Chris. (2/23/2010). Continuing with my Trinidad Carnival duo… Here is Laura’s Hubby, all decked out in his Carnival 2010 gear! Actually his facebook photo series of “Carnival Every Day” is just absolutely hilarious. He does every day things, like sweeping, watching T.V., watering the garden… All while wearing his Carnival getup. Tomorrow I will color in this piece… be on the lookout.

A Little about my “Sketchbooked” process. A lot of people have been asking me if my illustrations are watercolor, marker and paper… Not quite… I use illustrator and my nifty Intuous 4 tablet for everything—mostly for quick a turnover time, and I generally do them one day ahead of schedule, to give myself some breathing room and potential editing time.

I use some custom settings with the pen tool for tilt and pressure for diameter and stroke. For the fills, I layer shapes drawn with the pencil tool, with some custom settings and transparency. The “marker” and watercolor look reflects my analog style I have developed and use in my personal sketchbooks. I try to keep a sloppy hand style and a free stream of consciousness approach to making these, and try not to sweat details. Basically I build up a composition with coarse and sketchy gestures. Above you can see how the pieces are all really vector lines and shapes, as well as the amount of detail I am able to get with this process.

It will take me anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to make one of my illustrations, I usually keep a desktop folder handy for collecting reference photos for my subjects. I find it difficult to find just the right pictures to reflect someone’s personality, and that actually may take longer than to illustrate.

So far this exercise in one a day illustrations has really improved my style and aesthetic. I have also noticed a big difference in the way I approach a lot of my design work. In addition, I have had a number of great conversations with my subjects after posting them—via social media / phone / etc, basically reconnecting in some way shape or form outside the occasional wall post… People have been very supportive of my efforts, and I hope I am able to continue throughout the year.

If you are reading this, thank you for viewing my fun little project. It has done a lot to keep me sane these past few weeks :).