I've signed on for the Four Oceans Press Fruit Alphabet Exchange, and selected Q, for quince. I started off being pretty literal with my idea for the print:
![](https://lh3-testonly.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vDZIkzBDqOp7fVb-mxteKnTa8kOFFznewDKIp4H6GxMx-bKjq61mAtoHNv1uPA_rKne9t_H7x1IKcHICzoy1aaxIjCIchTwSmURyQm3knI9HWV3nRjHjkrtftku3pmeOZZ=s0-d)
It was a bit of a play on the word "quince" ("fifteen" in Spanish; fifteen is a multiple of five, and five is a distinguishing characteristic of plants in the rose family) - there are five stages of the quince in the sketch - seed, flower, early fruit, ripening fruit, rotting fruit, with five seeds in the rotting fruit. The wasp is just to emphasize the concept of decay (plus I thought it would add an element of interest to the design). This image was based on a botanical illustration from the 19th century by Franz Eugene Köhler:
![](https://lh3-testonly.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uzKBhowcbYtXlW9NeqqzL-h32TnuWiXOeETFPZyom3f5b_DKGII48NLs285HNIv6ia6PI0Rn1Kc4u7SyMavWjBFWC1Q_tczNMRutRbfZTmDjPx48nXVT4sqwdj3A2Z5TaVWQ=s0-d)
Not bad, but not quite yet what I was wanting. I started looking for other Q things:
(OK, so for those of you wondering "but fleur de lis doesn't start with a Q!", it's the symbol of Quebec, so there!), and came up with this sketch:
![](https://lh3-testonly.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sswCuf4mKx9dPyQick8ifj_VwAg9-Qn2A_H3P3UCOhdMNVgQnaCrm1Kd_UetMqYt99G4QVfw8SZkfMBmDMc6tPQxi3GU2YWyw_Pe-T4QLxQDD7ur9-a9HrCjVfwqTuZDFOmQ=s0-d)
Now is the fun part. I started to use just about every image editing software tool loaded onto my computer (obtained via various digital camera, printer and scanner purchases over the years), and figured out what I wanted to do using
TechSmith's SnagIt Editor for this:
![](https://lh3-testonly.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vY44dSKxZfdbi4BtLFZYgv6ce7gcJ_b0JB4J-czeyQWmIr6YjAuQOevFg-sHPCJHgY8RxNrgz8m5cK0fCkWxTB5i7uv8DpiTuOO6OCngtm6UyKmN5ioiAsTIzK0fGv_0o=s0-d)
Printed it, scribbled on it with pencil for this:
![](https://lh3-testonly.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sBiA7m3RqcjsJL3Z2QcKL6xSdg2_-wdwmS1YmuFUIVXABPwQ9TYbebWnzaYibFKYiyG2e9-ZTxQoG64uLU63Jm0yz0GUYpEyBTyEhW6NwLOIc9dZuHey-4JBQWc-9ZS28=s0-d)
Scanned again & made monochrome:
![](https://lh3-testonly.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tRCPxdlxS5rv-Ywqf5N30swY7MtsoTmSYaIdxPqomq2Z9QfXy3pz7oLS3OcgQLpREDSOUmRzkcohkrmhEVe5IUqLKfdkavo7CGSvaDme0A3vnUO-DcdUtf5jyc5Z_ehw=s0-d)
Then I graduated to
GIMP for this next one:
![](https://lh3-testonly.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vwZbw0vINKbTIlVq9Bjir-AJEV69y0USuidG-i7UeEwIMz6e2uTlWzZIYKk9FtUv1r8HQ6zYtYavrsneq4YlnVdTILLRlQNi3B7gxYrV2ZKgf6p10o-1ZPGtvlavcumA=s0-d)
And then the final:
![](https://lh3-testonly.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tFogtUp2WnWPQT9LNAYvCmrAo_ENL6jnTaiTULUaUbYZo-flfPjpmWDxlwb3EVet1UXDvs-Kwj_hS8Kh9H897op4hOMaXzzcappnHO1_WQDrr_Ffar1TieztTKwI1y4w=s0-d)
It's not that I couldn't have used GIMP from the beginning, but I'm just learning the software and don't have an actual, hold-in-the-hands user manual (...yet! I just pre-ordered the new
Beginning GIMP manual from Amazon yesterday and I am anxiously anticipating its arrival hopefully in early January). I was frustrating myself at the beginning of this process with what to do in GIMP, so abandoned it for more tried-and-true software until I ran up against complexities I couldn't handle otherwise. I am excited about learning GIMP, because I've got lots of ideas I'd like to experiment with using the software. So I managed to learn a couple of things doing this little sketch; but it's a very sophisitcated piece of software, so there is a lot more to be discovered!
Now, this is just the working sketch. I still have some tweaks to do, but what do you think?
2 comments:
I love it, queen, quince, quill, question...and of course fleur de lis (but I love this symbol whether it is the sybmbol of Quebec or not ;)) who thought you could cram so many q words into such a small print so seemlessly! I like how you have done the reflected side like a playing card as well, very clever.
Thanks Tracey! I had a lot of fun with the design.
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