Canned!

So inspiration came knocking as I was drifting off to sleep last night. Illustration Friday recently ran a theme called "canned" and I caught a glimpse of the "pick of the week" for that theme: an illustration of canned fruits (which I really dig). And I thought to myself "what else can be canned that can't really be canned?". A strange thing to ask oneself I suppose, but I was looking for metaphor and such.

I wanted to can up intangible things. After some sketching and a fun batch of brainstorms the series of illustrations seen here is what came out.

I didn't actually look through all the illustrations on IF for the "canned" week, so maybe this has been done. Oh well. It hasn't been done by me. (EDIT: Okay, so I looked. There were a couple of "canned intangibles", but none of them looked like mine. I'm kind of gald I didn't look before because I wouldn't have wanted to be influenced by someone else's design. I like mine as... well mine.)

I think this is only the beginning of a bigger series and the beginning of more illustrations done in this style. When I look at them I feel good. I like what I see, so that's going to be my motivation.

I also plan to do some large scale canvas pieces in this theme which I think will just be plain enjoyable. I only hope I can get those nice flat graphic colors right. Or maybe I will opt for some texture. Who knows? The best part will be letting it all come together in that magically organic way.

Details (because process/technique should never be kept secret): All cans were hand drawn with prismacolor fine liners then scanned into my computer and digitally colored. Want to know how I add color with the computer? Just ask and I will fill you in as best I can. Be warned, I suck at tutorials.