I heart "CMD + U" FOREVER.

Wheehee!  Skillbuilding season has begun!  

This is a glorious time (much like May in Chicago) which is identified by three defining characteristics: 

  1. All offspring are in school
  2. Enough sweet cash has been made by paying gigs to avoid a panic attack followed by the sucking shame spiral into an impenetrable dark abyss that comes free with any degree in the liberal/ fine arts.  
  3. A realization that life is short and the to-do list is achievable (once Netflix is disabled).

Behold!  The first new skill of the season:  Smart Guides

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Ya'll I am a big dummy for not using Smart Guides (shortcut CMD +U) all the damn time.    Do you know how many times I have tried to eyeball the perfect placement of lines like a chump?  The tutorial I followed today was a great Illustrator refresher for any project that requires building complex shapes.   I highly recommend the blog Spoon Graphics
 for any designer using the Adobe Creative suite.   

Texas Tech Portrait

This was a fun commission from the excellent Catherine McGovern, the communications coordinator for the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University.   It was a gift for a beloved philanthropic family.

I have to give Catherine a shout-out.  At this point we have worked on multiple portraits over a few years together for distinguished Tech alumni.  People should know that Catherine's first sketch always makes me seethe with jealousy.  I know for a fact she just scribbled out that bad boy while simultaneously hosting a conference call and composing a letter.  Yet, it is almost always exactly the composition the project demands.  I would love to see Catherine produce a graphic novel.  I would read the hell out of her book. 

Special thank you to my marathon finishing sister-in-law Karen for the runner poses.  The woman keeps winning trophies for her speed but refuses to display them, so I thought it only appropriate that she should be the winner in this picture! 

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Instead of rubies, we gave them a comic.

I've been away from this site for a while bogged down in work.  Most of my projects lately have contained info-graphics that involve proprietary data so I can't post any of them here.  Happily, I do have a little something to show.  It's a short comic commemorating the 44th anniversary of my lovely in-laws Mike and Nancy.  

My husband and his siblings are responsible for the story, I just added the pictures.  We had the chance to give this comic as a present after a dinner celebrating not only their anniversary, but also Mike's retirement, and his birthday!