Busy Being a Farmer.

It's been a little over a year since my last post. My family and I have been busy making a transition from city life to the rural life. Having recently acquired 80 acres which we are working at making a working farm. After learning how to drive a tractor we have been busy brush hogging fields, building chicken tractors, raising 30+ chickens and planning where to put up new fences and cross fencing. I've been reading up on various techniques to raise farm animals. We plan on obtaining some Dexter Cattle this Spring as well as some Hampshire weaner pigs. A couple of months after being on the property we rescued  a female boxer that had been abandoned on a gravel road leading to our property. She was scarred up, cut up and hungry. She has become a welcome addition to our family.

I've recently had the opportunity to do some graphic work as I've designed some logo's for our farm. We have two names we've narrowed down to and either graphic will go with either name. I looked at a variety of logo's of other farms on the internet and used ideas from my favorite ones to design the graphics below. Each logo incorporates the animals we will be raising and the fact that we will be growing crops as well. 

Our farm property is on an elevated terrain. Actually it spans a ridge line. Hence the Hill motif. Half the property is covered by mainly by white oaks, and a smattering of walnut trees.
I like this design because of the variety of colors, which I feel helps to catch the eye. I've sought to incorporate a business statement with the name of the farm.

I like this second logo because of the simplicity of the graphic. Once again it reveals the type of livestock we plan on raising. As well as the fact that we will be raising crops. I may tweak my hill top a little, as the more I look at it I think it looks like the top of a burger bun.

Well with us being on the waning side of winter, I've started work on a second chicken tractor. The sooner I finish it the better, as we presently have 9 hens and a rooster residing in our garage. I'm not sure when I'll be posting again. Perhaps in the next two weeks as my son makes a final decision on the farm name. Or perhaps in the fall, after we finish harvesting our first crops and livestock.
But stay tuned. Thanks for reading this blog.

Line Art Me

I've been wanting to take a stab at drawing some line art. It's a fairly easy process, although it can be tedious. Some tutorials have you use the pen tool, but I felt it would be truer to my artisticness (don't think that's a word but it works)...at any hand I thought it would be more artistic to free hand this. I've tried some simple more basic line art before, but nothing compared to what I'm trying now. In previous attempts I used the same sized brush. With this one I'm changing/customizing the brushes I'm using in Photoshop depending on where the line is. So here is a creation in progress which I call 'Line Art Me.'

If - Solzhenitsyn

I came across this quote by Alexander Solzhenitsyn a while back. In recent times, as I watch our government and my fellow citizens respond to and use events that strike fear, or alternately hide facts that would cause us to question the direction we are headed. I was reminded how easily our freedom's can be restricted or taken from us simply because we allow ourselves to be distracted, to take the eye off of the ball so to speak. All under the pretense of safety.
It seems we prefer to live a distracted life, not wanting to consider the reality of what is befalling us, of the direction we are heading. We would rather allow ourselves to be lulled to inactivity by the siren song of ease and comfort. Insulating ourselves. Preferring the cocoon of normalcy over reality.
And when the reality of where we are heading smacks us in the face, we will look surprised, like a deer in the headlights of a car, stating that we didn't know, because we didn't want to know. And the reality of what happens afterwards is as Solzhenitsyn said... purely and simply deserved.
And so I was motivated to create this poster using the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and the image of a dark hallway, to highlight the unknown uncertainty of where we are headed. And to present us with a reminder that as fearful as the future appears, we have the option of facing it was with tenacity and determination, trusting in God, along with a plan for how we are going to respond... or with fatalism and denial, preferring instead to let events catch us by surprise and overwhelm us.

New Logo Concept Design

Received a call from my friend for whom I do overflow graphic design work for. He said a company called "Death Dealer Call" needs a logo designed that they can make into stickers, use on their website, etc. They are a small company out of Delaware. So I drew up this proof of concept and I'll see what they think. In designing the logo I decided to play off of their name in using the hands dealing cards. I thought that if the company decides to go this route, they can always have playing cards made up for marketing purposes.
Update # 1. It was thought the hands might be to see if the logo were shrunk and placed on a duck caller. So here is a version with just the card and a different Mallard.

The customer decided not to go with the card/dealer motif, but liked the duck. So I revamped the entire logo utilizing a graphic of the Delmarva Peninsula where duck hunting occurs in this customers market. I also included a lanyard and images of the customers callers. And this is the result below:

Young Craig

Tryptophan Nightmare

Since tomorrow's Thanksgiving Day in the USA I thought I should create a turkey graphic, from the point of view of the turkey. My daughter saw it and said, 'That's cute!' Enjoy the day. And the tryptophan high.

Hunting Season's Upon Us

Not sure when your state's hunting season's are, but our hunting season is upon us. Bow hunters, black powder, long guns. It's here.  And the deer know it. They are getting scarce. But it will only last so long, as the rut season will make the bucks stupid and they will begin venturing out on the highways to challenge car's as they seek to find a doe to mate with. So don't forget to shoot straight. Know what's behind your target and drive safely.

Grazing

We had our first taste of Fall this past weekend. The temperatures dipped into the low 30's at night with only high 50's during the day. So when I saw a picture of an Elk grazing it motivated me to create this graphic. I purposely used earth tones and cooler colors to evoke a Fall feel.

Get Ready

Deer hunting season will be hear before you know it. It's never to early to start getting ready. Tune up your equipment. Make repairs. Zero in your rifle. Get ready!

Start of a Good Day

Duck hunting season will be starting soon around these parts. To get ready for it I created this graphic of a hunter and his dog waiting with anticipation for the season to start as the sun rises.

Latest Skull and Bones Design

An updated Skull and pistols design. Worked on it for a potential client. I modeled the wings after Eagles wings. The pistols are modeled after 1871 Colt .45 and the skull was based on the skull of the Kennewick man with major modifications. I had to extend the pistols barrels to give the proper look.

Facebook Covers & Profile Pics

I put off switching to the new Facebook timeline as long as I could, but being forced to finally transition I have embraced it with gusto. Specifically having fun with the Facebook Cover Photo and Profile Picture. Here are some of the cover photo's and profile picture themes that I've created and posted on my own Facebook site. This is something that anyone who has a Facebook site can do. If you want to create your own Facebook Cover Photo and not want to have to shift an oversize picture around the pixel dimensions you want are: 851 x 315. For your profile picture you can use 300 x 300.

 I've chosen subjects for my pictures that I enjoy. We raise chickens and they are a great source of entertainment. Not mention a great source for homegrown nutritional eggs. When I took this picture of one of the hens I knew I would have to use it. She had this defiant look to her that I found classic.

 I enjoy bar-be-queuing and do so weekly. I found it's the little things that help enhance a photo. Such as adding color to the temperature control icon. I don't really keep the grill on hi when I cook.

 We've had a lot of flies around our house. And during one episode I swatted 6 flies in 2 minutes. I felt proud of my accomplishment and sought to savor it with this parody of a favorite novel of mine from my youth.

 I do enjoy our chickens and they are quite prolific at egg production. The breed we have are called Red Sex-links. So called because they have been bred so that you can identify the hens by the color of their plumage. There are also Black Sex-links.

This final photo seeks to highlight the fact that there are a variety of tools that we have access to. Each item in this photo is a tool. They are inanimate objects. Each tool can be used for good or for evil. For building or tearing down.

Close One

I received the inspiration for this artwork from a photo I saw of a table tennis athlete in the recent Olympics. The frame she was frozen in spoke of more than batting away a table tennis ball. so I added some armor to her, gave her a sword, an adversary that came close and this was the outcome.

Another Hunt Club Logo Design

Here's a logo I designed to present to a potential client who has a hunt club that specializes in hunting deer and turkey. They wanted deer skulls and horns worked into the design. So working off of the Hunt Club name I decided to start the graphic build on a hillside. I went with a font called "Body Hunter", which provided a rough country look to it. I modeled the deer skulls on some graphics I found on Google Images. I based them on trophy deer people had shot and took the antler pattern from them and using some images of deer skulls I reversed patterned what their skull would look like. I basically did the same with the turkey images. I took live pictures of turkey's and then using the black and white setting, and the posterize effect in Photoshop, along with some white coloring I created the turkey images. Their beards weren't long enough, so I lengthened them, as they serve as trophy's for hunters. Don't know what the final images will look like, my partner from  www.hunterbydesign.com was tweaking the images for them. I've found that many people don't know what they want when they initially request a design/logo created to be created for them. You literally have to educate every new client. Such is life.

Fowled Up Logo

A friend of mine who creates logo's and occasionally sends graphic work my way asked for assistance with a logo. A client of his has an organization that is involved with ducks and duck callers and requested for a logo to be made. My friend created the duck in the logo but said the clients didn't want the font he had selected. They asked him to go crazy with the font. So being a busy man my friend sent the project my way with permission to go crazy.
I decided that since the organization was linked to duck hunting that I should include a font that appeared to be the result of someone target shooting with a shotgun. I found a font that I thought was appropriate. But needed some tweaking to meet the vision I had.
I rastorized the font so that I could manipulate it and warp it into it's current shape. I then added several items that my friend had suggested (he is a duck hunter so he had a good idea regarding duck hunting paraphernalia). Those items were: a lanyard, some duck callers (which is the purpose of the lanyard...to hold the hunters duck callers) and some duck bands (duck bands are the metal bands that various conservation agencies tag ducks with to track their migratory routes. When a duck hunter bags a duck with a band they place the band on their lanyard as a trophy of sorts.)
To finish off the graphic I included a shot pattern from a shotgun. Thus incorporated the shotgun motif as well as balancing out the logo. So I submitted my work and needless to say the clients loved it.
This version is a low rez 72 dpi version of the final graphic. The final version was a 300 dpi,, vector image. I used Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator for this project.

Tintype Effect

Tintype is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a sheet of iron metal that is blackened by painting, lacquering or enameling and is used as a support for a collodion photographic emulsion. An interesting trivial aspect is that tin wasn't used.
psd.tutsplus.com has a tutorial to mimic this photography style. Rather than utilize the photograph they had I used one of my own. It's a fairly easy effect to apply. Also the tutorial utilized some concrete texture for effect. I decided to use a metal texture as it is more in keeping with the actual Tintype effect.

April 2012

Need a calendar for April 2012? Here you go. This graphic is 1366 x 768 pixels. We all know that April showers bring May flowers. I'm sure you know what's coming for May's calendar.

Urban Hunter

I came up with this concept when I saw a new tutorial on psd.tuts. I like the look of their project but I always try to make it a little different when I'm designing it, as it helps me better learn the tips and techniques they are teaching. In several states they actually allow urban hunting, although generally you have to use a bow. So I played off of that theme and had some fun with it.

Time To Hunt

Are you the hunter or the hunted? Time to get prepared.

A Royal Text Effect

I came across this text effect at psd.tutsplus.com. I thought it presented as very regal. I was reminded of the various techniques available to achieve a certain look. The name of the font is Xenippa which they obtained from dafont.com. In the tutorial they also had a link to a website that provides a variety of useful patterns. That blog is called webtreats ETC. The blog also has links to other PhotoShop resources, Icon's, Textures.

At any rate I am always pleased when a tutorial works as intended. I only found one error and it may have been due to a difference in PhotoShop versions.