Quill Pen and Paperless Society

Long before we use stylus to write emails or notes on the screen of our smartphones and iPad, people used quill pen to write. A quill pen was made from the feather of a swan or goose or other large birds. I created the drawing below using Macromedia Freehand MX. I saved the digital artwork in png file format to maintain the transparency of the drawing when placed on any printed medium such as T-shirts, mug or cell phone case. I tried to upload the vector illustration several times to my zazzle account but I failed. So, I closed my Google Chrome browser and then reopened it again. This time I was able to upload the digital illustration.

Back to the story of the quill pen, according to Wikipedia, vast majority of medieval documents, such as the Magna Charta, and the Declaration of Independence were written on paper using quill pens. Today we don't see this writing tool on the shelves of office supplies stores anymore. Now I write most of my articles by pressing the buttons of keys of my laptop. I also do the same when using my cell phone to send text messages.
We live in digital world where writing and sending messages to many different parts of the globes is as simple as pressing (virtual) buttons on the screen of our Samsung Galaxy smartphones and iPad. Users of tablet PC use stylus to create a "hand writing" files.  The same messages needed several months or even years to travel from Asia to Europe in the medieval era.
The use of electronic devices in writing and sending documents via the internet has significantly reduce the amount of paper that we use every day. Paperless society is good for the environment but we cannot eliminate the use of paper completely during this modern time. Who knows that one hundred years from now, people will not use paper anymore.

Digital Illustration of a Butterfly

I like art. I have created a lot of sketches and paintings in the last five years and now I am thinking of learning digital illustration. So, I installed Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Macromedia Freehand MX in my computer. Although Freehand MX is considered as dead. I like it very much. Yes, in 2013, I install Macromedia Freehand MX in my laptop. It is fast and very easy.
Well, I will not talk about the software in this post. A few minutes ago, I have just finished drawing a butterfly using Adobe Photoshop CS3. Because I am still in a beginning level, my artwork is not perfect yet. I will try to spend more time reading tutorials of the above software that are abundantly available on the internet to master the software.
The some of colors that I apply on this illustration are similar to the original colors of the butterfly in its natural habitat. Unfortunately, when I export it into GIF format, the middle body of the insect disappeared. It means, I have to improve my drawing or tracing skills when using Photoshop. There are still a lot of features of the software that I don't know. It takes time to master them but I believe that I can do that. Hope to create better artworks next time. by Charles Roring/ Email: charlesroring@gmail.com