Graphic Design

Graphic Design: Designing a Watercolour Painting

/ Isabel Caves / Leave a comment

Yes, you heard right. And no, I didn’t know I could do that either.

If you’ve seen my previous posts, you’ll know that I’ve been creating composite art in Canva by combining and editing multiple graphics. Canva has a wide array of free graphic elements to choose from. This week I discovered something delightful. These elements include (cue excitement) watercolour splashes!

Of course, I got right to work experimenting. This is what I created last night.

It wasn’t the same as taking a paintbrush and letting loose on canvas, but there was something very freeing about putting colours wherever you want, just because. I do quite like how the colours turned out.

The background is an amalgamation of different watercolour splashes. The flowers at the front were made using a Canva-supplied graphic element that I edited for saturation, lighting, transparency, hue, etc. to the get the colours I wanted.

And of course, who would I be if I didn’t make more character graphics? Another delightful discovery has been Instagram reels. The ability to make little videos from your graphics and add music to them? Count me in.

Here’s a couple I made for Onyx the kitty.

Graphic Design: The Girl With Rainbow Hair

/ Isabel Caves / Leave a comment

This week I decided to create a character design for my MC’s best friend in the Witch Doctors Inc series, Addy. I wanted the art to reflect her personality. Addy is enthusiastic, kind, and loyal to a fault. She is sunshine and bubbles and rainbows. But how to say that in a picture? Below is what I came up with.

For a long time, I could only see what was wrong with this design. It’s a composite made of several separate images that were edited (resized, reoriented, filtered) and combined. The rainbow hair was pieced together using 6-8 rainbow images. I wanted the end result to be seamless, but it wouldn’t cooperate, even after I blurred edges.

I reluctantly posted the design to my Instagram, all the while glaring at it like it had murdered a close family member.

Looking back on it now, I see things differently. It isn’t perfect, but I had fun creating it. And the more I designed, the more tricks I’d learn. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all. Why should my design skills be?

Graphic Design: The beginning of my journey…

/ Isabel Caves / 2 Comments

I’ve always wanted to make art. Art excites me, and I knew it would feel great to express myself in this way. The problem? I kind of, well, stink. My drawings are…stomachable…at best. Bring paint into the mix, and let’s just say it’s a miracle I passed art in high school. Words were my thing. As for images, I was destined to be an admirer, not a creator.

Then I discovered photography. Several years ago, I nabbed my first DSLR and started experimenting. It was exhilarating. For the first time in my life, I could express myself with images. Nature and macro photography became quick favourites with me. Still, photography came with limitations. As someone who gravitates towards the fantasy genre, there were some things I could not bring to life with my camera, because they simply did not exist.

Fast forward to a few months ago. I’m working on my current writing baby, the Witch Doctors Inc series on Wattpad.  I’ve always had someone else design the covers, as I didn’t trust myself to do it. But lately, I’ve been publishing companion short stories and universe guides, which are meant to complement the main series, and I didn’t want to keep bothering cover designers every time I had a new one. So I headed to Canva, and had a go myself.

My goal was to create something acceptable that wouldn’t make readers want to puke upon sight. I think I managed to do that. What I didn’t expect, however, was to have so much fun designing. Though I wasn’t very experienced, I really enjoyed exploring the world of graphic design. I finally had a way to express my fantasy ideas with images. It was addictive.

I started an Instagram page to experiment more. I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve been having a lot of fun creating graphics for the Witch Doctors Inc series. Here are some of my latest designs: