Illustration Friday - Blues

Long time since I've posted. Life has been busy. Here's a quick one I scratched out on my tablet. Just something fast and loose as I haven't done ANY drawings lately.

As always, click on the title bar to check out other work. Some better, some well... you'll see.

Illustration Friday - Visitors

OK here's a quick one I whipped up for Illustration Friday - Visitors. This was originally a photo that I accidentally took without the flash. I liked the way it looked and immediately thought of an alien abduction. Some color shifts, overlays and some of my own magic and style and I came to this image.

Hopefully the Illustration Friday police won't kill the link. I think it's suitably far enough away from a photo.

As always let me know what you think and take a look around my blog by clicking on the title banner.

Illustration Friday - Captain

Here's my entry for Captain. I think his hat is too small to be a ship's captain, so lets say he's a Spanish Conquistador Captain! I think he's sad because he's lost all his men.

I'm feeling OK with this one. I wanted to do something in Photoshop again and not have it look like my 10 year old niece's work. I think I had a major art block for about two weeks.

As always, take a look around my site by clicking on the header, and comments are always appreciated.

Illustration Friday - Emergency

OK, well after two weeks of very weak digital entries for Illustration Friday on my part I decided to go back to basics. I pulled out the coloured conte sticks and just let it flow.

Here are my thoughts around this week's challenge and my response. When you have this big emergency happening (and I have had a few in the last twelve months) there's all this commotion around you. The emergency is staring you in the face ready to consume you. It's big and scary and your adrenaline is pumping. Yet, you can focus and be calm. Thoughts become sharp like razors. Know what you have to do and execute it. This is how came to my image for this week.

An interesting side note, I could see anger being very similar to danger. Maybe more red. But instead of a focus the middle is empty.

Let me know your thoughts, and please check out the rest of my blog by clicking on the header. I warn you though, my last two are slightly embarrassing. I was going to delete them, but I figured it's a good reminder of how things can go bad.

Illustration Friday - Missing

Here's a late entry for Illustration Friday. I wasn't going to do anything this week because I wanted to do an illustration that was more refined. I couldn't let this idea go though, so I just roughed it out in a sketch then into Photoshop. Sadly again, this took me longer that it probably should have.

At any rate, here's my entry for Illustration Friday - Missing: Missing Opportunities.

As an aside, I think I've peaked with Photoshop for now. Instead of progressing my skill I feel like I'm regressing. Instead of getting better and more complex, I feel like I'm getting worse and more simplistic. I'm really not nuts about the execution on this one. Ugh.

Well let me know what you think.

Illustration Friday - Moon

Yet another kooky idea I had for this week's topics. The fun for me with Illustration Friday are the concepts over the execution. So here's my interpretation of "moon". How many times has this happened to you? Or were you one of the guys in the window?

More serious and less potty-brained pictures can be seen throughout the rest of my blog. Just click on the header.

Illustration Friday - Poem - Haiku

OK, here's a very quick and dirty interpretation of poem. I had a good idea and I whipped it up PowerPoint of all things.

I'll be honest, I don't get poetry. It was always my least favourite part in English class. All the rhyming, iambic pentameters, and all the rules. I just found it a chore.

At any rate here's my submission for 'poem'.

Take a look at my other work, just click on the 'Daily Charcoal' header.

Illustration Friday - Discovery

Here's another Illustration Friday submission done in Illustrator again. I had a few ideas kicking around. Soneone had already done my inital idea (Archimedes in the bath) so I had to noodle around for something else. Seems like I'm still on the simple graphical kick. I was going to do something more abstract but this seems very fitting.

At any rate, enjoy.

Illustration Friday - Geeky - The Pyramid of Geek

Well now, here's a topic that I was able to come up with TOO many ideas. I decided to go with my 'Pyramid of Geek'.

I have a few reasons I approached this topic this week the way I did.

First, I've been wanting to do something more graphic and less cartoonish, painterly, sketch or drawing.

Second, I wanted to stay away from drawing a geeky character (even though the horn rimmed glasses did make it into my composition).

Third, I wanted to better learn how to use the pen tool in Illustrator. As an aside, the pen tool gives me a headache every time I use it for the first 10 minutes then I get the hang of it, still it's a tough tool to get used to.

Fourth, I wanted to include all my geeky hobbies and things I have been/are interested in.


I did all the icons in Illustrator then played around in Photoshop. I feel the execution is a bit rudimentary, but the concept is sound. I got to tell you though, doing all those icons in Illustrator took me a while (still just learning).

I'm curious if most people can figure out what some of the more cryptic icons are. Click on the image above and you should get two at least. The first person that can provide me the most specific meanings for all my icons, including the top one, will get a print of the illustration signed and sent to their home for free!

Illustration Friday - Twist

Here's my entry for "Twist". This week was more just playing around in Photoshop than anything serious. I'll admit, I think this week's topic was a little weak. I have another ideas kicking around in my noodle not sure if I'll get to it though.

Illustration Friday - Camoflage

Here's my entry for this weeks theme of 'camouflage'. I think I was influenced by the one guy who did a wolf in sheep's clothing for 'suits'. I think this one is pretty self explanatory. Enjoy!

Illustration Friday - Rejection

Here's my entry this week for Illustration Friday - Rejection. I sat and thought about it and had a couple of ideas. One of them was already done a few times (kids rejecting food). I didn't want to do a sad person sitting in a corner.

So the idea I came up with based around the actual point of rejection. I was trying to capture the moment of rejection; the expulsion of something unwanted, pushing away and getting rid of whatever.

I also figured I'd do something more abstract/figurative. Also seeing as my blog is called "Daily Charcoal" I figured I should do something using charcoal.

I believe the images above capture that. Let me know what you think.

Illustration Friday - Suit

Here's my first Illustration Friday entry for "Suit".

How about eight suits; business, armor, bathing, birthday, clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds?

Click on the header to look at my other sketches, drawings and rants!