Digital Illustration

Shown are basic science illustrations for an 8th grade science book,
Holt, Reinhart & Winston, Publishers, Austin, TX 1995-1996. There were twenty-five, non-technical image projects relating to a basic science problem as a visual teaching aid to show “how it works,” most in Adobe Photoshop using air brush techniques with cut acetate templates, and three using freehand, pencil and watercolor. As a rule, the art buyer at HR&W began a project as follows: (a.) I received roughs and samples, (b.) Accomplish basic pencil outline and send back to art buyer by mail, (prior to internet,) (c.) Receive corrections and go to color layout, either digital or watercolor, and send to art buyer on a Syquest Disk or drawing paper, (d.) Receive corrections usually penciled on the layout and go to final color art based upon color corrections requested. Related airbrush compositions on page 11. Comprehension of content tested on my son, then a 7th grader in Houston, TX... he passed.
The logo line just below is one of four electronic versions relative to the process discussion.

Basic science illustrations for an 8th grade science book - Holt, Reinhart & Winston, Publishers, Austin, TX 1995-1996. Twenty-five, non-technical images were prepared with Adobe Photoshop relating to basic science problems as teaching aids to show “how it works,” three images with air brush techniques and cut acetate templates, and three using pencil and watercolor. As a rule, the art buyer at HR&W began a project as follows: (a.) I received roughs and samples, (b.) Accomplish basic pencil outline and sent back to art buyer by mail, (prior to internet,) (c.) Receive corrections and go to color layout, either digital or watercolor, and send to art buyer on a Syquest Disk or drawing paper, (d.) Receive corrections usually penciled on the layout and go to final color art based upon color corrections requested. If needed any corrections were made... only two changes were a result made by the publisher which made the technical details align more accurately with the lesson plan. Most are digital except as noted next to illustration. 

Pate Swap Meet, Fort Worth, Texas. Designs accomplished yearly since 1989 excepting 2001, 2009 and 2010 for T-Shirt, full color, silkscreen reproduction.

These designs are compositions done for full color process silk screening on T-shirts. Much of the black line components were hand inked prior to computer and adapted to digital compositions around 1996 after which the component black lines work were created in Adobe Photohop. As the years progressed, more and more digital came into use. The six designs are featured here as they show the ongoing progression of change and added features from one year to the next. Much of the black line work was done for the silk screen process to help give a crisp definition that is almost negligible but needed for clarity between components. Family and friends influenced content and thematic ideas. 

Printed size - 14.5”x13”, full color process using eight silk screens for textile printing. An amalgamation of numerous components individually accomplished and assembled in Adobe Photoshop in an evolving composition showing themes of what people do at a swap meet, what it is to attend or display in an old car parts swap meet and the possibilities that may result. Components are a result of personal photography, line drawings, applied textures and base colors to produce an antique, authentic, old car look. The components have to be authentic or the composition is in error. The overall composition is tied together by a solid black variable, outline that is printed last to produce a crispness that makes the art pop off the fabric.
The design illustrations have been an ongoing, once a year event beginning in 1989 up through 2008, skipping to 2011, that takes place near Fort Worth, Texas. My research is attending each year to see what people will do at a swap meet and trying to record that action. (Continued on next panel)

Years have been spent taking slides recording my own resources for my depictions... prior to the digital age... as well as shooting digitals for the last eight years, sometime filling up an external chip or two. And I have several friends along with
many museums who are more than eager to participate by allowing photography to be shot of their old cars, pickups, motorcycle, gas pumps and most anything else that can be rusty parts in general... which makes the content that much more interesting from year to year. The bridge over the years that pulls the event together is the use of showing the Pate logo and the figures of Pete Pate and his trusty pal, “Dogg,” in each composition. Leave one of them out and... well, you can imagine as I have been severely chastised for doing so. If the car part depicted is not right, it will be noticed by someone who generally takes delight in pointing out the deficiency. Fun! Fun! Fun!!!