.

NannerQuilt

Quilting patterns are really awesome. Their complexity is really inspiring, especially when you consider that this beautiful geometry is made up of simple little shapes.

I would usually complain about Inkscape's "helpful" anti-aliased edges - but here, seeing all of the little quilted squares drives my point home. Still, this feature sucks. It's one of the little quirks that makes Adobe Illustrator seem that much more inviting.

EndlessNanner

I was thinking about light projected from the inside of a house onto the street. There's a narrative aspect to that image. There are questions to be answered, but no one to ask. A door left wide open on a cold evening is...unusual. What about a whole neighborhood with doors wide open? What about flat homes with no interior emitting light in one direction?

I should have maybe added one more row.

NannerStitch

It's a Yeti. This is as close as I think I'll ever get to actually stitching something. I admire the work, but I have no real knowledge of it. On the other hand, I really admire sasquatch without really knowing anything about him/her/it...traditional bigfoot sticker forthcoming.

This design was inspired by the awesome shirts over at shirt.woot. Seriously, go check out their great selection of unique tees.

NannerCurl

More work involving hair. This time, the thought of curls. Not much more to say about the idea of this (I think yesterday's post pretty much covers it). This piece was a challenge to get into vector form because of the overlapping shapes and contours. I'm not happy with the solution I chose (creating shapes to fake the overlapping strokes) - I think it looks sloppy. More things to think about...

NannerFuzz

I wrote down a few words in my sketchbook the other day - among these: fluffy, fuzzy, curly. I can never be certain where my head is at any given moment. In that instant I was thinking of long, curly yellow hair. I also thought about dandelions and fluffy white cats.

I created the sketch that became this sticker based on the previous thoughts. Hair is such an interesting, sometimes complicated, often beautiful subject for artwork. The only thing I can be sure of is that I'm not done thinking about hair.

Weird.

Wells and Wheelhouses

Today's work was inspired by The Accidental Creative (the website, the book, and the podcast). Three words: prolific, brilliant, and healthy. They form the essence of creativity. With some practices and discipline, it's possible to find all three and tap into our potential.

I say today's work was inspired by The Accidental Creative - but really, a lot of the work that went into this project since day one was made possible by those ideas. If it weren't for the Accidental Creative, I wouldn't have read Pressfield's "The War of Art" (which forced me to confront my procrastination head-on) or Scalin's "365: A Daily Creative Journal" (which inspired the daily project I'm blogging about). Thanks, Todd!

I used Inkscape's calligraphy brush and my WACOM tablet's pressure-sensitive stylus (and a lot of ctrl+z) to create the lettering. The style and the working method were almost completely foreign to me. I didn't go into this with any idea of what I was going to do (which I wouldn't normally do with the Bezier tool, but it worked out perfectly with the calligraphy brush).