Sketch to Vector- Sam Hatter

Sam Hatter is a creation that was designed for Political Madness, owned by Rick Madson. He wanted a good mascot of sorts to represent the craziness of politics. After a little brainstorming and making sure the idea wasn't already being used, I drewup this sketch. I've always liked the asymmetrical facial style, so I took it that direction. It was just a good eye-catching image- recognizable as Uncle Sam, but automatically noticeable by the eye that something was different.

I just took a quick pic with my laptop camera. It doesn't take a high res scan do do this.

Grace's Mural

For any of you that know me, you know that I haven't really settled in one area of art. I am a graphic designer at Lake Pointe Church, but I love to spend spare time doing all sorts of freelance work- illustrations, drawings, portraits, caricatures, and paintings.

A couple of months ago, a sweet mother-to-be that I work with requested that I make up a design for a mural for their future nursery, and I jumped on the chance. Now it's strange to imagine this Florida native asking for the mural that she requested, but you have to understand that she recently shot her first deer after she came down with a severe case of "buck fever". She was a few months pregnant at the time. Even funnier, she is one of the more delicate ladies that I know, as far as outward appearance goes.

So from this unique combination of traits came the mural idea. She says that the nursery will be pink and camo, and she wanted something to go with that look with the name "Grace" on it. So we talked about trees, and I came up with an idea with the limbs spelling the name, and some deer under it. It all worked out in my mind well, so I sketched the idea down. She liked it, and I finalized it and got it ready to project.


I liked the rabbit.

We scheduled a date, they painted the nursery, and we were underway. Below are some of the progressions of how it went:














1. Mural project from the laptop to the desired location on the nursery wall.













2. Paint stuff... check!













3. Mural traced (it's not cheating if you designed it!)













4. First, I edged in a thin coat of the leafy green around the limbs.













5. Second, I fanned the paint out to give it softness as it went farther into the body of the leaves. This gave an appearance of light to the mural without a struggle.













6. Her is the finished greens of the trees, and the trees. Right around here is when the lady of the house brought me the best homemade roasted pecans ever.













7. Laying in the browns... this is what some would call a "crap phase".













8. Pink sunset(or sunrise, depending on which way you are facing), and highlights added to the trees.













9. Now the linework with the final dark brown. This needs a pointed brush.














10. And here's the finished product.


And I still like the rabbit.

Book Cover- Scarred Faith

I recently completed a book cover for Landon Alexander. He said that he wanted it to represent the turmoil of an African American man's life- as he struggles to preach the gospel, minister to others, faces temptation, and struggles to keep his family in order. I truly felt like God was showing me a picture of it as I read his description. We made an agreement, and I got started working.
I started with a sketch that he was happy with, overall. I also numbered the images and sent a description of the sketch with the images I used for reference(as this was a VERY rough sketch due to time constraints). Fortunately, he had seen my website and trusted my work and that the outcome would more closely resemble the reference images.

Next, I completed the drawing and created an aged looking background in Photoshop. I scanned the drawing and layered it on top of the background and began the fun yet painstaking task of
shading and coloring the areas to get the look that I wanted.


After this was approved, I completed the graphics and type with Adobe Illustrator and did my best to achieve a striking layout and type style that went with the subject.I was pleased with the finished product, and so was he. I'm glad that I could be used and blessed by this opportunity.

Getting Started

Well, I am ready to start blogging. I'm sure that my business and personal lives will mesh at times, but my focus is to keep this associated with my work. I guess it will be good to tell you what I'm working on, what my mind is pondering, and what endeavors I'm into.

Right now, my work at Lake Pointe is overwhelmed with small projects that have been on hold due to Easter and working on it. Now, it feels good to get the little projects done. It is also nice to hear back from someone today that he appreciated my work and what I'm doing to further the Kingdom.

It felt good to be recognized... actually brought me to tears. I guess it's just been an emotional day because of work stress and finding out that we'd had a miscarriage. It wasn't far along, so it could be worse. All the same, it was our baby and it's sad.

I guess I'll end this post for now. My next will be more on target, dealing with things that I have planned for new art on the freelance side.