Derek has been in the industry for about fifteen years. Although, if you ask him, it seems like longer.

"I think I probably worked 10 years worth within the first 3 years of my professional career. Back in those days it was all about just killin’ the design. No sleep. No eat. Just design. I like it better now. I can sleep, eat and still get plenty of design done."

We’re glad to hear that he’s eating and sleeping now. Luckily, not at the expense of his awesome design skills.

Derek is the cofounder and principal of two thriving design businesses - one client based (www.big-giant.com), and the other product based. We asked him what his greatest accomplishment was.

"Staying in business is as good an accomplishment as I could hope for."

UNKL (www.unklbrand.com), his product business, started as a hobby. Derek never expected it to take off like it has.

"A few years back someone asked me who my ideal client would be. My answer? Me. Doing work for myself is ideal. And so, I’m lucky enough to be doing that now."

Derek sees design beyond the awards and accolades he’s received. When he was younger, he thought winning awards in contests and magazines was what it was all about. He thought that winning that stuff would validate his talent or how good he was. As he’s matured, however, he’s come to understand that there’s great design happening that you’ll never see in a book, magazine or contest.

"As I’ve grown in design I’ve realized it’s all about making the client happy and being fulfilled in the work I do, not praise from ‘judges’."

Currently, there are several projects in Derek’s studio. UNKL has about 20 different toy projects happening right now in various stages of design and production. The client work is slamming right now as well. Derek says he can’t get into most of the projects specifically because they’re under wraps until the launch. What he can say is that many of them are collaborations. One such collaboration is with Ipecac Records. It’s a set of 12 UniPo figures set to launch in 2008.

"We created figures for 11 of their bands and one Ipecac branded version as well. One figure is releasing each month during all of 2008. That’s a cool project because we respect the hell out of Mike Patton and his projects, so for us to team up with him is beyond cool."

Derek has had experience playing around with Wacom tablets and thinks they’re pretty great tools.

"I got to experience the Cintiq and dug the hell out of it. It’s a merging of hands on and computer design. I was schooled in design before computers, so I did everything by hand. Since then it’s been mostly computers, but I miss the old days. The Cintiq is a great way for me to get back to that hands on approach while still enjoying the advantages of technology."

We’ll just have to see if Derek takes things back to the old school or wows us with something futuristic in his design. Whatever he does, we’re looking forward to it.

The characters in the artwork are called Smooshi Mooshi. They are mushrooms with the exception of "Dap" who is a droplet of water. Being mushrooms, they love damp, musty places, but they decided to go on vacation up into the hills to see the snow during the month of December. Even Dap likes it although she is hardening and turning into ice the longer they stay there.

Why December? December is my favorite month because that’s when my birthday is and also with the holidays, I love experiencing the excitement and anticipation of the month with my kids. The illustration features the Smooshi Mooshi in a setting in the foothills of the coastal range of Oregon. Snow falls at higher elevations here, but most of the hills remain green. Keeping some of the green of the land was important to me because green means growth, life and health, but adding the snow to it brings that element of wintry excitement. This all sounds pretty serious for such a simple illustration, but hey, that’s what the thinking was behind it anyway.

The tablet worked great for drawing the forms of the characters and the background landscape. I wanted the Smooshi Mooshi to have an organic but finished look to them. The forms were simpler to create with the pens and pad vs. the traditional mouse click and drag. The forms were initially sculpted with clay, then I thought about translating them to 2-D. The tablet allowed me to retain the original sculptural nature of the characters while at the same time simplifying them into a flattened form.

This process for me has been a great way to get back to the hands on approach to design that was such a part of my life years ago when I was just starting as a designer.

Looking at the talent present in his work, you might be surprised to know that Jesse is new to the mograph industry.

"I blindly stumbled upon motion work years ago and was just blown away by it. The thought of mixing so many different art forms together into something so expressive and fun got me really excited."

From that point on, Jesse buckled down and started teaching himself the necessary programs to use to do motion work of his own. He never had any intention of trying to make a career out of designing, and just wanted to do it because it looked fun. Jesse is currently enrolled at the Art Institute of Portland in the motion graphics and visual effects program and also does freelance motion work and compositing.

"I really am excited that I made the decision to pursue motion design as something more than a hobby. It can be really intimidating when you look at the work of some of the big motion design houses because at first it’s hard to even imagine ever being on that level, but in the end you really just have to learn to love your own flavor of work no matter what it’s."

Jesse has been taking on a ton lately. As much as possible. He just finished compositing at Bent Image Lab on a series of commercials that will be running over the holiday season, and is also working on a project for Nike. For the most part, he’s trying to concentrate on school, do a little freelance work and find time to work on his own projects on the side.

"I really feel like the best way to get my creative juices flowing is to take on as much as I can at once."

For the past six months, Jesse has been using his Wacom Intuos pretty heavily. Once he got over his mouse separation anxiety, the Intuos has been his trusty go-to.

"Once you get the hang of it, the amount of control and precision you gain really is remarkable. I’ve been doing a lot of digital matte painting lately and it really wouldn’t be possible without using the tablet."

Well said. Jesse has found something he really loves doing in motion graphics and we love that he’s taking the time to join us. He’s been hunting for creative outlets and the Power of the Pens is just what the doctor ordered.

This piece is for the most part a glorified style frame from a motion piece I was working on. Initially the piece was going to be of a cycle through the four seasons and this just ended up being where I stopped. I started with a couple of photographs and then the addition of the windmill. I made the windmill and the "ribbon" in Maya, which is a 3D program and did all the texturing for it by painting UV maps in Photoshop using the tablet. Then I roughly matched the lighting from the photos to the 3D and rendered out and added those elements, painting in the backlighting in the scene for a better fit. From there I just kept putting in little touches like the icicles, frost and dandelions from within Photoshop. Trying to paint in details in Photoshop using a mouse is almost a completely wasted effort, but the tablet lets you add fine detail really easily.

Zach is the art director and cofounder of the t-shirt company, Tank Theory (www.tanktheory.com). He and partner Andrew Silverman started the company back in 2001, and Zach has been the general art man ever since.

"From creating the company logo, to website, to t-shirt designs, to hangtags, to catalogs, to hats, to embroideries and trims, I have had the opportunity to design for a whole slew of garment and print related stuff."

Essentially, Zach has been the creator and guardian of Tank Theory’s overall aesthetic and graphic direction from day one.

At the moment, Zach is underway with developing the Spring ‘08 line of Tank Theory threads, titled Spirit. He’s also working on a side project with his partner, starting a belt buckle company called Death Metal Buckles, which is set to launch early next year.

Zach’s Wacom experience goes like this:

"I am super experienced (or should I say adept) at using the Wacom, although I have no idea what the buttons on the sides are used for."

Well, we’ll just have to see if he figured out the side buttons for his 2008 calendar month.

In my design work recently, I have been spending a lot of time on the themes of religions throughout the world and ideas on energy, the earth, and spirituality and how it affects us. This piece is coming from that mindset. I really wanted to create a stained glass piece that somehow contradicted the norm. Instead of life being depicted, as in normal stained glass works that sit in churches around the world, I wanted to depict death… an equally important side of life and the other side of the coin. I wanted to almost commemorate or celebrate death, the way you would with life. Not to be morbid, but death is a fact of life and it will eventually claim us all. With that being said, for me, it’s time to come to grips with death and celebrate it just like you would living. And of course the month I designed for was October, so skulls fit right in with Halloween and the whole dying of one season and the beginning of another.

I created a rough of the artwork in photoshop using various references of stained glass. After the general compositional elements were set, I imported the image into Illustrustar and put the Wacom tablet to work. By hand, I traced all the shapes of the stained glass, essentially vectorizing it and composing the final work.

Joshua Berger is a founder and principal of PLAZM (www.plazm.com). His company publishes Plazm magazine, and is a design firm serving commercial clients and social causes. Berger has been recognized by many design publications and award shows including the AIGA Annual Show and the Art Directors Club. He also had an honorary exhibition at ZGRAF in Zagreb, Croatia.

Joshua’s most recent projects include the art direction and design of ESPN: Ultimate Highlight Reel, the relaunch of Adobe magazine and approximately two dozen theater posters.

Berger’s clients, many with Plazm, have included Nike, Lucasfilm, MTV, Jantzen Swimwear, Wieden+Kennedy, J. Walter Thompson, TBWA/Chiat Day and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, among others. PLAZM has been listed by ID magazine as one of the 40 most influential firms in the world, and has received the Creative Resistance Award from Adbusters. The complete catalog of Plazm magazine resides in the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Clearly Joshua is a busy guy and we’re lucky to have him working on this project. It would appear that anything Joshua touches turns to gold. We have no doubt that whatever he brings to the Power of the Pens, it will be equally priceless.

I am a total newbie to Wacom. The first time I used the pen was for this project.

My process is normally pretty organic. The straightforward part is that it always starts with a brief, then pen and paper. There’s something immediate about writing in my notebook which allows me to think more intuitively and conceptually than i do while sitting in front of the computer. That’s actually one of the things that is interesting to me about the Wacom as a tool. I haven’t spent enough time with it to know if i can really conceptualize that way or not, but it is certainly cool for execution and makes painting things a lot easier.

The brief for this project was to create something typographic in relation to the month of September.

I wanted to create something that allowed for rumination about 9/11 without any political messages. After nearly seven years, 9/11 still consumes a great amount of the public consciousness in America. It is invoked daily by politicians to drive public opinion one way or another. The invocations only seem to increase in September. I’m sure 2008, a month before the presidential elections, will be no different. For me, repeating these numbers allows one to think about the event and its meaning - and it has to do with the ceaseless exploitation of the event.

Technically, I enjoyed using the Wacom. It does make working on the computer closer to that feeling of drawing. But it also takes some getting used to - I was dragging some of the numbers around and the layering in my art really happened by accident - mostly because of my clumsiness with the pen. But that’s cool. Accidents often end up yielding the most interesting results.

Tim has worked in commercial art and design since 1999 for companies big and small. In college, he studied painting and fine art but transitioned into the online realm after discovering its amazing community.

"It’s easier than ever to immediately know (and see) who’s doing what. I am often star struck whenever I am fortunate enough to meet contributors to design portals such as k10k.net and Newstoday."

The recent winner of the Portland Cut & Paste tournament, Tim is no small fish himself. He’s attracted to design because of its spontaneity and room for improvisation. His hope, he says, "is to make things that connect with people, arouse curiosity, and, if I’m lucky, inspire others to create." Seeing as that’s what The Power of the Pens is all about, he’s a great fit for our project.

Currently, Tim is working on a holiday ad campaign, a Herculean motion project, a collaborative piece for Born Magazine (www.bornmagazine.org) and is managing several projects involving content to download, print and craft. His day job is as a senior designer at Curiosity (www.curiositygroup.com), where he illustrates and designs for web and print, does some Flash work and apparently tells pretty stupid jokes.

Tim was introduced to Wacom via the Graphire back in 2000. In 2001, he opted for the Intuos 6X9. These days, he won’t be caught without a Wacom tablet by his side. We’ll let him explain:

"The Wacom pen is such a natural mapping of the way I think. I actually prefer the tablet to paper for sketching — I’ll often use the pen to draw in Photoshop… I suppose the best compliment I can pay is that I don’t think much about my tablet — it’s a good tool — something that reliably does its job and helps me create."

So, that’s Tim. Let’s see what the Cintiq helped him create.

I have always been an impatient artist. While attending art school I remember wondering why anyone in their right mind would enjoy lithography, printmaking, oil painting or any of the other process-intense media, although I have much respect for practitioners of those arts. I wanted the marks I made to be immediately visible and I didn’t want to sit for 7 hours for a coat of paint to dry before applying the next coat. At the time I was drawn to charcoal and watercolors because of their fluidity and immediacy - I didn’t have to wait to see what was going to emerge. My Wacom tablet gives me that kind of directness with my computer. I can think it, and instantaneously create it on the screen.

The connection between the month of August and the dog days is obvious – but I wanted to use that as an excuse to see just how tweaked-out I could make a shape and still have it read as a dog. Additionally the word August means venerable, noble, honored, revered or refined. That is the reason many of the dogs are dressed in such distinguished attire.

When making the composition, I did some initial sketches in Photoshop. Then I freehanded all of the dogs and shapes in Adobe Illustrator - then composited the image in Photoshop. I did have one major challenge putting this piece together – my computer crashed shortly before the deadline and had to be rushed to an emergency care facility. Fortunately none of the source files were lost. The Wacom tablet I used performed flawlessly – it’s nice to have a tool that I don’t have to think about - I can be as impatient as I want to be.

Born and raised in Hawaii, Tim Oakley, or ‘Oakley’ as he’s called in the industry, is principal owner and creative director of Oakley Design Studios (www.oakleydesign.com). A graduate of NYU, Tim began his career as a solo illustrator for many of the New York advertising agencies and design firms.

In the early 80’s, Oakley moved to Northern California to work for leading design firm, Offenbacher, Incorporated, where he designed award-winning collateral, logos, packaging and wine labels. His entrepreneurial spirit soon led him to open a one-man design shop in San Francisco. When the 1989 San Francisco earthquake hit, Oakley decided to move himself back to safer grounds - Hawaii, where he rekindled his passion for painting. Most noted are his paintings of the flower, The Bird of Paradise.

"There are nine variations of this painting; five are hanging in major hotels around the world, while the rest are in personal galleries."

Most recently, Oakley’s The Tiki Pop Illustrated Prints have been purchased by Fortune 500 companies and Hollywood celebrities (including three Oscar winners), as well as numerous well-known musicians.

In 1992, Oakley headed back to the mainland and chose Oregon for its beauty and cool weather. Oakley Design Studios was created. Oakley’s design skills have earned him world honors from local, regional, and international clients. Oakley Design Studios clients vary, since Oakley prefers not to pigeonhole his design style with any one type of client. He finds that the more avant-garde the client, the more likely they are to take chances.

Oakley has won numerous awards around the globe. His work has also been showcased in such magazines as - Print, Graphis, Creativity, ShotGun, Illustrator Inc, Pinstripe, and many other "best of books." When not designing something, Oakley speaks at typography and design seminars for corporations & colleges, and has taught design to high School and college students.

This project will be his first opportunity to use not only the airbrush gun, but also the grip pen and other items, making it something that he really looks look forward to.

"I come into this project with no knowledge of Wacom. However, I plan on finishing the project as a believer in digital airbrushing. I have many close friends that use Wacom. Many times, they have said, "Try a Wacom. This will change you. Tonight I will learn. Even an old pro like myself, when given the right tools, can become cool once again."

This guy makes the rest of us look lazy. As far as we’re concerned, he’s been cool all along. One sure thing is that his design for the Power of the Pens is going to blow us away, just like everything else he does.

After a few attempts, it became natural to work the airbrush. The airbrush is a medium that I have worked with since the age of 10. The roller was the toughest to control since most airbrushes are dual action from a single throttle. Once I felt confident enough to work with the airbrush, the first item I tackled was the sky & clouds. I figured, "if I can’t tackle this, I’m screwed".

On the clouds swirls, I made a single mask in illustrator, and used it for both the inner and outer cloud ghosting. I made three passes of white (at 50%, 30% & 10%) changing the brush width with each outer pass. Then I made a single pass of white (at 20%) for the inner swirls.

I also used this technique for the volcano fumes, ‘cept I only did two passes of white (at 50% & 30%).

For the foreground bushes & palms, I used both the airbrush for all base color areas, and fine-tuned the leaves with the grip pen tool (detail work).

For the ocean, I made two mask (again in illustrator). Using one for the background base coat, which I also added two gradient colors for depth. Then a second mask was used for the water waves, which I used only the airbrush tool. Using the airbrush, a burst of white was sprayed for the wave tips. This technique was similar to an actual airbrush and gave me control over the amount of white being added. If I didn’t like the look, I’d delete and start over. If this was an actual painting, and I didn’t like the white, I’d have to use a bleaching agent (with a face mask) remove the white until it was completely wiped away. A time wasted procedure.

For the The Tiki itself, twelve separate masks were made in illustrator, each one for a different section of the The Tiki. Starting with the basic color, I did a single fill (at 40%), then used the airbrush to bring out the depth & detail. Each section was done in same manner, ‘cept I’d rotate the art at various angles (just like turning a master art board), to help out in the depth and style of gradients. The mouth was the simplest. A basic black background, with the addition of gray for side depth. The teeth were done using 4 masks. Two for the face of the teeth, and two for the sides. Each masks using two values of gray.

Once the entire art was done, I used the grip pen for minor detail primping & cleaning.

Other than quick edits, and changes, I realized that I no longer have to mix paint, use bleach, rub off pencil lines, and remove frisket film or residue. This alone saved me roughly 1-2 hours of work. Hours that I could use to tighten the concept if needed.

Since my latest art has this similar theme - give or take the style - it was just natural to do painting. However, this is the first to include the volcano and swirly clouds. Something new, and one of a kind for this project.

The magic of Moloka’i - how in the world do you capture that in a single photograph? Location, timing and some very creative tools came together in this image I created for Wacom’s Power of the Pens Calendar for the month of June.

First, I knew I wanted to shoot the sacred palm grove from the lagoon on the island’s south shore - definitely one of the worlds most beautiful tropical locations. Second, I wanted to capture the entire island in the image AND maintain dramatic detail - this lead me to shoot and stitch together (using Photoshop CS3’s Photomerge. see A) an 8 shot panorama that could achieve both the wide angle and give me the desired resolution (the image for the Wacom desktop calendar is the center three images from the panorama - go to AdventuresInPhotoshop.com to see the entire vista). Third, to really convey the uniqueness of the location I choose to not only shoot it at sunset (when else?) but also in infrared, to bring the glory of the palms out against a darker sky (the above URL also has information on my IR work).

Once the images had been combined in Photoshop, I wanted to pull out the subtle details in the infrared palm fronds - which meant extensive dodging and burning - taking full advantage of the incredible control (and speed) I get with the direct painting capabilities of the combination of my Wacom Cintiq 21UX Monitor and their 6D pen (see B) - truly a daily lifesaver!

Lastly, I wanted to finalize the storybook feeling of the piece by hand tinting on top of the subtle infrared colors (see C) - with a little salt stain overlay thrown to finalize the painted effect. Again, the control, and personal expression that is possible in each stroke of the pen is essential in creating the individuality I desire in both my commercial and fine art work! Thank you Wacom for creating such powerful, yet elegant tools for all of us in the digital age - we couldn’t do it without you!

When Todd’s friends need a Sharpie®, they don’t bother asking him if he has one. He’s learned his lesson about always having one in his pocket.

"I’ve ruined many loads of laundry in exchange for a constant volume of work. In other words, I’ve been painting and drawing my whole life."

Todd’s involvement in the professional world of illustration has only been since 2003. He attended art school for just a year at PNCA, but finally graduated with a BS in Graphic Design, which is what he does professionally.

"Which is great because it allows my work as a freelance illustrator to stay untainted by clients (most of the time)."

Todd claims that his biggest accomplishment thus far was when he recognized and defined his personal style. When he was younger, he always thought artistic worth was based on the ability to do photo-realistic rendering. Obviously, this isn’t the case.

"When I figured this out, my abilities and interest in my work took off."

Todd is in the process of illustrating a children’s book (Wally & Koala), an experience that has been really fun and rewarding for him.

"I like to jump around in the story and work out the scenes I really like, then go back and fill in the holes. This was a new challenge for me, as "cute" and "child appropriate" drawings are not my usual repertoire. What no blood spray?"

His experience with a WACOM tablet started in 2003. However, it wasn’t until about a month ago that he fully came to appreciate the Power of the Pens.

The saying," April showers bring May flowers" is one that fits most of the country’s seasonal patterns, but here in Oregon we like to linger and hold onto the dark rainy season for as long as possible. So I decided to do a piece that had a splashy/rainy theme instead of flowers for our month of May. Also I had done a series of drawings which featured an old sea captain who had on these great boots that I wanted to do a detail of.

Previously I had mentioned that my most significant accomplishment as an illustrator was identifying my personal style, which is a loose quick set of curves and arches that loop back on themselves. This curving form only comes out when I sketch on paper, so that’s where I start. Far away from the computer. Whew. I like to have my sketchbook with me and pull it out immediately when I feel some inspiration. So with a rough outline of the concept and it’s forms, I go back into the sketch and add clean heavier lines where I felt like they need to be, but making sure to leave and emphasize the construction lines of the underlaying sketch. Once I feel like the drawing has enough line work done, I will scan the drawing and open it in Illustrator (I place it as the top layer and set the blending mode to Multiply). Next I would normally choose a color palette, but since this was a continuation from another series, I already set one up. Here’s where the Wacom pen comes in! Using the line work of the sketch as guides, I use the pen tool to draw "fills" adding color and depth under the outlines of the sketch. Throughout the rendering process I like to see if the colored fills are making sense visually, so I will continually hide and reveal the top layer sketch. Once the fills are done I am left with a evenly colored piece that was obviously done on screen. BUT! The original hand done line qualities of the sketch are preserved and built off of.

Casey got his start in the illustration and design field back in 1993, as a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was making photocopied flyers for his friends’ bands, and soon thereafter started silkscreening larger posters for area clubs. For many years, his full-time job was to create flyers, ads and posters for the legendary Cat’s Cradle night club.

"My work on these posters eventually led to other illustration and design jobs, mostly music related, dozens of record package designs and the inclusion of my work in books like The Art of Modern Rock."

More recently, Casey’s work was featured in the packaging for Modest Mouse’s album We Were Dead before the Ship Even Sank. His current work includes more rock posters, and a black history month calendar featuring portraits of twelve significant historical figures. A calendar? So he’s got some experience in the advent business.

Casey works primarily with pen and ink, and uses his computer to color separate his work so he can silkscreen it.

"This is my first time using Wacom tools, and so far I am loving it. I had no idea such subtle changes in line-weight could be accomplished with anything other than my trusty dip pen and brush."

As of 2006, Casey lives and works in Portland, Oregon, and is loving it. Almost as much as we’re loving having him a part of this project. Check out his work.

I usually work in a fashion that treats a computer like an analog tool. I come from a silkscreening background that calls for black and white positives, rubylith, razor blades, opaquing fluids, photocopiers, and plenty of ink. Over the years, I’ve replaced many of these tools and processes with the computer, and have hopefully managed to keep my work feeling organic.

My normal routine consists of the following:

I make a keyline drawing using dip pen, brush, ink. I then create my additional color separations on separate sheets of paper or vellum, on top of my keyline using a light box. If it’s a four-color piece, I end up with four black and white drawings. I scan all four into photoshop, and then bring all of them into individual spot channels in photoshop. Spot channels are like digital rubylith to me. I’m dealing with black and white layers with temporary colors assigned to each. Once I have cleaned up each of the channels, and set trap and choke, I split the channels and save each channel as a separate bitmap. I then stack the bitmaps in indesign, add any necessary text, and output each color onto a clear film positive that I use to expose my silkscreens. I mix my inks by hand, and start the long process of printing.

I approached this project the same way, but integrated the Wacom tools this time around. After playing around with the pens for a few days, I found that the grip pen felt most natural to me. The subtle lineweight changes that came with its pressure sensitive tip mocked my own pen technique pretty closely. Close enough that I decided I would use the Wacom for all of my secondary colors, as well as editing my original drawing.

I usually take reference photos to look at for my drawings. This time around, I was looking to take a photo of my friend Naheed Simjee holding an umbrella, to fit in with some sort of "April showers" theme. I went over to her house, and she turned the tables on me by showing me a great photo she had taken of her boyfriend (and Modest Mouse frontman) Isaac Brock. Isaac was sporting an umbrella in Italy, as well as a black eye. It cracked me up, and completely embodied how bummed out rain in April can make you feel. Isaac was down with being in the piece, so I headed home, and started drawing.

Once my drawing was finished, I brought it into photoshop, and cleaned up some areas using the grip pen. I was actually unhappy with how I had initially drawn Isaac’s mouth, so I almost completely redrew it with the tablet. The effect was seamless. I also edited many of my other ink lines with the pen without ever losing a hand-drawn appearance.

After I was satisfied with the line drawing, I set about coloring the piece in separate channels. Once again, the pen felt really natural, and I saved a good amount of time (hours, really) by using the tablet instead of scanning separate drawings. After I finished the coloring, I merged everything together for the final piece that you see in the calendar.

Hopefully this piece makes you pray for the sun to come out, just as I will once April comes to Portland.

Jill builds websites for a living. In her free time you might catch her at a bar with a sketchbook and pens, or at home with her Wacom and laptop.

"My drawing style evolved from the margin doodles on my art history class notes while attending Southern Oregon University in 2001."

After taking digital art and animation classes, Jill became hooked on the Wacom tablet. Her teacher and advisor, Miles Inada, inspired her to use Flash as her medium of choice.

"I still wouldn’t dream of using any other program. I love the brush tool, smooth vector swaths of color and slightly stylized drawing lines."

Jill just moved to Portland and claims to already feel inspired by all the talented and creative people around here. Let’s see how her inspiration plays out in her contributions to the Power of the Pens’ 2008 calendar.

March 20th is the official first day of spring. When I think of spring I think flowers, birdies, blue sky and music!

From beginning to end I worked in Flash CS3 with a Wacom Intuos3 and the standard pen. All doodling, brainstorming, refinement, layout and coloring were done digitally. I prefer to do all work on a project in one medium, in this case on the computer with a tablet. Plus, I enjoy working with Flash’s drawing tools, more than the tools in any other program (though not necessarily more than pen and paper!). I like the crisp, clean vector shapes, and the way Flash streamlines and stylizes the lines I draw. When I animate, I hand draw each frame (instead of using symbols and tweens) so having great drawing tools is especially important to me.

Over the past few years my drawing style has been greatly influenced by the use of Flash and the Wacom tablet. It’s helped me to loosen up and not worry about “wasting” materials. Though I still love drawing on paper, I never would have developed the style I have now without my Wacom tablet (and a heavy dose of cartoons and comic book art).