Project 30 of many. . .

14 weeks. . . that's how long I have until I have to go back to work. In the last few weeks my mind has felt free to think creatively for the first time in . . . months. No classes to think about, no students to worry about . . . just a house to keep clean, a family to feed and take care of, and perhaps a house to move. . . I feel so liberated!

I teach a textile design class and one of my first orders of business is to create a course manual for my students, myself and any teacher who may have to teach the class in the future. Yes, I just realized that one of my projects I have set for myself has to do with work. Oh well. Anyway, in this agenda I will be teaching myself how to better use my Bamboo digitizing pad. So far I really hate this thing. It draws when I don't even have the pen touching the tablet, and it is very difficult to control my brush movements. Perhaps I should have read the manual better. . . I feel like I am past that stage now though and can't force myself to go back and actually learn the right way to use the thing. Thank you, but I'd much rather struggle along by myself than ask for help!

I prefer using the Bamboo in Illustrator, maybe this is just because I enjoy Illustrator better? Okay, it's not that I enjoy it more, I love Illustrator and hate Photoshop.

The following is the first part in a series of drawings that I am doing for a photoshop textile project. Last semester I assigned each of my students a foreign city and instructed them to create a storyboard for that city and to then use that story board as inspiration for two textile designs. I then asked them to give me a city so that I could do the same project and they all agreed on Guatemala City. I couldn't be more thrilled with the city they picked for me! The markets in Guatemala City have a wealth of beautiful textiles and colors to be inspired by!
 Back in highschool I would come back each new year and be completely surprised how my drawing skills had increased over the summer - despite my having not picked up a marker or brush all summer. I would look at work from the previous year and realize that what I had thought was well done before was actually quite amature. I am hoping for the same thing to happen with the digitizing pad. . .

Heliconia in Photoshop. 4.24.12