Laurie O'Keefe
Medical/Biological Illustrations
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www.laurieokeefe.com

Hey everyone, thanks so much for all your nice comments about the gopher book. As far as technique ( Kathleen) I used a combination of traditional and digital techniques. I was trying to figure out what would be the fastest way to do this, and didn't want it to look too "computery" so  animals were done traditionally using marker and color pencil, dragged into photoshop where I boosted the color, highlights and blurred the fur slightly. Some trees and plants were traditional watercolor, but the majority of all the backgrounds were all digital. I think it probably took at least twice as long doing it this way, and the more I got into it the goofier I got with all the ridiculous detail. But, I think the publisher did a nice job with the printing of the book, and it was fun to get a bunch of copies to pass around to friends and relatives. The only change I had to make on the whole book was the cover, because the publisher thought the original gopher was a bit too scary and ugly (beady eyes, big teeth and nails...). But, if any of you have ever seen a gopher, you'd probably agree that they are not exactly cute.  Ah, the beauty of artistic license. 

Laurie

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