The last three days have been incredible!

I've been in Los Angeles attending the annual Adobe MAX conference - wo incredible key note sessions, a look at at what Adobe engineers are developing and attending a multitude of breakout sessions

I'm not talking about Christmas. I'm referring to Autumn, the best season, in my opinion. There's so much fun stuff happening during Fall. I love the smell of the breeze and the crispness of the air during fall. Growing up in West Virginia, the changing colors of the leaves was always something awe inspiring. Not to mention the sports - baseball is in the playoffs, football is beginning... Fall is just an amazing season.

That's why this one project at work is particularly fun. I get to do a quirky, fall scene illustration. Take a look and see some of the beauty Fall is to me.

However, I like drawing.  One of the fun projects I'm working on is little illustrations to put on flash cards to help children learn different languages. In this newest lesson, they're learning names of some of the animals.  I was excited as to how the sketch of the monkey turned out, I thought I'd share it with everyone who wouldn't otherwise get to see it.  The style of the flash cards is very simple, but I liked the way the sketch was coming along that I decided I will take the sketch in a different direction for a personal project.  That final illustration I'll post when it gets finished.  Until then, enjoy the sketch!

...tomorrow. Even though tomorrow is going to be an incredibly long and busy day, I look forward to the challenge. Part of the reason I go to work is that I love my job, I love the challenge, I love the creativity I get to express.

Tomorrow, I get to expand on my job description. There's a very special event and I get to be the photographer. Photography has always been an interest of mine, and to be able to add this responsibility to my day makes me excited to go through the long day. (if I'm allowed, I'll share a few shots on my next post).

Research, in this case, is when I look at what's out there - what's been designed, how websites look, what logos look like for a specific topic.  With the topic I'm currently researching, there's not much out there which pertains exactly to what I'm looking for.  I'm faced with a canundrum, I can look at this in two different ways:  "Dammit, I can't find what I'm looking for..." OR "WooHoo, I'm leading the way!!"  With this project, I'm choosing to look at this situation in the latter.  This is my chance to break the barrier, to design something that hasn't really been designed before.  Yes, the topic is out there, but the target audience is something that hasn't been reached.  Wish me luck as I attempt to design something geared towards an audience that appears to yet be reached!

I haven't actually been on LinkedIn in a while except to visit posts from groups I belong to.  I got on there this evening and had to make several changes - updated my Twitter info (@graphicmichael), changed some wording on my info and my likes, and some other small changes.  I also invited several people to connect with me, collegues and old friends.  Let me know if you want to connect.

Sometimes I have to draw people, as any artist does. These two weren't intended to look like me, however, they turned out looking like self portraits. Oh well. The client liked the drawings and didn't seem to care that they looked a bit like me.

I'm joining Posterous as a way to share images and thoughts.  I doodle and draw and design for a living and sometimes would like to share what I am doing with an audience that may not see my work otherwise.  I hope that you like what you see.  And I'm always open for CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.  One of my pet peeves at work is when someone says they do not like a design, but won't tell me what it is that they don't like.  I don't know how to fix an illustration or a layout if my customer doesn't give me constructive feedback.  I look forward to working more with Posterous.