here's the result of one of my few attempts at using photoshop:

it was my final for advanced character design, first semester 2011. characters, existing in a space. It is either quite clear that I do not know how to use photoshop, or it looks as though I spent two seconds on it. The unfortunate thing about that is I spent many hours coloring, after doing the sketch in graphite and scanning it in.

I think using photoshop for preliminary color sketches is a good idea, but I will never make a finished digital piece. I think. Never say never, right?

This piece was an experiment in gouache dedicated to the wonderful Katie Jane Garside, who is very dear to my heart. The first is closer to the original, the second is a photo with unusual lighting. I sort of like the muted warmness.
Check out her current project Ruby Throat, or anything else she's ever done for that matter, It's all brilliant. Start with these (at full volume, naturally):

katiejanegarside.com

stone dress.mp3

"
 I crave your violence acted upon me
set me free by your weighted autonomy
I am so human, so small, so debased
jealousy and darkness roll over this place

"

lone genius

"solitude is out of fashion", from The Rise of The New Group Think. Using a quote from an article greatly helps me focus my energies into one straightforward idea that can more easily be communicated, which is one of my biggest struggles. I'm not sure this really easily communicates anything though, and I'm wondering more and more every day how abstraction and communication can work together successfully in an illustration. I'm slowly getting somewhere.

and this is a detail from an oil painting of a cover illustration for Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte (which is a novel I adore):

without even explaining it to him, my painting techniques teacher told me he thought the blackbirds were an indication of her sanity/emotional state, which is what I had sort of intended. Also, this is a pretty nasty photo, which I shouldn't even be showing to the world until I can get a better one. oh well, I must be too eager to share my trials and tribulations with whomever.