I Couldn't Resist...

This is just too much fun. Has anyone played the board game "Settlers of Catan?" It's CRAZY fun -- anyway, my brother has the game; we have his puppy's favorite toy (Mr. Buffalo). It's a RANSOM!

Photoshop Actions

I have discovered Actions, those lovely filter effects that other people make to enable photo-editing novices such as myself to create awesomeness. Here are two that turned out really cool...at the click of a button. This last one is just for fun - Jehan did such a lovely "dirty polaroid" image on his site that I wanted to try it -- you can see his HERE.

New LRI logos!

I've been needing to create a self-contained logo for Lauren Reeser Illustration for awhile now, and here it is! I originally had two more windmills in the circle, but it seemed like too much. Also, instead of putting the windmill smack center, I left it off to the side. I like the negative space it creates. Maybe this is actually a REALLY BAD logo and type design according to "real" graphic designers, but I like it! I hand-kerned the letters, and edited some of the letter shapes. I'll probably update my website with the new banners sometime soon.

Bad Self Portrait

This is a terrible self portrait, but a good exercise. I set up "bad" lighting conditions - a spot light somewhere behind me, some ambient light from the kitchen, a candle (no real light there), all behind me, so the majority of my face with kindof one tone and dark and difficult to see. I used the color picker and just smooshed color all over the canvas. It actually ended decent from the way it was going before (I looked like a zombie)! All my self portraits look this way, with this kindof "I'm going to kill you" feel to them, even though I am really a nice person! Maybe my soul is black as tar and it's coming out in my paint sketches? Hahaha.
If you click on the image you get a super-huge version, and when you look at just little pieces of it it actually looks quite nice, thoughg the whole thing doesn't work AT ALL.