Illustration Inspiration: What Happened to George? illustrations by Marge Opitz

In the hope of helping to preserve vintage and historic illustration artwork from my own collection and in turn sharing it to inspire new artists and illustrators (and providing a reference for other fans of illustration), I am posting this series here on Rosehaven Cottage Studio called "Illustration Inspiration".

"What Happened to George" written by Betty Engebretson and illustrated by Marge Opitz was published by Rand McNally It has a copyright of 1958. It had been in print for over a decade when I received my own copy as a 2 year old toddler who loved picture books and greeting cards (anything with illustrated art on it).

The illustration style of the book is clearly fifties. As a kid, I so adored the pictures (I still do) because of Marge Opitz's illustration technique. The artwork has a soft feeling like it is done in combination of chalk pastels or color pencil with watercolor washes. I've never been able to determine exactly what medium she used. I do know that her technique is one of the reasons I loved the book so much as a kid. I had a great love for softly rendered colored pencil and pastel drawings even when I was 2 or 3 years old. I don't know why. I just did.

As I re-read the story to Hubby, I've concluded that it definitely wasn't the storyline of "What Happened to George?" that I loved. It was the art. The story is rather disturbing and probably wouldn't get published in today's children's book market.

Despite this twisted storyline, Marge Opitz's representatives of food are so charming aren't they? Especially the unadorned donuts. I think my favorite donut is the last one that is bursting out of the roof of the house. I know... it's supposed to be a tragic ending. But when I was a kid I was too mesmerized by the wonderful shading and textures of the exploding donut. Seriously, I was. And, frankly, I still am.

DISCLAIMER: The sharing of the above vintage illustrations is for educational and referential purposes only. Copyrights are most likely still held by the original publisher/artist. Use of these illustrations for reproduction and/or derivative works for resale may be illegal and an infringement of the original publisher/artist's copyrights. So, in other words, don't make things with these illustrations. It's illegal; it's wrong; and it could cost you a truckload of money when you get sued.

Happy creating and remember...

Illustration Inspiration: A Jolly Holiday illustrations by Beverly Edwards and Leon Jason

In the hope of helping to preserve vintage and historic illustration artwork from my own collection and in turn sharing it to inspire new artists and illustrators (and providing a reference for other fans of illustration), I am starting this series here on Rosehaven Cottage Studio called "Illustration Inspiration".

To coincide with the release of the major motion picture Mary Poppins, Walt Disney Productions partnered with Golden Books and published the book "Walt Disney's Mary Poppins: A Jolly Holiday" in 1964. Illustrators Beverly Edwards and Leon Jason were responsible for the illustration art and the story from the film was adapted for the book by Annie North Bedford.

Although I'm not necessarily a big fan of the illustrative treatment of Mary Poppins in all the book's illustrations, there are some art spreads that are quite charming. For example, the two-page illustration (below) of Mary helping the Banks children clean the nursery for the first time is delightful.

Once Bert, Mary and the children jump into the chalk painting to have their "jolly holiday", the illustrations get particularly charming. This illustration of Bert helping Mary take her seat is a favorite of mine.

The creative layout of the two-page spread below is impressive to me. It marries several scenes with the text in a way that's inventive and easy to follow.

A similar treatment is found at the end of the story (below) when Mary wins the horse race. There is an entire song scene in the movie that follows her win, but the storybook adaptation handles the removal of the iconic "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" number quite expertly and leads the reader straight into the close of the chalk drawing adventure when the rain comes.

What I find particularly charming about these illustrations is that they have a style that is uniquely 1960s while remaining true to the motion picture's storyline and Disney's stylings without being a carbon copy of the film.

DISCLAIMER: The sharing of the above vintage illustrations is for educational and referential purposes only. Copyrights are most likely still held by the original publisher/artist. Use of these illustrations for reproduction and/or derivative works for resale may be illegal and an infringement of the original publisher/artist's copyrights. So, in other words, don't make things with these illustrations. It's illegal; it's wrong; and it could cost you a truckload of money when you get sued.

Happy creating and remember...

Illustration Inspiration: Grandpa Bunny art by Dick Kelsey and Bill Justice

In the hope of helping to preserve vintage and historic illustration artwork from my own collection and in turn sharing it to inspire new artists and illustrators (and providing a reference for other fans of illustration), I am starting a new series here on Rosehaven Cottage Studio called "Illustration Inspiration".

I received this book when I was 5 years old, and it was already a classic by the time I received it. The illustrations mesmerized me. I was transfixed by the artwork.

I can safely say that this book is largely responsible for making me yearn to be an artist when I grew up. It is probably why I hounded my preschool relentlessly asking her, "When are we going to paint with the easels?"

I also fell in love with seasonal color thanks to these beautiful illustrations and the storyline. To this day, I still think of the seasons and months of the year in terms of what color represent them best.

The funny thing is that I never saw (and have never seen) the film "Funny Little Bunnies" that the book is based upon.

DISCLAIMER: The sharing of the above vintage illustrations is for educational and referential purposes only. Copyrights are most likely still held by the original publisher/artist. Use of these illustrations for reproduction and/or derivative works for resale may be illegal and an infringement of the original publisher/artist's copyrights. So, in other words, don't make things with these illustrations. It's illegal; it's wrong; and it could cost you a truckload of money when you get sued.

Hard to believe, but even a photo from your smartphone can look incredible

I usually don't do "shout outs" but when one is in order, I do. And one is definitely in order in this case.

The family all got together Mother's Day weekend to celebrate my mom's birthday and while sitting outside around the pool with the girls, the youngest of the group (my 10 week old niece) got propped up for her first "tummy time" outside by the pool. I only had my iPhone with me and not my "big gun" camera. I had to take advantage of the moment because the light was great and the subject adorable.

Once I was back home, I decided to try my hand at making the casual shots look like studio shots. I turned to my handy arsenal of tools comprised of:

• Photoshop (CS3 is what I prefer although I have newer versions too)
• Oh So Posh Photography's PS Actions (the "Once Upon A Dream" collection and the Bohemian Symphony Collection)
• Kim Klassen's great textures she has shared so generously with the creative community

I cropped the shot and then started to work on getting rid of the icky background. I'm not a fan of masking in Photoshop because the edges often look unnatural. I prefer to step into the taboo world of "destructive editing" where I erase with a soft-edged brush all along the edge of the subject. Yes, I know... it's "wrong". But I always work on a duplicate layer and never the original so I'm covered. 

After I erased away the background, I added two of Kim Klassen's textures as layers underneath--"Life is Good" and "Isobel" (flipped over so the dark edge was down) from her Downton II Collection. I took each layer through a Gaussian blur filter so they looked like they were naturally blurred in the background of the photo. I reduced the opacity of the "Life is Good" layer to 30% and put it on top. Then on the "Isobel" layer, I painted in some shadows in a similar shade of blue as the "Isobel" texture with a soft brush set at 10% right along the edge of the pillow and the babies elbows.

With the background taken care of, I was able to focus on the subject and making sure she was in the best light possible. 

I saved my file first. Then I did "Save As..." and saved a copy of the file with a slightly different name. I worked off the  "Save As..." file from that point forward. I did this because in order to use Oh So Posh's PS actions (and most others) it is necessary to flatten the file which gets rid of all the layers. This is necessary because almost all actions look for a layer named "Background" to perform their "magic" on. When you flatten a file all the layers in that file are merged into one layer and that layer is automatically named "Background". I like to retain a copy of the file with all the layers in case I need to go back and perform more edits. 

So... I flattened the "Save As..." copy of the file...

... and then started running the actions I've purchased and loaded in the past.

I ran four actions in total on this particular photo. Oh So Posh's actions allow you to tweak a great deal so I tweaked where necessary. I used: 

"Innocence" at 100% opacity

"Sheer Beauty" at 80% opacity

"Barely There" at 80% opacity

"Wispy Pink" at 75% opacity

I saved the file. 

Then I performed another "Save As..." so I could retain a copy of the layered file and work from a copy that I could flatten in order to work with the final actions "Lovely Eyes" and "Twinkle Eyes". I flattened the new copy of the file as before, and ran the two final actions.

And that's how I turned a casual shot taken with my iPhone into a shot that looks like I had my "big gun".

Happy creating and remember...

Take a plain cube vase and make it special for Mother's Day

Simple cube vases are quite inexpensive and a great staple to have around for floral arrangements. But what if you want to dress one up for a special occasion or holiday?

I dug into my stash of scrapbooking paper and paper punches and constructed this fun solution following these simple steps:

1. I cut out four frames from a pretty colored card stock that would coordinate with the flowers that would be in the vase. For mine, I used a Sizzix Bigz die cutting frame (654446), but it isn't essential to use that equipment to achieve the same effect. You can even cut out the frames with scissors.
2. I taped each of the frames end-to-end on the back with scotch tape.
3. I taped together the ends of the end-to-end chain of frames to form a "box" of frames that slides nicely over the top of the cube vase.
4. To embellish one of the frames for the front of the arrangement, I took one of the centers that had been cut out of one of the frames and used my other paper cutting equipment to make fancy corners. You can do those by hand with scissors too. I just happen to have some fun hand-punches.
5. I cut out a smaller square out of white paper and embellished it with fancy paper punches then tape it on the front of the purple square using double-sided adhesive tape.
6. I found a decorative font on my computer (I used "Romantiques" that's a free download at www.dafont.com) 
7. In a simple MSWord document (any word processing software works), I typed out the word "Mother" in the font type I chose and made it a pretty shade of purple.
8. I printed out the type onto purple paper using my inkjet printer.
9. Using scissors, I freehand cut around the shapes of the letters without getting too close to the printing.
10. I stuck adhesive pearl embellishments I had in my stash (I got mine at the craft store) on each letter (the wider letters got more than one pearl).
11. I stuck a couple evenly spaced foam adhesive squares (also from the craft store) on the back of the "mother" cut-out and stuck it to the front of the glued squares at an angle.
12. I stuck foam adhesive squares to the back of each corner of the whole front decoration and stuck it on the vase sleeve frame at an angle.
13. For an added touch, I hot-glued simple pearl beading trim in little swags around the top edge of the vase sleeve.
14. At the apex of each swag of pearl trim, I hot-glued a single tiny silk flower pulled from its stem (I got a whole sprig at the dollar store).
15. As an added touch, after I placed the flowers in the center of the vase (using a floral frog is great for getting the look I got) I filled the vase with white liquid marbles and added submersible LED lights to make it glow from the inside.

Voila! I created a removable sleeve vase to doll up the plain glass cube vase for a special occasion. What's great is, I can do the same thing for other holidays and seasons and use the same vase over and over.

Happy creating and remember...