Tag: Calligraphy

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Cupcake illustration with orange sugar, vanilla and chocolate frosting, and a cherry on top cc-by lemasney

Cupcake illustration with orange sugar, vanilla and chocolate frosting, and a cherry on top cc-by lemasney
Cupcake illustration with orange sugar, vanilla and chocolate frosting, and a cherry on top cc-by lemasney
Cupcake illustration with orange sugar, vanilla and chocolate frosting, and a cherry on top cc-by lemasney
Cupcake illustration with orange sugar, vanilla and chocolate frosting, and a cherry on top cc-by lemasney

Cupcake Illustration

So today’s post was just about using a few different tools in Inkscape to create some interesting effects. First and foremost, I saw the stitch sub paths live path effect as a great way to create ridges of a cake cup and so it was. I made a shadow with a blurred ellipse. I used the calligraphy tool to create the cake and the icing. I used the dot tool feature of the pencil for the confetti sprinkles. I created the cherry with the ellipse tool and the node editor, and the stem with the Bezier tool. I added some highlights for the frosting with the calligraphy tool, then blurred them a bit.

A lot of fun to make!

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portfolio

A spring tree in bloom by lemasney

A spring tree in bloom by lemasney
A spring tree in bloom by lemasney
A spring tree in bloom by lemasney
A spring tree in bloom by lemasney

I’m very proud of this sketch. It’s one that I feel succeeds in color, in tone, and in pictorial illustration, but beyond that I just kind of like it. It reminds me of what I love in the spring.

In Inkscape, I created the branch with the pencil tool and grouped the paths, and then duplicated the group twice, and rotated and blurred the duplicates. I made a single flower shape with the calligraphy tool, then duplicated, rotated and resized the original to create the rest. I then gave a blurry blush to each of them with the calligraphy tool.

Today is beautiful in central New Jersey. I hope it’s beautiful where you are too.

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curriculum vitae Illustration Inkscape open source portfolio professional activities professional experience requests

Brownstone by the beach

Brownstone by the beach - LeMasney Consulting
Brownstone by the beach - LeMasney Consulting
Brownstone by the beach - LeMasney Consulting
Brownstone by the beach – LeMasney Consulting

Okay, it’s April 1st, so I figured I’d play with a little visual foolery. With some inspiration from Shannon O’ Connor, who contributed a photo of a tower with a tree growing out of it (what kind of neglect does it take for a full sized tree to grow on top of a building, I ask you?) so I figured I’d mash up some architecture and nature. So here I have an urban apartment building/townhouse which I’m clearly mislabeling as a brownstone, painted on a brown stone. I haven’t decided yet whether it’s just a painted facade or whether you can actually enter it. I like to think that someone walks up to it, tries to enter, and grabs an image of a doorknob. April Fools!

So, in Inkscape, I imported two images from MorgueFile, one of the apartment building, and one of a massive rock in the middle of a desert. The boulder had a man standing in front of it for scale, and he was about one eighth of its height. I bitmap traced both images, placed them on top of one another, then painted them with the calligraphy tool, the eyedropper, and the palette. I added a gradient based background, built a happy faced sun out of stacked, blurred ellipses and text, and added some surf crashing with the calligraphy tool. So there you have it, a ‘brown stone’ by the beach. Thanks to Shannon for the inspiration, and to you for taking the time to look.

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portfolio requests

A portrait of Sarah Badawy – LeMasney Consulting

A portrait of Sarah Badawy - LeMasney Consulting
A portrait of Sarah Badawy - LeMasney Consulting

A portrait of Sarah Badawy - LeMasney Consulting
A portrait of Sarah Badawy – LeMasney Consulting

Hey, all. This one was fun. Sarah, who is a long time worker for me, but also a supportive friend and confidant, was nice enough to share a picture for the 365 sketches project. I had a short conversation about what she was looking for, and she mentioned that she liked my self portrait with a scowl, because it had a Japanese emoticon styled face, which I really only subtly realized when I made it. She often uses reversed or japanese styled icons in her emails, and the way she writes and types really is one of the tiny but many fun and interesting aspects of her persona.

A portrait of Sarah Badawy - LeMasney Consulting
A portrait of Sarah Badawy – LeMasney Consulting

With this in mind, in Inkscape, I imported her donated image, bitmap traced it, and removed some background elements, all of her facial features, and a cup of bubble tea that she’s drinking in the original photo. I simplified the nodes, which numbered over 8,000, resulting in just over 1,000 nodes. Using the calligraphy brush set very thin, I added a line to create a shirt, and another to create a chin, neither of which emerged from the bitmap trace.  With a thicker brush size and less opacity, I added color for her hair, shirt, jacket, foreground and background. I added a star using the shape tool. Finally, I created her facial features with the text tool. Thanks for the image Sarah, I hope you like what I did with it!

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portfolio requests

89 of 365 is a wild sunburst in #Inkscape @Robin Milne

Wild Sunburst - LeMasney Consulting
Wild Sunburst - LeMasney Consulting

Wild Sunburst - LeMasney Consulting
Wild Sunburst – LeMasney Consulting

So this is in response to a 365 request from a friend and loyal workshop attendee, Robin Milne, who in noticing my love for the spiro spline effect sent me a crazy image of an object that had hundreds of beautiful squiggly spiro like lines. I have no idea what the object is, and in a way, I prefer not to, as it’s beautiful as simply an object.

Spiro monster from Robin Milne
Spiro monster from Robin Milne

So at any rate, I decided I was going to go back to an old standby theme, the Sun, especially in celebration of the Spring Equinox. I took Robin’s image, I brought it into Inkscape, bitmap traced it, duped and rotated it a few times, changing the color each time. Then I added a central ellipse to make it clearly a sun, finally working into all of it with the calligraphy tool.  I built a sunset styled gradient in the background, and painted in a landscape below. For a final touch, I added a candy coating effect to the sun. I enjoyed making it, and I thank Robin for caring enough to send an image, and you for caring enough to stop by. Happy spring!

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portfolio

83 of 365 is a tasty, hot and fresh pizza guy in #inkscape

Tasty, Hot and Fresh
Tasty, Hot and Fresh

Tasty, Hot and Fresh
Tasty, Hot and Fresh

Hey, friends! So, today’s sketch is a flashback for me to just after I got my BFA from University of the Arts in 1998. I was lucky enough to land two jobs: Rider University’s  Instructional Technology Specialist position, and also Bucks County Community College’s  Sculpture Lab Assistant. I loved both jobs dearly, and learned a lot from both positions. They were both very service oriented positions, and they both came with new friends. In the Sculpture gig, I worked with another guy doing the same thing and he convinced me that my artistic contribution was going to be interpretations of the ubiquitous Approving Pizza Chef Guy, the one who graces what must be 50% of all pizza boxes. I started drawing him on warning signs around the shop, and he even got etched into a large metal sand pit using an Arc Welder. I’m sure he’s still there, forever scribed in molten metal, but he’s otherwise stopped showing up directly in my work until now. At any rate, with that experience I learned to keep a certain sense of fun and irony in my work, and so in that way the Approving Pizza Chef Guy (and the other Lab Tech) have been a part of my work ever since.

Approving Pizza Chef Guy
Approving Pizza Chef Guy

So I started with the Pizza guy image and I did lot of little tweaks to make him mine. I flipped him, and then bitmap traced him. I duplicated and reversed his hand so that he’d be giving a “2 thumbs up”. Using the calligraphy tool, I gave him bangs and a beard, extended (and made him stroke) his thin Daliesque mustache, and puffed up his hat. I made him stop winking. I then used the watercolor technique of a wide stroke of color with the calligraphy tool under the lines to color the piece. I created the pizza and placed it, moonlike, behind him. Finally, I added the text. I missed him, and I’m glad I had this opportunity to revive him.

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