Bri's Business Cards

 I'm still catching up with some different projects I've done over the past few years. This one goes all the way back to August of 2019. A friend, Bri, asked if I could design a business card for her as she began her career as an esthetician. She came with some inspiration and then I took it to pencil and paper.

The concept revolved around half of an elephant face, wildflowers and color. Below shows my initial sketch of a full elephant and then half of it traced with micron pen and wildflowers sprinkled in the background.

From there I scanned the drawing into Adobe Illustrator and did an image trace of half of the elephant to transform it into a vector file. I always do a bit of cleaning up to make the line work more smooth. An image trace at the right threshold can do a decent job, but it always looks better tidied up.

At this point, I took the vector image above into Adobe Photoshop. I wanted to add some splashes of color, almost in a bohemian style. I used various brushes, transparencies, splatters, etc. to get the final image.

To finish up this project for Bri, I mocked this image on a couple different business card concepts so she can see some different color, typeface and patterned concepts.

This was definitely a project I was excited about and it was easy to get inspired to create the final product. Cheers to successful friends!

Florasaurus 2021

Each January Native Poppy, a flower shop in San Diego, runs a dinosaur and flower drawing contest they refer to as their Annual Florasaurus Competition. While I don't usually partake in many contests anymore, this one is definitely one I still very much enjoy.

This year's contest is accepting entries through Jan. 17. Native Poppy will select 4 finalists and voting will be from Jan. 20 to Jan. 24. Winners to be announced Jan. 27.

Below is my entered drawing, wish me luck!

Feel free to check out their Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/native_poppy

Crown Drawing

March has generally been a busier month with some traveling and a heavier workload. This past week I've managed to take on a side project to get a pencil back in my hand. It's easy for me to get caught up in the digital world and designing on the computer, so I really value breaks that involve paper and pencil. 

A friend came to me asking for a drawing project of two crowns. I was tasked with recreating each crown and adding some design elements to them. Initially both were to get a swirl design added, however, there was a need to make one of the crowns more masculine. I began by sketching out each crown on a 5"x7" piece of Rives BFK. From there I used microns to perfect the outlines. I cleaned up the sketch marks I initially had and then went in to do shading and detailing with various graphite pencils. With that looking well I added the extra design elements. To the queen crown I kept the swirls per request. The king crown provided a bit of a design challenge, but I ended up sketching several options where the client chose one he liked the best. I completed that with the same micron then graphite process to get the final drawings. Below is an animated gif of the progress made with the queen drawing.

Throughout the process I filmed the progress of each drawing with my GoPro Hero 5 Session. I've been experimenting with the time lapse settings and believe I have found the sweet spot. Stay tuned for a future post of time lapse footage. Below are the drawings along with some detail shots. 

When In Doubt...

These words have been dancing around in my head for a while now, and I finally got them properly down on paper. When in doubt, be rad.

It began with a 4H graphite pencil sketch followed by a 005 micron outline. The 01 micron gave more definition to the letterforms with the help of a ruler to straighten some of them out. From there I roamed freely with a 005 blue micron to fill in the RAD.

Evening Rose Sketch

Women Who Ride

I've had this vision in my head of a sticker design to represent women riders. The original photograph came from mrsjjfive's collection, a photo of flat tracker Morgan Monroe. With Morgan joining the Throttle Down Speed Co. team, the image would fit perfectly to not only represent her, but also women riders in general. 

The other evening I attempted to sketch the vision that I've carried for a few weeks, maybe even a couple months now. I took pencil to Rives BFK, took a photo of the sketch, tossed it in Illustrator and vectorize it. The graphite on the textured paper just didn't translate when I did a quick Illustrator image trace, and I was quite unsatisfied with the image. Tonight I took a second attempt-this time micron on Rives. I did most of it in a 02 micron, added detail with a 005 and then filled in the larger areas with a thick Sharpie. Already I was liking the overall image.

From there I tossed the image into Photoshop, added a Black & White filter as well as a Curves layer to make the black and white very prominent and to minimize the middle gray tones. I saved that out and tossed it into Illustrator to do a quick image trace. Since it was hand drawn the line work from the image trace was naturally imperfect. While I like the hand drawn look, I wanted to smooth out some of the line work to make the overall image more clear. Smoothing out the lines would also benefit future vinyl cuts.

To complete the image I added a black background and a thick white stroke around the entire graphic to make the woman rider really pop. Below is the transition from ink on paper to the final vector art. Stay tuned to see future applications and potential sticker and vinyl prints!

Separate Songs

I have quite a love for the band Restorations, and one of my absolute favorite songs by them is Separate Songs. This band is one I can listen to any day of the week, when I am in just about any mood. That's more than I can say about many other bands and music groups. Separate Songs has some of the most well-written lyrics in my opinion. From "You said you worry about me leaving, I fear I'm already gone" to the chorus of "all singing the same time to separate songs" and going into the killer bridge...

Anyways, listen to it. Listen to all of LP3. While you're at it, listen to everything you can and then go see them in person and be wowed. 

The other night I played around with hand lettering ideas and came up with this. The next time you see it, it'll be on my gray 3/4 Bell helmet. Stay tuned, the 1shot is drying.

McCabe Drawings

I particularly enjoy making drawings for friends and family getting married, and I have posted a lot of these in the past. Most of the time I draw or get creative with letterforms, typically the beginning of the couple's last name. My friends Colleen and Paul got married on October 15th, and I needed a unique idea. The couple already have several "M" decorations for their married name of McCabe, so I abandoned the letterform idea. I was fortunate to be a bridesmaid in their wedding and was elated, and because of this I got a lot of details on how Colleen was planning her wedding, including the flowers in the bouquets. Recently I have been drawing some flowers with micron pens primarily, and the idea struck to do a series of drawings of flowers that would be in Colleen's bouquet. The three flowers I decided to choose to draw were a sunflower, a white rose and a white ranuculus. All were done with very thin micron pens at 8"x8". I added some boulder details with a thicker pen. I debated adding some color with chalk pastels but ended up being so pleased with the black and white prints that I kept them as is. They were double matted in white with a dark brown frame that reflected some gold when looked at in a certain light. Below are the final drawings and a photo of my bouquet from the wedding. Colleen and Paul had a gorgeous wedding, had a full on dance party at the reception and I am so happy to have been apart of the celebration. Congratulations to the McCabes!

The Houck H

I'll wrap up this delicate wedding theme with one final wedding gift I had created this month. Below is an ornamental, hand drawn "H" I have made for my friends-Ryan and Rachel who just got married this past Saturday. I wanted to create something unique and refined. I decided to go with a thinner font and the letterform developed as I took pen to paper. The final was 8"x8" matted and framed in a 12"x12" double matted frame. Below is the evolution of the "H".

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Houck!

Yourn Nonce

Again, it has been a while since my last post, but I promise it is not due to a lack of design work! In fact, my workload has been a bit crazier and seems to get crazier as the holiday season approaches. Last month I had the privilege to do a logo design for a friend's vintage brand: Yourn Nonce. The brand has seen great growth since it started, and I am a big fan! With events approaching, Yourn Nonce needed a logo and some solid branding. 

My friend and I used Pinterest to collect ideas so I had a starting point for what she was looking for. She collected various script letterform ideas and borders she liked. With that I pulled out my pens and paper and got to drawing. When a designer gets a job that they really believe in, they dive right in and it makes it even more enjoyable. This was that project for me. My normal routine is surrounded by the automotive world and generally has a sturdy, masculine undertone. This was quite the opposite, and it is so nice to have those breaks now and then. I had a lot of creative liberty and got to work. Below is the result of micron to paper.

I drew each letter individually, knowing that the spacing wouldn't be perfect in the drawing. I wanted to make sure I had room for all of the added elements as they came to life. From there I brought the letters into Illustrator and did a quick image trace. Overall it translated quite well and needed a few touchups. I proposed the idea and my client happily approved! There's always some question in whether the client will be onboard with your idea and final product, as I had with this one. At the same time, I enjoyed drawing the letters so much that I had confidence she would also like them. If she ended up not liking them, I still had fun in the meantime! Luckily I was good to go and clean up was all that was needed for this part. Below is the final "YN" logo vectorized and polished.

Once I had that completed and approved, I wanted to use those letterforms with the current brand font to create the full Yourn Nonce Logo.

In addition to those two designs, I also wanted to design a more simplistic version of the letterforms for additional applications. While keeping the overall style, a more simplistic version could be needed for other forms such as a rubber stamp, vinyl, etc. Below are two additional versions of the YN, based on the original drawing.

I also made the two simplified versions with the full Yourn Nonce lettering. A final request to include a border with the YN logo was made and I referenced the Pinterest board of inspiration. Below is the final with the border.

Again, I am very happy with how this package turned out, as was my client, so it was a complete success. Additionally I made white PNG versions and will work on adding a pop of color to the brand. In the meantime, please check out the branding and the Yourn Nonce Vintage store here: Facebook |  Store

Finally, below is an animated gif of the letterform progression just for fun!

Rose Drawings

Lately I have been drawing several roses in the same style. I refer to it somewhat as traditional, but not entirely. They are drawn with graphite pencil, microns, vine and then compressed charcoal for the deepest shades. I've painted them too, however, I prefer the softness that the blended charcoal gives them. Below are some final and progress drawings, expect to see a bunch more!

2 Wheel Soulmate

3 months ago I was sitting in the ER getting my shoulder popped back into place after picking myself off of the hood of a car from crashing my '74 CB360. That night my CB and I became blood brothers. Today I'd say I'd 95% healed, the exception being my scar from those 20 stitches. I'm incredibly grateful for the helmet that kept my head intact as well as all of the people that were with me during and after the accident. Not to worry, my motorcycle is still the love of my life and this drawing proves it. Micron pen, sharpie, graphite and compressed & vine charcoal on Rives BFK with post digital typeface added - 18x24 - CB360 wheel & traditional style roses & leaves