Yosemite’s Half Dome makes another appearance, this time under a starry night sky and illuminated under a bright moonlight. When creating this image and envisioning the color scheme, I couldn’t decide whether to portray Half Dome in daytime or nighttime. Why not both? With the magic of Adobe Illustrator, anything is possible. It was simply a matter of duplicating the image and making the necessary color changes.

One day, or night rather, I plan to see Half Dome under a full moon. It must be an awe-inspiring sight with the moonlight reflecting off of Yosemite’s glacially polished granite.

Half Dome is bathed in warm afternoon light in my latest addition to the National Parks series. The palette is kept to a minimum of under 10 colors and is reminiscent of the great WPA silkscreen posters of the 1930s. This image was created using Adobe illustrator.

For a long time I’ve wanted to create an image to promote green technology. It ties into my interest in peak oil theory, resource depletion, and sustainability. I wasn’t sure what image to use, but then it came to me like an illuminated light bulb. The light bulb is used to signify the “ah-ha!” or Eureka! moment when an idea or solution is realized. Why not use a compact florescent bulb as a play on the traditional light bulb? In keeping the image simple and direct, I chose to use a black silhouette of a man’s head. It must be one of my influences, French poster artist Jean Carlu, emerging from my subconscious.

Later I was informed that compact florescent bulbs, although more efficient than traditional bulbs, actually contain toxic chemicals. Perhaps they are not as green as once believed. Oh well, toxic or not, the image still communicates the message of efficient solutions to the use of the earth’s limited resources.

Here’s another image that took on life after sitting dormant in my sketchbook. I’ve always like creating images that use dramatic perspective. It’s a great way to convey power and a monumental feel.

Every illustration starts with a crude sketch. Forget about making it perfect when getting the vision down on paper. It’s the essence that I want to capture. If this were a commissioned job, then then next sketches would be very tight and refined. But as this is a personal project, I’ll skip the refinement and scan the crude sketch into Adobe Illustrator. It will be edited and refined there. No back and forth with an art director for this one.

Here are the vanishing points used for this illustration. All elements are based on these two points. There could have been a third one at the top, but no need on this illustration. A separate layer is created for the vanishing point guides.

During down time I’ll look into my sketch books to find ideas that may be developed further. Back in my airbrush days, I created some Art Deco style lettering using nothing more than a circle template, ruler and post-it notes for masking. Aside from the solid colored stem, the idea was to make the rest of the lettering be defined not by strokes, but by using gradations. This type looked like another candidate to be scanned and digitally recreated.

After scanning the original sketchbook page, the jpeg was placed into Illustrator to be used as a template. The shape and pen tools were used to recreate the type.

So far, so good. But I wondered if the type would stand out better if the edges were defined by the inside of the type as opposed to the background. There’s only one way to find out, so another version was created.

Below is a view with all of the paths highlighted.

And here is a view of both the type and background on separate layers.

How about a few more city names. The letters are extrapolated from the existing Roma lettering.

A version of Berlin that includes a view of the Illustrator gradient palette. Illustrator gradients have become much easier to use and adjust compared to earlier versions of the program.

Perhaps the type would look nice with light colored lettering on a dark background? That was done while still using the same gradient range, only reversed from the previous version. This one does look nice and is more legible.

All of this lettering and no image to match it to. After digging through the archive I found this Art Deco style radio tower that would be a perfect match. The light lettering on a dark background blends nicely with the image. This type style will definitely be added to my type library.

Letter forms have fascinated me since I was a child. I remember using Crayolas at the family dinner table and meticulously replicating the logos of professional baseball and football teams. The overlapping “LA” of my favorite team, the Dodgers, was perfected, as was the haloed “A” of the California Angels and the “NY” of the New York Mets. Also done to precision were the hated Cincinnati Reds and Oakland A’s. Little did I know that this was the start of a lifelong interest in lettering. To some people, letters are mere symbols used to communicate information. To me, letters have personality and expression that extends well beyond their symbolic representation.

Since those days of Crayolas, I’ve continued to sketch letters, although It’s been some time since I’ve drawn a team logo. Recently, a random sketching session produced the word “AUTO” in a boldface deco style. It seemed a good candidate to be “constructed” in Adobe Illustrator. If it looked good, then it will be added to my experimental typeface library.

The original rough sketch. Yes, very rough.

The sketch was scanned into Adobe Photoshop. Next it was imported into Illustrator. On a separate layer, the type was constructed using various shape tools, including align and pathfinder. The type was dressed up with lines inside the body. This was done using the pathfinder tool and joining overlapping shapes on a separate layer.

The basic paths are cloned and variations are explored. The lines inside are looking nice.

Four letters look nice. How about 26? Why not? Let’s create the entire alphabet. It’s just a matter of adapting various shapes from the existing four of “AUTO.” The T reversed 180 degrees and chopped off on the left side becomes an L. Or that T becomes an I, or a J, or an E, etc. Some letters are more challenging than others, such a B or G, but it’s also fun to give certain letters a nuanced quirk. Often times two versions of a letter will be tested, as with the C and X.

Now that the alphabet is created, it’s time to start spelling words. The real fun begins as color is explored. So far I like it. This font will definitely be added to the library.

And here’s a good opportunity to put it to use. Deep within my semi-completed images folder, there has been a rough sketch of a steaming espresso cup. The font works perfectly. It looks nice in the two tone blue. Hmmm, those two blues in the word Cafe. They bring me back to the boyhood days of drawing Kansas City Royals and Houston Oilers logos on the family dinner table.

Five years ago I created a series of four famous international landmarks. These are available as posters at the Steve Forney Online Poster Store. San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge was a proposed fifth image, however, it never made it to publication. I withheld it because of concerns with the type. The names New York, Paris and London fit nicely within the allotted space at the bottom of the image. San Francisco had too many letters to squeeze into the same space without condensing the type beyond legibility. Or so I thought.

After setting the sketch aside for a few years I gave it a second look and then decided that maybe the type would work. The other 4 images in the series are strong vertical landmarks. The Golden Gate Bridge was just too good of an image to pass up. I went ahead and completed the image and realized that, after all, it does work. Sometimes one has to ignore their internal editor and follow their instincts.

Adobe Illustrator has been in my digital arsenal for well over 10 years. Illustrator is a great program, but in the early days the results often looked too clean and computer generated. My traditional tool was the airbrush and I was striving to attain a gritty feel. This was much easier to attain in Photoshop, thus I gravitated towards Photoshop to create my illustrations. Illustrator became the ignored stepchild to be used only for lettering form masks that were imported into a Photoshop file. Unfortunately, Photoshop files can become Godzilla sized monsters once multiple layers are created. One project a few years ago had over 75 layers. And at a canvas size of 18″ x 24″ at 300 dpi this image was huge. My Mac’s poor little processor was getting exhausted and I was tired of waiting close to 5 minutes to save the file. This was never a problem with Illustrator as vector art saves quickly and one isn’t limited to a specific size. An image created at 2″ x 4″ can be scaled up to 5 times that size without losing any resolution. Not so with Photoshop.

The huge file size of some Photoshop files has made me consider switching to Illustrator. During those years while isolated in my Photoshop world, Illustrator evolved to where it is possible to create textures. Perhaps it has been possible for a few years, but I’ve just now gotten around to learning how it’s done. Illustrator Jon C. Lund, also a former airbrush guy and someone who’s work I’ve admired for years, displayed some his textured work and I assumed that it was created in Photoshop. Alas, I was wrong as he told me that it was Illustrator. During some down time I decided to learn the technique myself. The first place I went to was the help menu in Illustrator. That opened up a new browser window with several links to tutorials. After watching a few it was time to dive in and learn by doing.

Using a simple logo illustration, here is a sample of my first attempt at using textures in Illustrator as learned from the above posted video.

Before applying textures:

After applying textures. The artwork now has more of a worn and weathered feel to it.

That was a fun lesson and I’m now excited about creating more artwork in Illustrator. All sorts of textures can be created from photos or drawings and scanned into jpegs for use as texture masks. Plus, there are numerous free textures available online. Give it a try if you want to add a new dimension to your digital artwork. It’s easy to learn. Happy texturing!

What’s not to like about this poster? A dramatic subject, beautiful complimentary orange and blue colors, great typography and a balanced composition. I found this image while searching for reference material. I’ve seen thousands of posters, but somehow this one slipped past me. At first look I thought that this may have been created by my poster hero Joseph Binder. The airbrushed eruption and the two white stars look similar to his work. The artist is unknown, however, the date is listed as 1950.

The “Mexico” type is cleverly done and a bit of an optical illusion. The fill is transparent, yet the letters have dimension. A touch of surrealism. The type “Volcan Paricutin” is understated in a cool blue, and both sets of type are perfectly balanced between the eruption. The billowing smoke is a near mirror image of the volcano itself. I can’t figure out what those wavy parallel lines are, but they add to the overall composition.

A quick Google search reveals that an original Volcan Paricutin is for sale starting at $1,000. I’d love to have one on my wall.

Late last year a used bookstore named The Book Zoo opened in my neighborhood. One day while passing the store, a book in the window display immediately caught my attention. It was Posters of the Canadian Pacific. I’m always on the lookout for poster books. After quick look through the book I was convinced that I had to add it to my library.

The Canadian Pacific Railway spanned North America from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans. Aside from its railway, the company operated cruise ships, wilderness resorts and an airline. Canadian Pacific produced more than 2,500 posters from the 1880s until the 1970s. The book presents a selection of 300 of the best of these images.

If you are an artist, art historian, or an aficionado of 20th Century poster art, Posters of the Canadian Pacific is a must have for your library. Authors Marc H. Choko and David L. Jones have done an outstanding job. The book may be purchased online at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Posters-Canadian-Pacific-Marc-Choko/dp/1552979172