New

Happy New Year!

New desk:

It's an old door (which, I'm guessing from the marker stains all over it, my granny used to make flannelgraph) and Ikea legs. I plan to use it as a painting and drawing table.

New programs to play with: 

I have downloaded the trial version of Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, InDesign, etc). I'm seriously thinking of getting it. I have been very happy with Corel PhotoPaint, but it does have some limitations. And after the fiasco with Publisher, InDesign is definitely a requirement if I want to design a book again!

There are some really good features - such as the ability in Photoshop to cut out photos of people with frizzy/wispy hair.

Sample photo before:

 

 Photograph ©Trevor Goodwin | Dreamstime.com

Sample photo after: 

This took me exactly half an hour. Well, when I say me, Photoshop more or less does it for you. It's not perfect, but good for a first attempt. Would have been quicker if I was more familiar with Photoshop's controls. Before, this would have probably taken hours of tedious work - and not been as good.

And, on the theme of New Year, here are a couple of little verse cards I designed for the RUN the RACE Holiday Club (coming soon...)

 Photograph ©istock/mediaphotos 

Photograph ©Sparkia | Dreamstime.com

Another useful calculator

Did you know there is such a thing as a Time calculator?

Very useful if you want to do sums that have hours and minutes, and really can't be bothered remembering how to do that.

(Belated) Merry Christmas

A Saviour has been born to you.

How cool is that?

I thought we were needing a picture, so here's something I see every Tuesday: A motor bike for someone in a wheelchair!

Fonts

"A good font should be invisible. In other words, if you've done it right, your audience shouldn't even notice it."

Jason Brubaker

'Contextualised parables'

An interesting article by the author of The Journey of Life. 

The article is really about his children's books - which I didn't illustrate - but a lot of the same things apply.

Hallellujah - praise the Lord!

I have found a tutorial on the internet showing me a way you can create bleed in Publisher. I've tried it (with a bit of adaption), and the art editor says it's fine.

I have found a website which will convert any type of font to ttf. This means I don't need to change the fonts in my book, which could cause all kinds of problems. I have tried it, and it works. 

Although buying copies of the clipart I used was going to be prohibitively expensive, I was able to draw some new pictures to replace the clipart ones. I used an easy style I like doing, and it took under 2 hours.

I can go out tonight with a clear conscience!!!

Also, it is snowing :-)