Button-Making: Urban Gardening

What else is there to know, except 'make it circular?' Well there are other subtleties as well; however doing your graphics as vector graphics enables you to rescale and repurpose the content for other forms of collateral: such as a flash animation, a poster, or postcard.

I did this graphic for an upcoming event on what everyday citizens can do to help the environment. This image is about urban gardening, where the text hints at the theme and also serves as architectural details I didn't want to get into. I liked how the words got cut off sometimes too and became "urb gardening" like herb gardening.

It'll be nice to eventually turn the image not just into a button, but a flash animation that grows upwards from the landscape.

Enjoy.

Self-Portrait, Collage

So I'm working on a self-portrait collage using all natural materials found in my studio or home. There are a few tips I'd like to pass on to those who haven't undertook the task:

• I created a posterized image in Photoshop based on a photo (Image | Adjustments | Posterize.) This helps reduce the amount of detail and noise you need to deal with, as well as shadows and tones. The simplification helps you focus on which essential elements, such as expression, facial features, really define the subject you want to explore.
• Second, absolute try to get access, and use a light table. I put a piece of acetate on top of my 8x10 inch photo, set it on a light table and then began pasting away my materials
• The smaller your objects, the higher the fidelity. Think about how a printer works and even monitor resolution; the higher the ppi or dpi, the better the image quality. For fine details, I used materials such as cinnamon, black tea and quick-oatmeal which is less than a mm square.
• Use brushes to apply your glue. I just used plain Elmer's, but you can use PVA or wheat paste if you glue onto tissue paper. The finer the brushes you use, the better the detail. Also, check out what painter use for effects and use those brushes to get closer to those effects (even in glue!) Remember to wash your brushes immediately.

Well, that's it for now. Hope you enjoy the collage.