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An illustration of a lyric from ‘Pure Imagination’ from ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ cc-by lemasney

Pure Imagination
We’ll begin with a spin traveling in the world of my creation – Illustrated lyric from Pure Imagination, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

In this post, I’m doing a few things:

  1. illustrating a lyric from a great song in a fantastic movie,
  2. lamenting the remake’s poor choice of new songs,
  3. showing sadness about the current use of this song in a commercial,
  4. and suggesting that sometimes my work can be a bit quirky and imaginative, perhaps defying explanation.

I hope.

“Willy Wonka is a character in Roald Dahl’s 1964 children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, its sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and the film adaptations of these books that followed.  The book and the film adaptations both vividly depict an odd Wonka, a phoenix-like man arising from his creative and Strange genius. He bewilders the other characters with his antics, but Charlie enjoys Wonka’s behavior. In the 2005 film adaptation, Willy Wonka’s behavior is viewed more as a sympathetic character flaw.” curated by lemasney from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Wikiwand at https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Charlie_and_the_Chocolate_Factory

“Willy Wonka (portrayed by Gene Wilder) has hidden five Golden Tickets among his famous “Wonka Bars”. The finders of these special tickets will be given a full tour of his tightly guarded candy factory as well as a lifetime supply of chocolate. During the tour, Wonka tempts each of the bad children to disobey his orders with something related to their individual character flaws. Charlie and Grandpa Joe also succumb to temptation and purposefully steal “Fizzy Lifting Drinks,” but unknowingly break the rules, violate the signed contract, forfeit the grand prize and to be yelled at by Mr. Wonka. Mr. Wonka’s experimental line of soda products that allows the drinker to fly, only to come close to death (the drinks are too strong, and therefore, not ready).” curated by lemasney from Willy Wonka – Wikiwand at https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Willy_Wonka

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portfolio

173 of 365 is a cloud with silver lining in #inkscape #illustration

Cloud with silver lining
CLoud with silver lining

So this is another case where I saw a photo and thought about how I could recreate it in Inkscape. In Inkscape, I created a blue sky rectangle, then using the ellipse tool, I created a small circle in white. Using the circle with the spraypaint tool in single path mode, I created a random line of overlapped circles across the page, then used the node tool to take the bottom halves of the circles away.  I extended the ends of the path to the bottom of the page. I duplicated the cloud shape and made it gray, and again in near black. I applied some blur to each of the cloud shapes and gradients where appropriate. Finally, using a bird dingbat font (Birds of a Feather, http://www.dingbatdepot.com/details/BirdsOfAFeather), I created the soaring eagle you see there to add context and reference to size. Hope you liked it!

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A bowl of noodles by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #Inkscape #food #illustration

A bowl of noodles by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #Inkscape #food #illustration
A bowl of noodles by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #Inkscape #food #illustration

My daily sketching friend Paul recently made an inspiring bowl of noodles at http://adailydoodle.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/33-a-bowl-of-noodles/ and it caused me to envision a similar image in Inkscape. I created the bowl using the ellipse tool, converted to path and tweaked. I made the noodles with the pencil tool set to shape: ellipse. I created the chopsticks with the rectangle tool, converted to path, and tweaked. Thanks to Paul for the inspiration, and thanks to you for taking a look!

 

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portfolio

147 of 365 is something brilliant in #Inkscape #typography #design

Something brilliant
Something brilliant

Okay, so sometimes a sketch is just about playing with text as shape. I started typing out the words “something brilliant” in the hopes of coming up with something brilliant, and brilliant or not, this is what I made. Inkscape works with text and shapes in amazing ways, and with some nice fonts and colors, you can make something fun and interesting out of literally nothing but a phrase. Hope you enjoyed it!

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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

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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Bubbles texture cc-by lemasney

Bubbles texture cc-by lemasney
Bubbles texture cc-by lemasney

When I first read in the planned feature notes for the new version of Inkscape that it had a spraypaint tool, I was intrigued, but confused. Why wouldn’t you just use the clone tool, or the duplication features, I wondered. It’s not until you try it that you realize the amazing powers of chaos that it has. The tool has really changed the way that I look at randomness in my work, because at any time, I can introduce it without the math of the tiled clones tool or the forced manual randomness of holding down space spontaneously as you drag an object about the canvas.

Here’s a simple example. With a single no fill thin stroked circle I made with the ellipse tool, I used the spraypaint tool set to make a single path with duplicates, which creates this beautiful cellular strcture that reminds me of bubbles. The release version is coming for 0.48 — when it comes out, try out this fantastic feature.