This is the first of a series of illustrations in a personal project based on the topic of “Professions”. May I introduce to you, Monsieur Le Chef Bruno Boudin Blanc. (Boudin Blanc is a french dish consisting of a delicate flavored sausage similar to bratwurst).

A question that comes up quite frequently in my Photoshop classes is “What’s wrong with my colour picker? I’m not getting the usual palette.” Or words to that affect. By default the Photoshop colour picker looks like this:

However, you may find that one day, out of the blue, your colour picker looks more like this:

There is an easy fix. Inside the colour picker, try clicking on the radio buttons H, S, B, R, G, B and you’ll see how the colour picker changes. By clicking on H (which stands for Hue) you’ll find yourself with the old familiar picker.

Who know’s maybe the Hover Hand tool will be included in Photoshop CS6? Looks pretty handy : )

Hello again! It’s been a while since I put finger to keyboard here on the blog. Since I last wrote I’ve had my websites hacked which as well as being a pain in the bum meant I spent far too much time doing stupid fixing up tasks. Still not quite sure how it happened but I think it was because one of the sites I have had an older version of WordPress and an old version of the timthumb php script. All of my sites on that server got hacked/infected (whatever the term – whoever does this stuff should be horsewhipped). You can read more about the timthumb attacks here.

So in better news, I’ve been very busy with Photoshop and design training which is my bread and butter, but I’ve really had my head down setting up a new site for Laughing Lion Tees. This started life as a small number of animal illustration t-shirts which people seemed to like, so I’ve decided to push the boat out a bit on it and make it something solid. And hey it’s winter and a recession, what better time to try and sell t-shirts : )

There are currently about 40 different designs (in my illustration style) available on a range of shirts, in a range of colours for men, women, kiddies and the babyfolk. Please check out Laughing Lion Tees.

Today is All-Ireland Poetry Day with poetry readings and events on all over the country. Check out the events listed. I’m hoping to get into a reading this evening in Dublin.

I recently illustrated a poem for a poetry magazine but unfortunately didn’t do enough research into the magazine’s target audience. My aimed-at-kids, colourful, illustration style didn’t quite fit in with their grungey, cutting edge style. Not to worry, I still enjoyed the process and love illustrating poems. The poem I chose was “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, one of my favourite poets. I love the stillness of the poem and the picture it conveys of the quiet snowy scene with the man and his little horse.

As always I started with a few sketches of the man, the little horse and some very scribbley trees. I used to do a lot of drawings in pencil but I find I like drawing in pen now as I worry less about what it looks like and don’t mind making loads of mistakes. I scanned the sketches into Photoshop where I re-drew and coloured them with the vector tools. I like to add lots of texture to my images, so I overlaid with scanned paper, a photograph of concrete and lots of pencil scratchings. Here’s the sketch of the man:

The final image looks like this:

If you would like to buy a print they are available in many different sizes over on the Society 6 website.

This is a poster of some animals I’ve illustrated, for print and for an app. It’s available for sale as an art print over on Society 6. As you can see each animal is perfectly render and almost life-like in its realism. Well maybe not, but they are colourful and the kids and adults that I’ve shown them to seem to like them. The art prints are available in several sizes from 8 x 10 inches up to 28 x 38 inches. Oh and in canvas too.

Click here to buy this print on Society 6.