SIGNS
is the the theme of Illustration Friday this week. For whatever reason, upon seeing the theme, protest signs flew into my head and had to be exorcised by being drawn out. I am still digitally semi-illiterate: this is pen on paper, colored with Prismacolor pencil, and then scanned in and cleaned up a bit in Photoshop. My color penciling scans terribly: it looks like moth-eaten tweed! I'm getting better at fixing it in Photoshop, but any ideas on how to correct this in the scanning stage are very welcome.

Micron pen on paper, Prismacolor pencil, Photoshop "neatening"

REMEMBER
is this week's Illustration Friday theme. I recently finished this little scene of a grandmother reading aloud to her granddaughter. The grandmother is reading from an old baby book, or dance card, or perhaps it is a menu, autographed by friends at a festive dinner long ago? Her grandaughter listens with rapt attention...seeing it all in her imagination. I think most people can remember some scenes like this one from their own childhoods.

By the way, many thanks to everyone who wrote me so encouragingly about my last post! All the advice, encouragement and tips are invaluable...I am really grateful. I have not progressed technologically very much since last week...but a little. I scanned this in, a traditional ink drawing colored with prismacolor pencil, and then cleaned up the color using Photoshop. So, same as last week, but I'm a little more comfortable with the brushes and things now. Some small progress!

SNAP!
is the theme of this week's Illustration Friday. My first thought was of playing the card game Snap...which we love to do in this family (preferably after dinner so the table is cleaned off otherwise it can be quite a mess!) But illustrating that epic scenario just seemed overwhelming. Then I got this idea "Oh yeah! Snap, like fingers!" Pretty obvious, I guess, but it took me a few days to make that mental leap- oh well! I'm trying out a new pen, an indian ink fibre brush and having fun with the line variation.

Faber-Castell Pitt fibre brush pen and color pencil