Wetlands Mural

 © Taylor Studios 2010

Wetlands Mural, acrylic on wood, for Nescopeck State Park in Pennsylvania, on sub-contract to 

Taylor Studios. It will be part of a diorama. Click on image to enlarge.

© Taylor Studios 2012

Close up of the Great Blue Heron

Woodlands Mural

 © Taylor Studios 2012

Woodland mural in acrylic on wood for Nescopeck State Park in Pennsylania on sub-contract to Taylor Studios. It is designed to blend in with a diorama in front of it.
Click on image to enlarge.

©Taylor Studios 2012

A close-up of the black bears 

Meadow Mural

    ©Taylor Studios 2012

This is a meadow mural I just finished as a sub-contract for Taylor Studios. It is part of a diorama for Nescopeck State Park in Pennsylvania. Acrylic on wood. The wacky looking bird in the upper right hand corner is a woodcock. And yes, some of the plants are wrong for the season, but the client wanted them in for identification.

   ©Taylor Studios 2012

 Here's a close-up of the deer, a field sparrow, and purple cone flowers.

                                       ©Taylor Studios 2012


                  Here's a close-up of a light-phase red tail hawk. (Upper left corner of mural)

                                                  

fun with scanning

 A while back I discovered that I can put flattish objects in my scanner for interesting results. This is a slab of "fossilized" dried, cracked mud. It is pretty neat looking by itself, with the patterns made by the cracks, but I thought I'd see what else I could do with it in Photoshop.

The first thing I did was duplicate my favorite section of it, then copy and paste them to create this new pattern. I really like it, it reminds me of fractals! I wasn't finished yet though, and tried some more things.

 Among other things I tried, I inverted the image. Wow! Now it looks like ice! Maybe some kind of abstract colored window! Though this was neat, I didn't stop there.

I played with color, contrast, and gradients. I really like this effect, like the sun shining through a window made of amethyst! Looking forward to trying out other effects, and seeing what use I can put it to in a finished illustration!

All images © Lucy A. Synk 2012

Looking for a black cat.

I came up with this image in response to a similar, but much more biased one posted on Facebook. This still has a biting edge, but toward a specific area of concern, and in a way that respects many disciplines of learning, including science. Hopefully, there are lots of cat owners out there who will appreciate the wry humor!

The dark rooms with stairs I created in MAYA. I then altered a photo I'd taken of my first cat, Leia, making  her black, and finished the whole thing in Photoshop.

newspaper picture of me painting mural

Here's an image of the photo posted in Champaign's paper, The News Gazette on Wednesday, April 11.Hard at work painting prairie flowers!

Homer Lake Nature Center Mural

This is only one section of a small mural I just completed for the Homer Lake Interpretive Center, a nature center near Champaign, IL. I really enjoyed it, haven't done a prairie mural in quite a while!

4th illo in the Wickiup learning center series

This was a lot of fun! I especially enjoyed creating the traffic light and the muddy flood waters. The "smear" tool in Photoshop came in very handy for the water's currents.
The final exhibit, the rest of my illustrations, and the coloring book, will be at the Wickiup Hill Learning Center in Iowa, once installation of the exhibit is completed.

3rd sample from illustrations for Wickiup Hill Learning Center (via Taylor Studios)

As you can see, the kids are having quite the magical adventure! In this scene they have become very small. If you are interested in seeing the final exhibit, the rest of my illustrations, or the coloring book, they will be at the Wickiup Hill Learning Center in Iowa, once installation of the exhibit is completed.

2nd illustration for Wickiup Hill Learning Center (via Taylor Studios)

Using a variety of Photoshop brushes and effects, I created a look of a watercolor wash behind the dragonfly.

1st sample series of illustrations for Wickiup Hill Learning Center

I recently finished about 36 illustrations that will be used in a natural history exhibit as well as a coloring book. The black line work initially started with traditional media, but changes were made in Photoshop and Illustrator. All color work was done in Photoshop. The client was going for a watercolor look, and felt these woodchuck babies were "too realistic"! I had so much fun making the fur however, that I couldn't bear to toss this version. This is just part of the illo- I enlarged it to focus on the cute fuzziness! Guess how I did the fur- used a custom brush meant for making grass and went crazy with it!

new MAYA images

I've finished my MAYA class at Parkland. For those unfamiliar with MAYA, it is a vertual 3D application- you have "cameras" and can move about in space. To make an object, you have to construct it in 3 dimensions. Lots of geometry involved. You set the lights in different places, and decide which angle provides the best composition. Here are my two favorite images created during the semester:

The Party's Over

This was our final project, modeling, creating color & texture, setting lights, and even a bit of mapping. The detail of the surface the bottle is lying on was from an experiment with acrylic washes which I scanned into Photoshop and "mapped" on.


Labrynth

This was my first project in the class. We were not allowed to do anything but model and set lights. I wanted a mysterious, Esher-like look.