ki11erpancake

[ki11erpancake]

Five Things I Do While Painting in Photoshop

Making little vids about my process has been super helpful for me to understand my shit and get better. Maybe it can be for you as well? Below I elaborate on my minute vid posted originally in my Instagram feed.

Set Up

I know a lot of people who like to save a million versions of separate layers of things. I guess you could call me a minimalist because I cannot be bothered to hold on to the past. In this file I have merged the grey-scale drawing into one single layer. Next I create two layers for color. One has the Multiply blend mode activated and the other is in the Overlay blend mode. From there I play around with the color until I get what I like—just like IRL painting. Starting off gradually I eventually get super detailed but I haven't agonized over every choice made in the drawing.

As I go I combine the layers using the best trick ever. Hold down "ctrl", "alt", "shift", and "E" (I dunno what this is on a Mac—sorrrrryyyyy). All of your layers will be merged into a single layer NO MATTER WHAT BLEND MODE THEY ARE IN. Here is the full scoop on this tip from Photoshop Essentials. I use this trick all. Damn. DAY.

The Goal

The rest of the image is built off of the basics I lay down early. I can add things and make adjustments but if the foundation sucks then the image is garbage and I'm left tinkering with something that can't be saved.

Brushes

When I was learning how to paint in Photoshop I heard a lot about Kyle Webster on Insta and at Adobe Max and basically any-fucking-where anyone talks about a damn Photoshop brush that isn't mentioning Syd Weiler. I impulse bought a mega pack (and sixteen million other packs) of his before Adobe brought him on board (like... right before it came with your Adobe CC subscription).

I now use two of those brushes (yeah I know). Both are from the PaintBox. The first is "Big Wide Softy" which is super bitchin' for blending and building trees and clouds as fast as humanly possible. The other is Bristle 3 for drawing and painting things out. Otherwise, I'm using the lasso tool and paint bucket or shaping things with the smudge and eraser tools.

For me, finding the right brushes was similar to finding a favorite medium in the real world. We each draw differently in the same way that we all have different handwriting. Play around with things and go from there—and don't spend a million dollars on a ton of things you will likely never use.

The View

Go to Window, Arrange, and at the bottom of the menu is "New Window for {blah blah file}". Then Go back to arrange and select the view that works best for you (I do 2-vertical). That way you can have a bird's eye view of your work while you are also zoomed in real close. If both windows are rotating at the same time there's a box you can uncheck "Rotate All Windows"  in the toolbar when Rotate function is active.

Take one thing off

I've started the use the Olly Moss trick of putting your "finished" WIP on your phone screen. When you look at it randomly during the day you will see what is so wrong or so right, so fast...

Music "Kawaii" by Frequency Decree from Nul Tiel Records, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

[ki11erpancake]

Can Paint, Will Travel

Painting on the go takes site-seeing to the best level and helps pass the time while hanging around an airport. In 2017 I traveled through Japan, drove from Pittsburgh to Las Vegas, and bopped around the eastern seaboard of the US with art supplies in tow—making all the mistakes so you don’t have to. The following is a list of thoughts in no particular order about my experiences with different paint and ink while traveling.

Paint on a Plane

I’ve taken oil, watercolor (tube and brick), and ink (all in less than 3 ounce tubes) in a carry-on while on an airplane without issue. Researching the TSA website it indicated that artist paint in any amount (including oil) as long as the individual tubes are under the ounce limit. That being said, I’m a 30 something white lady that is rarely given the extra critical screening by TSA and no every agent is familiar with this specific rule. If you’re worried about traveling with something because you’ve been hassled before and don’t want to check your expensive and treasured paint (plus if you’re like me you might want to paint in the terminal), might I suggest using solid watercolor bricks! No, you won’t have that nice opaqueness of your gouche but it’s way easier to pack up and run when your gate is changed at the last minute and you have to haul ass across an airport (not that this has ever happened to me of course...).

I’ve been using Van Gogh bricks in a handy little clam shaped kit and they work super great.

The Thing about Oil

Traveling with oil paint is a little trickier but not impossible. First thing: do not under any circumstances travel with galkyd or—for god sakes—turpentine. I don’t need to do research to know those toxic-ass-spontaneously-combusting things are not allowed on planes. Plus, you probably wouldn’t want to use the sticky and slower-to-dry mediums if you are painting in a book and in on-the-go situations anyway. This round up of tips is from 2011 but pretty legit. If you're traveling with oil, listen to those who have flown before you. Honestly, it’s not impossible but more than what I’m interested in fucking with when I’m running around so I’ll be talking mostly about watercolor and ink.

Other Packing Concerns

If you’re not sure how many brushes to bring or what you must have—do yourself a favor and practice before hand. Pack up your crap, go to the park or to the mall food court and do some painting. See what works and what does. What did you miss in your bag and what did you not even look at? You don’t need your special water cup for brush cleaning. You can use a coffee cup and water from a fountain wherever you are.

In Japan, I used a little bit of broth from this amazing ramen soup we had to paint in my sketchbook. Using food and beverages (wine is a good one) can capture the smell of a place in your book and transport you back there in an instant.

After driving 4,000+ miles with four bottles of ink that I never touched I wound up leaving them in the studio during future trips. They are too messy anyway.

You can also buy supplies when you arrive. I call them “souvenir supplies”. While in Seattle last year I wandered into a gorgeous stationary store and found a beautiful graphite holder that I’d never seen before. Purchasing that and an elegant matching sharpener, it’s now my favorite thing to draw with and reminds me of that lovely little spot I discovered.

Important note: Make sure you don’t have your Xacto or any palette knives with you when you go through security! I dumped a beloved knife in the line at Houston’s Hobby Airport and it still burns in my heart...

Sketchbooks

For almost two years now I’ve been using Moleskine A3 sized Art Plus (111lb) sketchbooks. They are about $30 a pop but they take all the medium I throw at them without bleeding and have that classic little folder in the back for small treasures I pick up along the way. For the longest time I wasn’t particular about my sketchbooks but when I discovered these I haven’t bought anything else. Find what works for you and enjoy watching the bookshelf fill up with sketchbooks that journal your travels. Even if your regular travel is hyperlocal, there’s something cathartic about documenting your time in a book. My sketchbooks are diaries, laboratories, and a place I can recede to when I need a break from a project (or from life).

Are you a member of a local art group? You might get a discount at the art store so check. If you have the discount card at the Blick store that gets you 20% off all the time. You can get good shit on the cheap if you dig for it.

My Gear

I don't leave town without these things. Click around + learn more

[ki11erpancake]

Ki11erpancake @ Adobe MAX 2017

Happy New Year!

The end of 2017 was packed with travel, drawing, and ramping up to my first holiday season as an independent entrepreneur. Now that the dust has settled and I have the ability to sit still for more than a couple hours I wanted to get my thoughts down about one of my favorite experiences I had this year. I've talked a little bit about the drive from Pittsburgh to Las Vegas but haven't gotten in to the real reason for the trip.

This year was my second time at Adobe's annual Adobe MAX conference. (I wrote about my first time in San Diego in 2016 here.) This year they moved it to Las Vegas and I've always wanted to drive across the vast midsection of these United States so I decided it was now or never. Leaving a week before the conference started, I trekked through Chicago, Omaha, Denver, Santa Fe, camped at the Grand Canyon, and arrived in Las Vegas on October 15th. It was amazing but more on that in other posts.

I will say that as someone who has to pay their own way, I do believe my experience is a little different than if I was there on "the company dime". After years of sitting alone and poking away at Adobe products—begging YouTube for advice and pulling what I can use out of exhaustive Lynda.com tutorials that never seem to answer my exact inquiry, it is a total game changer to take a lab from an expert and be able to ask even the lamest questions with a TA on hand for on the spot support. I realized that my questions weren't even that lame! When you're part of a design community, even a small team, you at least are used to bugging someone the next desk over for help and are given challenges by your employer to figure out (maybe you don't like them but hey...). Being mostly self-taught has meant creating the challenges I then learn to solve (like illustrating a whole tarot deck about Pittsburgh). 

Other Cool Shit

Spent a LOT of time in the vendor market space bouncing inbetween the Wacom and Microsoft displays comparing the Cintiqs and Surface Studio. While I will be purchasing a Cintiq Pro, I have to say that the Cintiq sales reps are almost always really snobby. I guess when your product is as good as theirs you can be but it still bummed me out to talk to a drunk dude who just handed me the same spec sheet I got last year. The Microsoft stand was filled with really nice and accommodating staff and I just wish the Surface Studio had the same powerful tech as the Cintiqs... I also dislike the Wacom pens so much... Nothing is perfect though right?

If you're like me an live in a place where there is no easy access to try out this super expensive tech it's pretty cool to play around with it. Even when I've traveled to New York City there are very few places with Cintiqs on display (thnx B&H Photo!)

Take Aways

At this point, I have covered what I think are the most interesting highlights from my Adobe MAX trip. Some quick final thoughts:

The food is plentiful and good (however they should have coffee available at all times and not just for like an hour during snack times)

The free stuff is perfectly fine (I started going when they gave out sweatshirts as attendee gifts and just missed the years of Fuji cameras and Surface Pros)

The networking could be better (my first year I made a lot of lasting relationships but this year it was less productive relationship-wise) 

I could get my regular work done and get to my cherished sessions without issue

The first keynote is really interesting to see where they are going as a company and what to look out for (the second keynote is more motivation-y and always feels like a waste of time but that's a personal thing—other people like to listen to famous folks and their pep talks).

Sneaks is pretty damn cool.

This is a pricey endeavor and while nothing is perfect Adobe MAX is definitely the best creative conference I've attended. If you're looking for hands on experience with Adobe products and the chance to have a brief audience with a person who develops on the program you use everyday then you might consider it! 

I plan on going again next year :) Enjoy some snaps below!

What I learned

Character Creation w Aaron Blaise

The preconference session I took with Aaron Blaise was one solid day focused on creating a character using his traditional drawing techniques in Photoshop. As a traditional artist and Disney animator he was the best teacher I've ever had in Photoshop. He kept things super straight forward and it was amazing to see my outcome using his method. I'd been on the cusp of figuring out bits of this technique (build up the sketch, create volume and structure, add color, add detail—voila) and he got me over the finish line. Utilizing a little photobashing I was able to integrate a texture from a picture I had taken of rocks at the Grand Canyon earlier that week to make my cow skull more boney and creepy looking. The eyes in the skulls are my own with some drawing magic on top. Sweet dreams tonight! 

Adding a preconference session is pricey but not as much as getting an MFA in illustration so it's all perspective, ya know? (Not bashing on the MFA people out there—this is just my own journey.)

Illustrator Game Changers

I took two labs on Illustrator that reinforced the techniques of each other. The big takeaway way was using the Appearance panel and Graphic Styles to modify shapes instead of manually manipulating a bunch of independent shapes to create images. The focus on efficiency and nondestructive editing plus learning about the puppet warp feature... I'm a gd Illustrator wizard now. Mark Heaps taught one and two engineers who work on Illustrator taught the other, (Yogesh Sharma and Neeraj Nandkeolyar).

These were the big highlights for me. I am always trying to do better in both Ps and Il and taking these labs really helped me. Heaps had us make a poster that I still have and I whipped it up in like 20 minutes. Each lab came with handouts and project files that I do go back to in order to refresh. Heaps also gave out his Facebook contact info and was really cool and responsive when I hit him up with a question after MAX.

Other Stuff

I make sure to take classes in things that I have no knowledge base in so I can get my feet wet and see what's out there. Here's a sample:

After Effects: Chris Converse broke down this program in a way that no one else has and I don't feel nearly as intimidated by it. All his classes are online too so get yourself learned.

Animation: Joseph Labrecque is a very smart human and his session was super dense with information that was a bit over my head but still really interesting. He also gave a stellar handout that I'm relying on when opening Animation again.

Adobe Dimension: (working title: Project Felix) This program does one thing but does it SUPER well. I've since used it to create composite mock ups for how my tarot deck will look spread out on fabric I was designing. I plan on revisiting to create some "fucked up Dali looking shit" in the near future.

[ki11erpancake]

Inktober Week One

The theme for the first week has been all about getting settled with new materials. The other challenge for me is simply completing all the prompts. So far so good but with a trip to Vegas in the middle I'll be curious to see how challenging this will become.

Process-wise, I found myself using a brush more than anything else this week and struggling with unintentional bleed (a reason that ink is not appealing normally). That said, each of these sketches came quickly. If I took the time to box things out at first then I had a new composition at the end of my doodle. Without the box you can watch as I wander around the page with little thought to composition. (It's amazing what a fucking box will do!)

While utilizing the official prompt list, I am also fleshing out a larger piece over this month that I've wanted to tackle for about a year now. Since getting sober in late 2014, I've had a lot of internal conflict to weed through. It's been quite the ride and now that I'm a bit healthier I'd like to get it out there the only way that I know how (by drawing... duh). Each drawing is based on a thought or feeling—there's not a lot of written story to share here yet though so just appreciate the image for what it is.

After this month I'll be curious to look through this sketchbook and see what larger work will come of this... 

[ki11erpancake]

Day Three // Poison #inktober http://ift.tt/2fHor3B

[ki11erpancake]

Day Two // Divided #inktober (at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

[ki11erpancake]

Day Two // Divided #inktober http://ift.tt/2x9I3bQ

[ki11erpancake]

Day One: Swift #inktober #inktober2017 http://ift.tt/2x7t41R

[ki11erpancake]

Finishing September's Sketchbook

My little portable playground is almost done for this September. The themes for this time period are revision, experimentation, and expansion.

Revision

I draw a lot in pen. Simply, I throw down rough basic sketches to layout the idea and then scan to use as an under-drawing in Photoshop. The ink is easier to photograph than graphite and I don't really care about them looking good. Plus, a good bic pen is just STELLAR to draw with. This month Irevisited these sketches with new watercolors and enjoyed this so much I found myself craving time with my book.

Experimentation

There was a sale at Artist and Craftsman here in Pittsburgh (40% off watercolor!! Someone is getting ready for the holiday season...) and I bought a bunch of Van Gogh Watercolor bricks in a little handy case. I layered things and dug into stuff in a way I have been too afraid to try on fancy paper. It was exilerating and showed me that I've really been holding back...

expansion

I spent a lot of time filling every inch of paper possible. This was almost stressful and I found myself moving super fast. Patience is a virture I haven't mastered yet.

next month

I will be doing an Inktober... let's see how this goes.

[ki11erpancake]

Breakfast C1ub

Mail is mostly bills and garbage. But it doesn't have to be.

Over this past summer I was lucky to be able to travel across Japan for my honeymoon. Instead of buying trinkets from our travels for friends, I collected their mailing addresses and dropped each a postcard with a story / drawing / stickers from our travels. The response was super positive and inspired me to buy stationary kits (thank you Wildcard!) and send letters from a quick trip to NYC and Washington DC over Labor Day weekend. Eventually I decided make my own limited run of postcards to mail while I'm on the road, (which is turning out to be kind of often.)

I'm calling it Breakfast C1ub. I hope people enjoy pictures and tales from the road while they sip a cup of coffee in the morning. In past notes I shared about replacing a pair of rain soaked shoes in the Akihabara neighborhood of Tokyo, a last minute change of plans in New York that led to a Central Park adventure, and scribbled drawings of quiet subway rides in the sweltering subway tunnels. If you're interested, be the first of two-hundred people to fill out the form below. It's 100% free!

What Do I get out of this?

This is how I've started to journal. In the past, I would write things down and never look at them and books would stack up. I'd rather digest my experiences by writing it down and sharing with other people. I love to draw but it's hard to think about what to put down without a prompt. This give me creative fuel that spreads into my professional projects.

Next Trip

I'm driving to Las Vegas with my friend Mark starting October 10th! Get your address in before then to make sure you get a card.

Note

You don't have to give your home address but obviously a mailing address that you want to check.

I won't ever send you anything other than a message/drawing from a trip. This is to connect and share with people not sell them things. I don't tell anyone what I wrote. That's just for you. (I do take pictures of things I might draw though... a girl's gotta Instagram.)

Some people have wanted to write back! Send your postcard / letter to PO Box 40284 Pittsburgh, PA 15201. I would love to hear from you!

Some people asked about supporting this free project. If you would like to Venmo Genevieve-Barbee-Turner (g.e.barbeeturner@gmail.com) feel free but don't feel obligated.

[ki11erpancake]

I think we got it!!! Thank you Alex Patho! pathophoto.com ya'll. He also creates beautiful giclee prints :D http://ift.tt/2xGz54z

[ki11erpancake]

Alex my trusted photographer friend is anthe best. "I think we need sticks!" I say, and he brings on the sticks! ^_^ http://ift.tt/2fz6asU

[ki11erpancake]

Getting some pictures made of the decks in action! Shipping out the pre-ordered decks this weekend so be on the look out 🖤🔮🕯 http://ift.tt/2wVvv7G

[ki11erpancake]

Hitting my sketchbook stride these days. These books are my playground, my laboratory, and the first steps towards every project I work on. Instead of one and done drawings there are series of passes and revisions over everything. The theme is always: Practice makes Progress. http://ift.tt/2xJNfC4

[ki11erpancake]

The only benefit of being stuck at home on a sick day is having a little #sketchbook time. This book is filled with ink sketches for the tarot deck. Going back into them with some #watercolor has been _super_ satisfying. Here's the Nine of Fences and Page of Cicadas. (link to tarot deck in profile) http://ift.tt/2xlz3Pb

[ki11erpancake]

Setting up at @carnegielibrary Lawrenceville branch for another Tuesday evening of The Windmill, a mobile artist studio were creative nerds bond + make together. http://ift.tt/2y2S2fT

[ki11erpancake]

My friend @markpattersonnn and I are driving across a big part of the USA in October—heading to Vegas for #adobemax2017. Since we'll have a little time we are collaborating on a piece about our travels: Dawn Across America (working title). I made this postcard to send to up to 200 people from the road. If I already have yr address you will get one. If I don't, you can send it to me up until 10/10. I'm not charging for these. If you want to help offset costs/buy us some road beverages, Venmo a couple $s to @ Genevieve-Barbee-Turner (username) g.e.barbeeturner@gmail.com (email) http://ift.tt/2w4bDz3