Help me replace my dying Laptop

As you know, I’ve got the design bug.

I’ve been teaching myself the ins and outs of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

People tell me I have talent and a good eye for composition. And by people, I mean the pros that have seen my work.

If I say so myself, I’ve made some pretty illustrations.

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But I’ve hit a wall.

One could say that an artist is as good as their tools. And sadly, my poor old laptop, as awesome as it is, can’t handle the requirements of Adobe. Add more than five layers to the artwork and wham, it crashes. (Help me get a new one)

This laptop has served me well. But the time has come for it to get an honourary retirement and move to Florida (or wherever retired laptops go to enjoy their last years in peace and happiness).

May the Fourth

I am so excited that I finally have a way to get these ideas of mine out of my mind and express them in a graphic way*. What is a wonderful feeling.

Wish I had taken up on Illustrator years ago instead of letting it intimidate me.

I still don’t know how to use every tool in the app but my, the things I can already do! Sometimes it truly feels like “accio illustration” and there it is.

So, me being me, I had to make something for May the fourth. Behold and be amazed… no, just kidding. Just behold.

amazed, I am

Made this one as the cover photo for the G2A Facebook page

March Equinox

So…

A month ago, I decided to revive Geek Squared Art idea and give it a decent website. One that was professional looking – if artistic.

Shortly after – like three seconds in – I realized I had to hone my web design skills, if I wanted to do it myself instead of paying a web designer to do it.

Mad gathering of resources and lots of reading followed. I also realized I needed to get good a graphic design if I wanted the site too look the way I want it to look.

After all, Geek Squared Art is all about arts & crafts. You can’t have an arts & crafts website and fill it with lousy graphics. It just won’t do.

Therefore, on top of becoming fluent in wordpressese, I had to take myself to a decent level of mastery of a graphic platform. I was thinking Gimp, but in very SSG fashion, I decided one night to take the plunge and tackle Illustrator. I was terrified… mortified… petrified… stupefied… by it. Totally intimidated.

Art & Science and Oh, squeeee!

I went on the intertubes to look for Illustrator tutorials. I swear.

Somehow I got tricked into reading the articles suggested on my Medium digest.

But that was okay because one of the suggested articles had the words Art, Math and Science in its title. I mean, I just had to read it, right? It also had a preview of a delightful illustration, the kind I had always dreamed of creating myself. Sealed, signed and delivered. I had no choice.

The more I read, the more squeeing noises were heard at my place.

I was that little girl too. What you see below is a fairly accurate representation of the shape of my dreams when I was in elementary school.

Yes, I loved art! Art by @sailorhg