What I did on Vacation...

Have you ever thought it would take less time to get something done than it actually did? I went into my spring vacation with thoughts of how much stuff I was going to get done, and how nice it would be to finally have the time to do it. Ha-ha-ha! Seriously, though. I did get a few things done. I would've gotten more done, but... well I'll tell you about that in a minute.

I got a little bit of work done on the "time" drawing. Literally. Just a little bit. There were so many other things going on that I just didn't have the time and energy to start vectorizing this yet. I did talk to my friend Ryan about this illustration though, and he mentioned that he wished I had done something more with the smoke. Worked it around and integrated it into the drawing a little bit more.

It's not too late to do that (it's not finished 'til it's finished and all) and I am thinking about it. Compositionally, it might help balance it all a little more, and add another diagonal, criss-crossing with the shape of the wall. I still have at least this week to think on it, so maybe I'll at least try it and see if it works.

Okay, now here's part of why I didn't get everything I'd planned on doing done. Tuesday night I get this "Viral" activity in my mailbox on Facebook. Just in case any of you don't know what this means these are marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message. Basically, any time you forward an e-mail, you are participating in viral marketing of some sort. So here were the directions:

album cover
1 - Go to "Wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random Quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.


3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop, Gimp or similar to put it all together.

Sounds kind of cool. I figured I'd at least see what came up in the randomness. Well I dipped three times, and the stuff that came up was just so cool, that I thought I'd actually try to do a couple of really nice album covers out of them. Just to note. While I DID follow the directions for getting the information, and didn't cheat, I did add to and edit the pictures a little to fit the needs of my album concepts.
On "Gene Roof", I cropped the photo, added the light and sparklies coming down from the flower, and extended the stem just a tad.
"Ekstraklasa 1972-73" got a major overhaul. The original photo is on the right, and I added all of the rest of the graphic work on the final image on the left. Over all, I think both album covers turned out really well, but they took up most of my first day just messing around and trying things. I guess I learned something though, and I don't begrudge the excersise at all.
I am pleased to be able to show the drummer for the animal band. I thought a rhino would be really cool, and it would also be neat to have this huge drummer looming over a seeming small drum set.Lastly, I have a little work in progress for this weeks Illustration Friday topic "Breezy". I also plan on using this for my blog header for the month of March. So I'll have it done in the next day or so. So keep a look out for it!

I didn't do anything at all on the computer on saturday. First off, I spent the whole day at the St. Louis Pipe show. This might sound silly, but it was REALLY cool. There are soooo many different sizes, shapes, and styles of pipes out there. Some of them are kind of clunky and ugly, but most are just beautiful and elegant. Real works of art. It's hard to explain, but I guess it's kind of like going to an art fair and checking out the ceramics. There are just so many craftsmen and artisans out there doing simply wonderful work, inspired by nature, fashion, design and culture.

The other reason, is that I was suffering from pretty bad eye strain from working on the computer, playing video games, and watching movies. Vacations can sometimes be harder on us than actually going to work, ha-ha! I hope you all had a good week, and that this one is even better. I'll talk at you again on Wednesday, if I don't sooner! Take care and be good.

Your friend,
Jeffrey Johnson