Art

On being a colorblind illustrator

Posted by erik

The other night I was at a get-together for writers and illustrators, and there was a discussion of illustrating digitally vs. illustrating on paper. I am still working on getting proficient with the tablet (see my bad bunny drawing post), but I mentioned that since I am colorblind, I have been known to scan a drawing in and color it digitally using various web sites that give you swatches of various colors. This way I can go to the browns and pick one that I like, enter the values into Photoshop, and then know that I’ve at least gotten a brown where I need a brown. (Whether or not it’s still hideous is another story). This seemed interesting to people, so here I am telling you, the internet, about it.

Amazingly, I have been colorblind my whole life. Once in college, someone came up to me and said, “You know what’s awesome about you? Your clothes NEVER MATCH!” So it’s been a struggle. In spite of it, I have worked as a graphic designer and illustrator. But I have found ways to cope in one way or another, aside from that time when my mother let me got to school on St. Patrick’s Day dressed in all brown instead of green.

Lately what I do is draw a picture in pencil, redo the lines with a Micron pen, and then scan it in. Then I’ll add the colors in Photoshop, either using the Fill tool or a brush. A site I use for pictures that are just going on the web is The Other RGB Color Chart. There’s a decent selection, but not a ton, which makes it easier to choose. Too many options will probably just confuse me. It’s divided into color groups, so I look for what I like, and then add the values into the Color Picker, and I’m off.

 

Before and after

 

There is a recent exception to this process.

For my “big plate of pancreas” drawing, I knew I wanted it to look like an old food ad, so I searched for old food ads until I found one that had gross enough colors for what I was after. I brought it into Photoshop, and sampled the ones I wanted, and worked as usual. I was especially interested in the weird background color, which a lot of old ads seem to have. Makes me extra queasy. I’m pretty sure this is the ad I used:

Lynda Barry creativity exercise

Posted by erik

I got this one from Lynda Barry’s Tumblr, but I don’t remember if she invented or got it from one of her teachers. Basically (and I may be remembering this wrong, but this is how I do it) you spend two minutes writing down anything you remember from the day before. Then you spend two minutes writing down things you remember seeing the day before. Then you spend one minute writing down things you overheard the day before, then a minute and a half drawing something you saw. You’ll be amazed at first at how much of a blur your days can be, but it helps you to be more alert as to what’s going on around you, which is a good skill to have. I don’t do this nearly as often as I should. I haven’t worked it into a routine like I have with the morning pages, but maybe that means I should do it on the train also.

Things remembered, seen, and overheard

Morning Pages

Posted by erik

When I was in grad school, people were very big into Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. So much so, that it made a little resistant to it. I am of the belief that the more people gush about something, the less likely I am to enjoy it (mainly because nothing, however good, lives up to the gushing, but I am not a gusher). I liked a lot of the people who were recommending it, so I gave it a shot. As I had been warned, it was a little touchy-feely, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. There were a lot of useful exercises, but the one that has stayed with me to the day is the concept of “Morning Pages.” In essence, first thing in the morning you write 3 pages of anything that pops into your head.

My morning pages notebook

Even if you only write about how annoyed you are at the train, or how many bills you have (not that I know anything about this subject matter) the point is to get the little irritating ideas out of your head, so that the good, important things can start to come out. I’ve been doing it daily for well over 10 years now, and I find it very helpful. Often I will worry on the page about where an project is going, and suddenly I have given my self a solution, just by getting it out.

Meanwhile, a whole Artist’s Way empire has risen. There are seminars, special notebooks you can buy for morning pages (I use composition notebooks, because they are super cheap) and all manner of ways to get your money. You can get the book out of the library and use the back side of printouts you don’t need anymore, and it works just as well.

Ounce Dice Trice!

Posted by erik

Here’s a post over on Brain Pickings about my favorite kid’s book of all time, Ounce Dice Trice. I absolutely love everything about this book. It’s essentially nothing but word play inside with illustrations by Ben Shahn. If you just like the sounds of certain words, or thinking about silly names for things, this is your book. I have often wondered if this would get published today, since marketing something like this would pose a problem for many publishers. There’s nothing else like this, as far as I know. If there is, I want to see it!