We the People...

I did this illustration for someone who was giving a seminar to students aspiring to become attorneys. I was asked simply to provide a picture depicting a courtroom proceeding. The text promoting the event and providing time, place and date information was placed in the black bars above and below the picture. The composition is lacking, and the hands of the attorney are stiff and awkward, but we learn how to do something better by doing it imperfectly and recognizing the imperfections after the fact.

Brushy Face

This Ben Shahn-like drawing was just a quick doodle. I like it because of its expressive brushy lines, but it was not drawn with a brush. This was drawn digitally, with a Wacom tablet, using a Creaturehouse EXPRESSION, a wonderful vector program that was bought by Microsoft and turned into a component of Windows-only website building software suite. Microsoft discontinued the product a couple of years or so ago, but I can only use the original software, which was compatible with Macs. The program has its own complement of prepackaged brushes, as expected, but one could make marks on paper with pen, brush, ink drops, etc., then scan them in and use them to make unique vector brushes that were responsive to pressure sensitivity, allowing for variability of line weight. This was drawn with a brush I made. The program was much cheaper than Illustrator or equivalent programs, and was far easier to use out of the box, very intuitive, and far more conducive to making expressive, "natural" drawings. It didn't have, perhaps, the "power" of Illustrator, but it was the better tool for simulating natural media, but with the advantages of vector capabilities. (The two cartoons in my post "Harry Potter Conquers The Universe" were drawn with EXPRESSION, over scanned in pencil underdrawings.) 

Will anyone rescue EXPRESSION from the digital grave?