A NEW YEAR CARD and a Xmas Special

I've been on semi hiatus but I made a #free #ecard for the #newyear #2109

Here's a NEW year card to share

you can get this from my #deviantart

Over on my #patreon      https://www.patreon.com/JVartndesign

theres a #Xmas #special  3 tiers   1) 1 for $1 2) 5 for $5 and just for this month 3) 12 for $12 tiers plus some freebies and some patron only and you can scroll down and claim November october rewards

A CHRISTMAS CARD

A #Christmas #Card to share

Yes its the Season

#xmas #xmasgreetings #free #card

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year  a little something I crafted with #gimp

Ice on INK

#ink #ice #inkscape

I just shared this on my #patreon but its open to all for downloading

As an experiment which I frankly wasnt sure would work I applied the Inkscape Snow crest filter over an older work but happy accident. Enjoy Share

To get a similar effect with other letters use a heavy bold or even super heavy font experiment with ink and gradient and add the snow last.

My patreon is https://www.patreon.com/JVartndesign

Xmas Reward tiers will be $1 $5 and a SPECIAL  December 12 for $12 dollars tier plus freebies on Patreon and Deviant and a few patreon only but free items 

Blue Phi

#phi #phisequence #deviantart #mathsart

I've uploaded to my @deviantart JVartndesign nd this is one of the pieces !

This month and henceforth I will make low rez pieces freebies but some works will be a download you can pay  JUST $1 or 100 points for and hirez pieces will be prints.

There's a small and a large version of this one!

Copyright Julie Vaux 2018 

Stone PHI

#phi #redbubble #phisequence #1.618

This is a smaller version of a design I recently uploaded to Red Bubble

It has a couple of small flaws edited out of the final version

The text which was plain black on a transparent Background was generated in #inkscape then exported to #gimp where I added the mosaic background and the raised carved stone effect to the text.

Copyright Julie Vaux 2018 

Check out it alongwith other maths related designs in the Pretty Equations folder of my RedBubble 

https://www.redbubble.com/people/scholara

Pretty PHI

#phi #1.618 #phisequence #patreon

Here's a view of one of my @patreon rewards for this month

PHI to multiple places

To view this and more please visit https://www.patreon.com/JVartndesign

It was made by typing up the numbers with the text tool in #Inkspace then adding a color gradient to the text plus one other filter (hey I'm not giving away EVERY detail of my techniques) 

a Black bg was adding and the whole thing was exported as a png and uploaded

This is in the $5 tier but I also have $1 rewards and art visible for all patrons and the public 

If you don't like using @patreon please consider using the paypal tip jar if you're downloading from here or my DeviantArt site.

November Design Theme - Numbers

November 2018 Design Theme _ NUMBERS#

#mathsart #stem #typography

Featured designs on DeviantArt n Patreon will include the Euler Number Phi to several places  and the Fibonacci Sequence

Why Numbers ...did you see my numbers medley post ?

I 'm trying to create something elegant yet efficient 

Maths and Art 

Eulers E Phi the Fibonacci Sequence Pi these enable the calculations for Inkscape and Gimp and other programs that digitalize geometry !

Several ieces with a few more to be done are up on #patreon 

https://www.patreon.com/JVartndesign

Also concerning Patreon I am now setting designs mainly to $1 and $5 tiers but some deisgns will be patron only or Public 

For freebies also check my DeviantArt !

The quest for the Square Root of Five !

THE QUEST FOR THE SQUARE ROOT OF FIVE
or how to get a headache doing research for a design

I scrolled down through the Character Maps for dozens of fonts trying to find just one with a mathematical operator subset of square root symbols.

I finally found one font with a square root of five symbol only Inkscape would not let me import or generate it as it had no unicode so finally I have up and did what I should have done in th efirst place instead of wasting a few days trying to find a short cut.

I took a square symbol symbol added nodes to it and used the nodes to lengthen the top stroke !

This is the plain base version. Now that I finally have it I will be adding colors filters and backgrounds and hopefully you will soon have some more "pretty equations" and maths / STEM art for DeviantArt and patreon and Red Bubble !

Number Styles

#Number  #font #styles

I'm working on a poster image involving numbers for my Pretty Equations series
Here's a look at one of my reference workspaces !

Up of 30 possibilities I narrowed it down to 10 and out of this list I'll narrow it down to two or three

I started with sans serif at top and put in a mixture of formal bold italic serif decorative etc for study purposes as I try to decide which is the most elegant yet legible !

Which would you use?

11-11-11 2018 A

#remembranceday

11-11-11

The 11th hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month 11AM November 11

This #freebie will also go up on DeviantArt later today or tomorrow

A note on  technique
 Inkscape Black oblong Texture added then Text layer Text Color very deep green with a 3D marble filter added

Share this with any one for whom 11-11-11 is an important date

CHOOSE VOTE

#choose #vote
These designs will be going up on my DeviantArt Gallery also

INKTOBER 2018 REWARDS

#inktober2018 #rewards #patreon

PATREON UPDATE

INKTOBER REWARDS ARE NOW UP ON PATREON

support me 

https://www.patreon.com/JVartndesign

due to the bug in the tier selection coding being fixed

 I may restore the $1 tier as well as having a $5 tier 

I will continue to have some rewards open for Public viewing 

however I may change settings on some older rewards

There may be a $5 reward of a pdf album of popular posts for Xmas

For November I plan to spread rewards out over the month.

Adsense income takes forever to accumulate 

Consider using Paypal or let me know if you prefer KoFI or some other tipjar system ?

INK INK INK and an Inktober header

#Inktober still has a few days to go !
I hope you've found my education posts useful and inspiring!

A large version of this header will be appearing on either DeviantArt or Patreon
I havnt decided which yet. Some feedback can sway me! Freebie or Reward which will it be?

Yes this is #inkscape again. I combined 2 filters to create a "soaked-in" look. Enjoy!

Inktober - Nibs and Strokes

#inktober #nibs #stroke #inktober2018

when you look at these images spare a moment to praise and blessing whoever did the hard work of creating code for vector objects to develop the pen tools in #inkscape and #gimp and other software

before we had software or marker pens or adjustable settings  there were inter-exchangeable sets of metal nibs ...

Inktober - Once there were NIBS !

#inktober #nibs #pens

ONCE THERE WERE NIBS !

Once upon a time before software and svg vector objects and paths and digital pens or even makers one had to have a variety of metal nibs and an holder or have a strong steady hand and a "crow" quill or use a refillable fountain pen to INK !

Who else had or still has one of these#speedball #manuals ?

Or a few of these?

Inktober Six - another Dip Pen Demo

#inktober #inkscape #dippen #filters #demo

This is the same width of stroke done as a finger wiggle on the touch pad of my laptop with a Dip pen toll setting  as seen on left of demo with 4 different filters applied.

Inktober 5

#inktober2018 #inktober #inkscape #dippen #demo

INKTOBER FIVE

More "digital" ink effects

Here's some suggestions for making Lines generated by the Dip Pen Tool more "natural"

Inktober Four

#inktober #inkscape #digitalink #demo

INKTOBER FOUR  How to make your vector object lettering more inky !

Two Inkscape Texture Filters over a font 

Inktober Three

#inktober inktober2018 #inkscape

INKTOBER THREE

When your ink is pixels and vector objects plus filters

Inktober Two

#inktober2018 #inkscape #digitalink

INKTOBER TWO

I haven't even started looking for my actual pens and ink bottles but meanwhile for those of you who have digital pens or tablets or just like to play with Inkscape ...

Heres something you can use as a starting point 

(yes I will also put it up on DeviantArt)

This dark mirror is two vector objects 

The frame's a polygon with one filter added.

The "dark glass" is a simple oval filled with a gradient and just one texture filter added

Inkoctober ONE

I don't know if I can manage to do or post every day of # Inkoctober but I'll try to do a few demos and drawings#inktober #demo

Inkoctober and Inkscape 

Retro Autumn

#retro #autumn

Today a look at 2 older styles for depicting Autumn Themes

American and European.

Saint Luke the Painter

#saintluke #illumined manuscript

I do wonder if some of these manuscript illustrations of Saint Luke the Evangelist as a Painter may be early "selfies"

There is a tradition that Saint Luke was also a painter and did a portrait of the Virgin Mary.

Note the grinding stone for pigments in the background and the bull, Luke's symbol.

This is not as strange as it seems. Physicians in the 1st century AD were not always surgeons or pharmacists and might have to do drawings of their patients to send to specialists.

Also Physicians who did make up their own medicines for patients might have to grind herbs and minerals themselves and odd as it may seem this century some of the clays and minerals used by painters were also used for medicine or for making tablets and pills. 

Its also an excellent but simple composition with the curves of the blue scarf curving down from the hat and contrasting with the angles of the easel and shelf and other furnishings.

Ravenna Mosaic St Luke

Todays example of great design is this #mosaic from #Ravenna of #SaintLuke the Evangelist.

Note how by having a rural background the artists can use green to blend in with other nearby mosaics and work in Luke's symbol the Bull and lead the eye up and down the image following the contrasting whites and grays of the clouds at the very top, then the Bull, highlights on the rocks and ledges, the curves of Luke's clothing and book, and finally the Heron in the Pond at the Bottom.

Yes that is a bag of scrolls by his feet a storage method used in damper areas to transport books or where shelving and cabinets and boxes were not available.

So we also get to learn something about ancient books and scrolls from this mosaic as well as a great example of tonal composition!

Augustus Mosaic Lettering

#roman #mosaic #lettering #augustus

Adding letters to mosaics tells us something rather disconcerting about levels of literacy amongst craftsmen in the Roman Empire. The designer of this mosaic had excellent layout skills but his letter forms suggest he was not a scribe himself and probably recited letters and got a scribe to write them down for him and his team to copy. 

The letter forms are more like written text preserved on papyri than the forms we see on carved inscriptions and the last 2 letters ... whether thats a delibarate abbreviation or some one running out of the right tesserae color ...

Augustus in Roman Inscriptions

AUGUSTUS IN ROMAN INSCRIPTION

#epigraphy #roman #augustus #typography

Here are two more examples of the word Augustus appearing in Roman Inscriptions.

Note the use of abbreviations. Imp for  Imperator 

Note the crisp sharp lettering!

AUGUST and Inscriptions

#August #inscriptions #roman #typography

The inspiration and model for all those crisp sharp Roman fonts are plaques like this one.

Note the Roman V functioning as a vowel and the balanced space on either side of the T and the descending ratio of letter sizes from Large at top to smaller at the bottom.

The Augustales were a body of priests responsible for offerings to Augustus as a Deity.

The one letter that doesnt quite fit and rises up, the t of et before Iulianus may be an error someone forgetting the t in et but the carver has echoed the style and weight of the T in the top line so it emphasizes the I in Iulianus. 

More Augustan Inscriptions and lettering next time. 

Clouds and Hills Demo

#inkscape #demo #landscapes

Making Clouds and Hills

You can use the same basic open arc shape to make clouds and hills.

Use the circle tool to make an open arc. You can leave it smooth and just add a gradient or you can add water color gouache ink or other filters depending on the degree of transperency you want.

Remember you can use handles to change the angle of the gradient and flip or rotate the object.

I also used that basic shape to make clouds by shaping the color and rotating and flipping.

The hills are about 3 or 4 objects. US DUPLICATE. 

 I have only half finished this to show you the layering.

Unless you're aiming for hills retreating into distance put the lightest objects on the top.

I'm probably going to add at least two more objects to blend the tones.

Oh since I don't own a tablet all this was done using a touchpad on my laptop and 

COMBINING INKSCAPE FILTERS AND TOOLS 

Unlike traditional watercolor on paper I don't have to stretch paper or wait for paint to dry or worry about paint dripping or the wet into wet blending not working though if you have water media experience especially with transperent watercolor that helps.

Ripple Sun Demo

#demo #inkscape #filters 
Using Distort and Ripple Filters to make a Sun in Inkscape

There are several ways to make a sun using Inkscape depending on how stylized you want the object to be. I started with the Polygon tool. Make sure Fill and Stroke are set for the same color.

Distort is a menu and Torn Edges a filter. Ripple is under Distort.

Now you have something like a son now you can reset the stroke to yellow or orange if you want to but first duplicate a sun make it larger and move it down to be the bottom layer and you can get this!

Only two vector objects but 4 colors in the result!  I probably should tweak the width and height or maybe give this a dark background. You could change the red centre to another color if you want to.

If I get some feedback I may put this up on my #deviantart

Reminder Time

Yes I have been adding up my annual income for my tax ... my "minor" income streams are NOT helping much and getting back to #typography what do you think of the use of the #Stencil #font for this ?

PayPal.Me/JulieVaux

Winter Logo and the Frost Filter

WINTER LOGO AND THE FROST FILTER

This #winter #logo is now up on my #deviantart and available as a free download

Show it as an example of the #inkscape #frost #filter

You are welcome to use it as a point of discussion or critique.
I'm still refining this technique myself.

My observation. This would probably work best on a poster. 

I started with a rectangle and added Torn Edges. I would suggest you also use Torn Edges or a Rough texture on the letters too. I made the letters a very pale blue since I knew I was adding Frost from an earlier test and the Frost filter was the last filter applied just to the layer with the letters.

Here's an earlier experiment in which I used gradient combined with a different filter in the first layer.

I was trying to suggest falling snow but it just made the bottom look uneven.

Just goes to show K.I.S.S. and the two / three color principles work! 

Keep it simple and limit colors.

Two RUST LIKE FILTERS

#inkscape #filter #demo

Playing with Inkscape Again

The bottom layer is a plain blue rectangle with no stroke and the Burst filter from the Textures applied.

I tried Burst for the Text but it broke up the edges too much.

Wanting something with a "rusty" look I applied Eroded Metal over a heavy font.

My suggestion for further experiments : maybe make the letters or foreground object a light or middle gray or yellowish brown color to emphasize the "METAL" and have a dark background or no background.

Enjoy

Joining J 2

#inkscape #j

JOINING J TWO

The week before I showed you the results of ab experiment with joining 2 overlappping letterforms into one vector svg object.

What came next? I added a top bar and having used fill and stroke  node path and select all layers and checking that finally added just one Bevel filter

I don't think I'ld be capable of doing this for a whole Alphabet but a Title or Header yes.

I hope this has given you some useful ideas. 

Really Roman ABC Announcement

#roman #latin #abc #alphabet #deviantart

Okay I have fixed the layout bugs in both Roman ABCs and uploaded them to my DEVIANT ART

Please visit my  DEVIANT ART GALLERY to get free downloads of this and other typography

and do consider a paypal donation?

These are PNGS with transperent backgrounds so you can edit them further. They are free to use but please let people know about the links or encourage them to follow the blog? Thank You

A Really Roman Alphabet 2

Yes this is Papyrus font but it happens to be the font closest in appearance to actual Roman hand written scripts for most of the letters. The Gs were shaped differently.

My suggestions would be if you are using this in an illustration to add more drop shadow and use a background layer with a paper texture to have it that ink on papyrus / parchment look.

If you're using it for a BIG header or title try adding a Torn filter as well.

A Really Roman Alphabet

A REALLY ROMAN ALPHABET 

#roman #latin #typography #font

While we refer to our modern #alphabet as being "Roman" the actual alphabet the ANCIENT Romans used to write Latin looked more like this

I have used #quadrata #font since it is very similar to the styles used on Roman inscriptions.

I may also put this up as an A4  pdf or png on my #deviantart for people to download for educational purposes after another edit. There's a kerning gap that needs a fix that shows in my Chrome browser but wasn't so obvious in Inkscape? 

Joining J

#typography letter J #inkscape

I've been playing with letter forms again.

I used #inkscape to generate 2 vector objects a sanserif J n a heavyweight bold J and then I moved and modified the two objects into one. and did a bit of tweaking with nodes and paths.

I'm sharing this cos I would like to see how other far more experienced and skilled typographers would take this further. Next time I'll show you a few more changes I made.
Send feedback or edit suggestions please !

I and J

#typography #fonts J i letterforms

People similar with the history of scripts known that the letter J developed from I for various phonetic and historical reasons.

Here's a couple of sample images of I and J in various fonts for reference.

more next time !