How My Designs Evolve.

Greetings all, and welcome back. Let me start by saying thanks to everyone who has come and checked out my blog here. I appreciate your views. I also appreciate those of you who sent me e-mails asking me questions or just telling me you liked one of my designs. I love talking to people about my prints, as well as just about any other creative venture. A few of you asked if I would be able to make prints for you or to do some design work; I would love to do some design work with pretty much all of you. Feel free to contact me via e-mail, twitter(@CaptGam), or comment here on my blog and we'll see what we can do! In fact, I encourage any of you who visit my neck of the woods here to hit up the comments section and share your thoughts, constructive criticisms, or questions with me!

After my last blog, I was thinking about how I shared a bit of my creative process with you. Tonight, I thought I would illustrate that process for you a little bit. You see, it all starts with a quick sketch or doodle, like this...

Well, that's not entirely true. It starts with an idea. I'm sure you know the feeling, you're going about your day and then an awesome thought pops into your head. I've found that if I don't write it down or do a rough sketch of it right that moment, I tend to forget it. To make sure I catch as many of my ideas as possible, I always have a Molskine notebook in my bag, and I have Evernote sync to my phone, tablet, and every computer I use so I can capture and work on an idea anywhere I happen to be. This idea, "Think digital, act analog," isn't new. It's a saying that a friend and I used to throw around years ago, but it's been on my mind a lot here lately due to my day job working on digitization policies and procedures. So the notion was there, and I roughed out the design. Then came the next part...

I had to find a brain!!! As well as a circuit board. Obviously, I don't keep brains stocked in the apartment, so I had to hunt for good images to use. This sounds like an easy Google search, but it is a bit more complicated than that. I don't want to copy an image of a brain, I want to draw one of my own. So I look for pictures of actual human brains, and just to be safe, I keep my searches to copyright free imagery. Then I do the same for circuitry. Then I start taking the elements of those images and reinterpret them into my design. 

The overall result is pretty good. The brain looks pretty good, although I feel like there is a bit too much black space. The circuitry, however, I wasn't very happy with at all. It looked more cartoon-like than I was hoping for. So I did a little more research, and looked at some gutted electronics, and gave it another shot. 

This time, I feel like I've hit on gold. I still need to do some work on the font, and work out some details, but this design is getting pretty close to where I want it to be. Obviously, there is still a lot of work to do before this is ink on paper. I'll need to hammer out the remaining details, figure out how large I want the final print to be, transfer the image to the block, and start carving. Even after I finish the carving, I'll print some artist's proofs and then go back to carving some corrections in the block. It may sound like a lot of work, and it is. But it's a labor of love, and as I'm sure that many of you know, when you love something the work is well worth it. 

As this design moves through the steps to becoming a finished print I'll bring you along for the ride. Meanwhile, I would love to hear from you. Again, catch me on twitter (@CaptGam), or leave a comment. I'm open to any and all questions, and I would love to hear about anything you like to create, or anything you're passionate about. And if you're wondering if I'd like to work with you on prints or designs, don't be shy; I believe in a community of creativity, and love to collaborate! 

Until next time friends, keep creating. Even if it's just in your imagination!

Unless otherwise mentioned, all work by Wade Ellett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.