A few weeks ago I decided to teach myself Adobe Illustrator CS5; it’s a little intimidating because the program can do so much.  But I figure what’s the use in having it if I’m going to be too fearful to use it.  So I took the time to watch some YouTube tutorials and so far I’ve learned a lot.  I’m no where near an expert but I learn something new with each project.  My first job was designing a logo for a new business in Atlanta.  I designed the one for their website and their Facebook profile.

On here and in several other circles I go by the tag “Friar” or “The Celtic Friar”.  I won’t go into the details as to why or how the name came about, but it’s a good fit. While my last name is Germanic, and I mean so Germanic it’s silly, my heart is Celt.  Because of the region I’m in it’s no surprise that half of my blood is Scots-Irish; land of the Picts and the Celts.  Anyway, I digress.  So because of this tag I thought I’d come up with a signature using some typography in an image.  I used a tool to build a monkish sprite (small image) and then used the little monk along with the other fonts and characters to make up the image below.

     The cross, the flare, the text; is all my own work.  The character was made using a java based image builder.  The idea of the entire image though was my own.  This isn’t my first work, I think the first work I did “just because” was the tree.  It stayed on the landing page for this site for a LONG time.  It was done using Adobe Fireworks; another image software that I’m MUCH more comfortable with but it lacks some of the power that Illustrator and Photoshop bring to the table.  I would post the image here but it’s already up on the site and the image doesn’t really mean much unless you read the story behind it.  So, if you’d like to check out “the Tree” then hop over to this link.

I’m looking forward to these new creations and seeing where things take me.  My brother is the artist in the family, I’ve always been the communicator, the peacemaker; so I don’t think I’ll ever be able to top his skills, but it’s nice to play in his shadow.