Last year came hard and fast and so much happened that I’m still reeling from the blowback, but one of the capstones to 2018 was getting a chance to enhance the love of two charming Texans. When a client asked me to make custom illustrations to commemorate her partner’s outdoor adventures I was excited to try some new styles and see what future trip ideas I can steal for myself.

Just before we cruised into 2019 I was contacted by a potential client via Etsy inquiring about some custom work and with a quick back-and-forth we were head first into four drawings featuring her man’s big trips into the wild lands of Canada and the Pacific Northwest. Luckily most of the ground work was laid out before hand and the client knew she wanted 8 by 10 inch prints. Perfect for easy framing.

The only major challenge was getting the images from California to Texas, but with the help of Skyline Printing in Austin, we got great quality for a fair price and didn’t have to pay for shipping.

For these illustrations I’ve been hovering around Mid Century Modern for a while and I wanted to test out an iPad app that I’ve been messing around with. Since I was creating for giclee – largely a digital process – I didn’t have to use many of the design tools needed for screen printing. Therefore I could use a raster program similar to Photoshop called Procreate. This gave me access to some great brushes and expanded the color pallet, mixing techniques, and on-the-fly editing that don’t get to use often. The whole process was really fun and as the technology gets more powerful I’m slowly slipping away from my desktop and laptop in favor of the tablet. The perfect weapon for drawing straight to surface!

Copyright © 2019 Robert C. Olson