I hate it when that dry little cough that hides in the back of your throat wakes up before you do...and then you are startled awake coughing and shaken. My head is splitting and sniffling. I guess it's Spring! Yeah for everything except for the malaise that comes from the coating of light green pollen that clings to everything. It is particularly noticeable on the car--but I think a claritin and some tea might help turn the tide. I hope.

I am working on a series of pared back images (trying to keep it to three colors) with an example of the work above. This is tough going...but challenging much like Scrabulous (if you like Scrabble...this is an elegant rendering of it).It is a bit of an exercise...but the image I just did of a buffalo is pretty good. What is interesting is that the process is changing for me. I work with a photograph and then dump the photo and start really looking at the shapes, at the solids and how the image is broken up. Then, I will redesign the shapes, cut into the big flat areas (as I am finding that the big areas unless intentional can be tedious and need to be broken up to keep the image interesting). I am outputting the image midway and working on top of it quickly with black and white gouache to take the image further. Then, I will freehand those ideas on the existing file--and if need be, do that again. I am intrigued by brush creation in Illustrator. I am making them and modifying them to keep a hand drawn look but cut a bit of the time I am spending on these images. It is really simple...and lets see what happens. This adding and subtracting--the cutting and the patching is very interesting and good training. I shouldn't say this as it is skill building. The Memento Mori black and white drawings were good training for this next step.

I am doing these simple (hopefully going simpler) images as they are strong and could morph to visuals for logos or symbols. I have done complex color images that are photographic....its how do you do that and translate the images without going geometric. Thus the little progression to get my eye "in" and technique further refined.

More later.