Friedrich Poppl's Ruling Pen Minuscule 2

This is a close up section of a rendering of the Latin phrase "verba docent, exempla trahunt" which means "words instruct, illustrations lead." 

This illustration emulates the Ruling Pen Minuscule 2 script of German calligrapher Friedrich Poppl.  His font dates from the 1960s.  I am creating this work on an iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil in the Adobe Draw app and opened in Photoshop to create texture and embossing.  This is a work in progrss, so I am not sure how it will conclude.  I envision a poster and in a different color.

Apart from admiring Poppl's work, I admire his determination.  Here is a short piece on Poppl's challenging life as an amputee and prisoner of war.       

Slow Poison

"I am like a snake who has already bitten. I retreat from a direct battle while knowing the slow effect of the poison." ~ Anais Nin

The Oh My of the Apple Pencil and iPad Pro

For years my traditional artist friends have talked about the failure of digital art to provide the sensory experience of traditional media.  I, of course, felt that the graphic sleekness, all colors available, lightening hot learning environment was more appealing from the moment I first began to work in digital art (I'm not the digital art advocate for no reason).  If I thought it before - well - I am now swooning over the new Apple Pencil and iPad Pro.  And the idea of using Astropad, a $20 app, to draw simultaneously on my Mac without a Wacon Cintiq (13" $999+) is pretty amazing.  Oh my, this really is something to look forward to!  

Lady Banks Color Theme

These are point and shoot colors seen last April when my Lady Banks Rose was in full bloom on a trellis on the side of my cottage.  This theme was captured by Adobe Color (previously)/Adobe Capture (now) on my iPad. So I can save these nifty themes to my Libraries in Creative Cloud, but how can I share them?  Not so easy.  I opened in InDesign and right clicked the theme and selected Share, whereupon it opens in Creative Cloud where I can make a public link or keep it private.  Note that I can't download it from CC, so I made a screen shot (Mac Command+Shift+4) which saves to the desktop as a .png.  I can open in Photoshop and convert to whatever size and file type I need (to post here I had to reduce the image to 7 in. x 1.458 in. at 72 ppi). And there you have it.  A lot of trouble, but being able to show color combinations has its benefits, especially when working on projects where the input of others is so important.  

The Beauty of Mystery

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."

~Albert Einstein from What I Believe

Adobe Post

Have you tried Adobe's new iPhone app, Adobe Post?  Adobe launched the free app on December 17, and it's pretty cool. It provides design layouts which can be change to suit the user's purposes (color, font, wording, even image).  The post created is square, and it is fairly large (960 x 960 px; 13..333 x 13.333 inches at 72 px/in).  I had to cut my post down to 480 px to make it fit here in my Squarespace blog.  I can see the benefit for bloggers looking for well designed visuals.        

A Sunday in May

May is the month of roses.  Sundays are the days to photograph them.

Character Study

Coming soon at Behance is a project I call Character Study.  One of my favorite characters is the Interrobang, a 1960's kind of punctuation now out of style.  This is a very useful punctuation mark, combining a question and an exclamation mark - as is so often done in speech.  Here the Peacock Interrobang goes for a spin.

Have you ever been surprised by love? Punctuate the moment with an interrobang made with Moshik Nadav's font, Paris Pro!

At the Altar of Aphrodite

Mercy from the Gods is the door to freedom.  Have mercy, Aphrodite.  Free us to love. 

Photo taken at Jasmine Hill Gardens in Wetumpka, Alabama, on April 6, 2013.