Black and White Simplified Style

I have been working on a various designs for an evangelistic study since the first of the year. The study was created by a missionary in Peru. here are some of the final black and white images that will serve as the study's illustrations.

VBS Artwork - 2012 A Space Mission

Here is some VBS artwork that I did for a friend a few weeks ago.

Three Stooges faces

Here's a quick practice illustration I did of the Three Stooges, one of my favorite comic teams. After watching some of their shorts, I was inspired to do this.

New Bamboo Graphic Tablet

Last week, my new Wacom Bamboo Graphic Tablet arrived. This is a tablet that connects to my PC via USB. It comes with a pressure sensitive pen (cordless and with no battery). The end of the pen there is a nib (that can be replaced) and in various software I can draw/paint directly onto my PC. The other end of the pen is a simulated eraser. With that I can flip the pen over and it automatically switches to an eraser and it feels like an eraser as I remove strokes from the screen. There are tons of possibilities and I've already done a couple illustrations for a Bible Study I'm working on for Peru. Here are those images:

Here's a link to the original sketches I did for these horses: http://mattsketchpad.blogspot.com/2012/03/horse-sketches-for-bible-study-project.html

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Artist Notes - I used a Wacom Bamboo Create and CorelDraw X5, then exported the images as PNG's.

My Favorite Apps/Programs

I thought I would do a post highlighting some of my favorite apps/programs that I use to create art on various devices. Some I have been using for years. Others are brand new, but I already have found great use in them. Check them out below...

On my PC - 
CorelDraw X5 - this is the program that I use the most and one in which I am very well versed. I have been using CorelDraw since 1993 or 1994 with version 3. The latest version, X5, is actually version 15 and there have been leaps and bounds in the capabilities.

Sumopaint - This a a great painting app that is available for download on the Chrome Webstore within the Chrome browser, or just go to www.sumopaint.com. You can also download an offline version for twenty bucks.

Camstasia Studio - This is a brand new app that I used to do a screen video capture while I created a Lion in CorelDraw. I then took the video that was captured and tweaked it, as well as speeding it up from 30 minutes to 6 minutes. I have been thinking of various new things I can make with this cool software tool.

Sketchbook Pro for PC - It's made for a touchscreen surface, but it has great uses and reminds me of my favorite Android Tablet app!

Adobe Dreamweaver CS 5.5 - This is what I use when I need to get detailed in website creation. I can also just notepad to edit some html code or even CorelDraw for very artistically produced website designs.

On my Xoom Android Tablet - 
Sketchbook Mobile Pro - Has to be my all time favorite app ever created for any mobile device! I can use it to create quick sketches or full shaded, colorized pieces of artwork that can be used in final project versions.

Pixlr-o-matic - This is a very packed photo editing app that can change all sorts of color options, borders, special effects, etc...

On my Windows Phone 7 - 

Fantasia Painter Free - Very versatile little app for the Windows Phone 7.

Drawing in CorelDraw X5 (Video)

Here's a six minute video of me drawing in CorelDraw X5. The drawing actually took me about thirty minutes to make, but I sped it up to six minutes. See how quickly you can guess what it is!!

Artist Notes - Done in CorelDraw X5 on my Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop with Windows 7 OS.

The Accuser

This is a color version of an illustration I'm doing for an international study tool. The accuser stands pointing at our sin, but Christ stands in and defends, in fact, pardoning us from our sins.

Presidents Day 2012

In honor of Presidents' Day 2012, I'm posting a couple illustrations I did for Angie's preschool class to color tomorrow. The versions I did for her are in Black and White, but I colored them for the blog. Below are two great presidents, President George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln.

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Artist Notes - Both illustrations done in CorelDraw X5 on a Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

Ichthus - Fish Symbol

Here's a promo that I did for our church here in Tulsa. It is for a five week study in Luke. I actually preached one of the sermons in the series and it can be found at Highland Park Christian Church's website at http://hp4christ.org/#/media/sermons. You can launch the sermon player and find my sermon on January 22, 2012.

Artist Notes -  I created the fish and background on my Android Tablet using Sketchbook Mobile Pro. Then I exported it as a PSD file which I opened on my computer in CorelDraw X5. I added the text in CorelDraw.

November 2011 - Day 02 - Samoset

Day 02 - Samoset.

Artist Notes - Done completely in CorelDraw X5 on a Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

November 2011 - Day 01 - Hello Pilgrim

Day 01 - Hello Pilgrim.

So, after over double the traffic on my Sketch blog for October, I thought I might continue doing some daily drawings/sketches. Let's see how long this thing goes.  Here's the first a simple pilgrim's hat and gun in a flat illustration style.

Artist Notes - Done completely in CorelDraw X5 on my Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 30 - Vampire Bat

Day 30 - Vampire Bat.

It's the penultimate day for monsters in the month of October. I will be closing out this year's October Monster Madness tomorrow. I've been uploading these to my Sketchblog and Facebook. Not sure what the stats on Facebook, but on my blog I've had a considerable increase in foot traffic. On my Sketchblog, the previous four months have had an average of about 500 pageviews per month. This month there has been almost 1,300 visits! Thanks for coming by and checking the sketches out.

Artist Notes - This one was done completely in CorelDraw X5 on my Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 28 - House Ghost

Day 28 - House Ghost.

And the house guest that you can't get rid of, the House Ghost!

Artist Notes - This one was a mix of mediums. First the background of the room/house was done in CorelDraw X5 on a Dell Laptop running Windows 7, as well as the picture frame. In Sketchbook Mobile Pro on my Motorola Xoom I created the man in the portrait and the man in the top hat. The portrait was merely exported as a png and imported into CorelDraw. The man in the top hat was exported as a psd file, which retains the transparency around the edges, then imported into CorelDraw X5. I inserted the man in the portrait into the frame then placed the man in the top hat in front of the scene and made him transparent. I converted it to a bmp and used the image adjustment lab to lower the saturation and made the temperature warmer. This gave the image more of an aged look. And then I exported the whole piece as a png.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 17 - Cyclopsme

Day 17 - Cyclopsme.

This is a pic of me as a cyclops.

Artist Notes - Done in CorelDraw X5 and Photopaint X5 on a Windows 7 Dell laptop.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 16 - Jekyll and Hyde

Day 16 - Jekyll and Hyde. As soon as Hyde drinks his cursed potion, he sees his future in the mirror and immediately regrets his impulsion.

Artist Notes - Done completely in CorelDraw X5 on a Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 12 - Lizardo

Monster 12. Okay, here is a "flat" image of a lizard-like monster named Lizardo.

Artist Notes - Done completely in CorelDraw X5 on a Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 07 - Mermaid/Siren

Monster #07 the Mermaid/Siren. From the depths of the oceans, seaman feared this creature most than any other. The beautiful dreaded siren with a call to men that could not be rejected. Here is my interpretation of one.

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Artist Notes - Sketched with a 2B Derwent Graphic Pencil on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper (28lb, 100 brightness). Then colored with Prismacolor colored pencils. After that, scanned onto my Dell Windows 7 laptop and prepped for upload in CorelDraw X5. I also added the fangs and claws in CorelDraw. Below is a list of the Prismacolors I used:

Mermaid:
Metallic Gold
Rose
Black
Peach
Light Peach
Goldenrod
Light Aqua
Dark Brown

Mermaid's Tail:
Metallic Gold
Light Aqua
True Blue
Chartreuse

Water:
Ultramarine
Light Aqua
True Blue
White

Sky:
Light Cerulean Blue
True Blue

More NOLA Article Art

As mentioned in a previous post, A Study of New Orleans, I wrote an article for our organization's annual magazine entitled TELL. My article was on a mission serving in the New Orleans area and I have been working on various contributing artwork for it.  Here's a few more.

I took the two I recently made and combined them as a combo seen above. Maybe I'll add in the trumpeteer that I had recently done so I can have a silhouette jazz trio.
Artist Notes - these were pencil sketches with a 2B Derwent Graphic pencil on Hammermill Color Copy Digital paper (28lb, 100 brightness) then scanned onto my Dell Windows 7 Laptop into CorelDraw X5 for coversion into silhouette.

October Monster Madness 2011 - Day 06 - Son of Frankenstein

Didn't know what this one was going to be at the beginning. I kind of threw him together. Come to think of it, Dr. Frankenstein probably didn't know what his "creature" was going to be either! So here he is in all his gory detail, the Son of Frankenstein, otherwise known as Francis.

Artist Notes - This monster was created completely in CorelDraw X5 on a Windows 7 Dell Laptop.

Magazine Artwork - Emerald Hills

Here's an illustrated version of Emerald Hills in Louisville, Kentucky where our headquarters are located for Team Expansion.  I made this using CorelDraw X5 for possible use in our organization's magazing coming out this autumn called, Tell.