A life in print...

Goodbye Kitty

My jellicle kitty meowed her last today. She was the best cat ever, as they say. She had a fabulous long life, so it came as no surprise.

She was a true gift to us all since she was our family cat. We chose her from the pet store 19 years ago and I remember it like yesterday. My boys were in just starting school so there was a lot of life we shared. School trips, pet's day, birthday parties, christmas trees and everyday life.

She had a great life... sharing summer gardens and Halloween nights. She never failed to amuse us hopping down snowy steps on a winter morning. Like any cat, she always had to be in the middle of every thing... when she wasn't busy sleeping.

She was deaf for the last 4 years, but she coped with that by just meowing louder. She was active up until today, in fact... a remarkable life.

Over the years I painted her picture in books and magazines. When I think about how long she's been in our family it about makes me cry. All the things lost to time.

Now she's fast asleep beneath a big lovely rock in the back garden where she liked to curl up on hot summer afternoons.

I'll have to write up some of the stories she inspired from our life together.

My very first all digital book..

My very first all digital book... 'The Smile Shop', written by Joy Cowley. I did it way back in 1999, on my Powercomputing Mac clone. I think it had a 2 GB HDD.

I think its got some nice pages and the design was fun. I remember how I first drew the shapes on paper, then scanned and converted it into an Illustrator vector file. Then finished it in Photoshop.

The colors still look deep and fresh... probably the lack of any line helps. I think I sent it in on a Iomega zip disk.

Nostalgia for a new age?

I was carried away with new experiments in filters and color schemes. I'm quite taken with the antique look of some of these filters... they sort of remind me of the way two-color artwork used to print.

Maybe it's nostalgia for a new age?

Proofs of Perfection

Perhaps the rare visitor to this blog might recall the recent post where it was conjectured that my inkjet printer may have exploded?

Well it's happened again, only this time it was the delivery of the actual proofs from the publisher. Happily, I'm thrilled with the outcome... which as anyone who's been disappointed in color reproductions knows, is saying a lot.

It is a joy to spend hours just soaking up the details of every digital brushstroke which previously had only existed only on the computer screen.


I often wondered if the print outcome would work with the many new techniques I tried. At times making the paintings seemed almost symphonic, the colors obtained seemed so rich, deep and textured.


But I'm happy to report that the printed colors were exactly as I'd hoped. Even details the size of a dandruff speck were matched on paper.

New website logo...

I guess it's Friday the 13th today... however, I couldn't believe my luck when I drove across town this morning and made it through 14 green lights in a row without once hitting a red light.

This is a once in a lifetime event!

On another subject, I like my new website logo, based on an old vintage motoring sign. Now I just have to relearn how to do rollovers.

Froggy Went a Courting

Froggy went a courting... and the princess lost her head!

I've been looking into some new directions for different markets besides traditional publishers. Pop-Surrealism seems especially appealing, but I'm trying to focus on traditional children's book themes.

This particular image has gone through many variations. It's interesting to change things around so completely and quickly with photoshop.

The texture is derived from a photo of my back porch stairs... of all the unlikely places!

The evolution of William Shakespeare into a cat

I know that step by step illustrations are often of interest to artists. So here's a sketch I made this morning as an exercise to transform William Shakespeare into a cat.

Meooo-ooow-rrrr-lll!

So many exciting ideas at hand... forsooth!

Bunnies & Postcards

New bunnies... and new promo postcards. They're all just right.

When I saw these two bunnies on the thrift store shelf, I knew they would have to move in with me. The $1 price tag made them irresistible. As a professional artist & author even I can afford that.

The postcard pricing was great too!

The Owl & the Pussycat

The Owl & the Pussycat

The Owl & the Pussycat sailed away to sea.
Owl was strummin' on his ukelele.
The Pussycat cried ‘Oh Please! No more!
Paddle us back right now to the shore’

But the boat had sailed without any oars.
There was no way back from the shore to sea.
So the Owl had to paddle with his ukelele.

And ever since then Owl strums no more.
The song the Owl sings now is "Woe is me!
I do miss a-strummin' on my ukelele".
And he warbles all alone on the shore by the sea, a sad lonely song without ukelele.

© John Abbott Nez 2007

The blossoms are just beginning

It's that time of year again... cherry blossom time. The rain drops blurring the blossoms made for a nice touch.

The steps of my favorite cafe were seeped in atmosphere... in other words it was raining.

Ye olde trusty Schwinn made yet one more trip to the brick pathways. I'm on the lookout for a new bicycle. The choices are so complicated. Perhaps a Trek Allant... which seems to be a nice bike.

It will actually be better in a week... the blossoms are just beginning.

Did this printer explode?

Did this printer explode? Or did I just print out a set of soft proofs?

In either event, it can be FUN to finally print out full sized proofs.

I guess for a digital artist the term 'proof' can be thought of as proof that the work actually does exist. That's saying something, I think, after spending weeks just fiddling around in the digital realm. In any case, it's fun to actually lay hands on some real art on paper after making it all on the computer.

I am just thrilled with the color fidelity of the prints I get from my Canon Pixma Pro9000. They look verily like the screen colors. I'm also just thrilled with refilling the cartridges myself for $1 a pop.

Thinking about the whole process of making books, I think aside from the magic of creating art from a blank page, I think a close second in realm of magic is the actual transformation of a book into a REAL object... printed on real paper.

I'm not sure that these ebooks can make the same claim.