Hi Friends,
I was just about to post a Happy Halloween topic in the Personal Discussions forum, only to find that I really don't have any nice clipart for this holiday. Even though there is clipart all over the internet, most of it is in raster formats. So I think we must have another little drawing challenge, to make vector holiday clipart!

It doesn't have to be for Halloween, or only for Halloween. We could make clipart for all kinds of holidays, and have our own little collection. Perhaps we could even upload to OCL? And of course, for now, we will most likely have to export them to PNG. But I expect now that IE has begun to offer limited SVG support, we will begin to see more and more vector clipart on the internet. So we should get a jumpstart on it!

Personally, this will present me with 2 challenges. I'm not very good with cartoon or typical clipart style of drawing, and I also have a hard time making very small images work well. So I have a lot to learn! Maybe I'll start with a simple little pumpkin or jack-o-lantern

OH maybe we could use RM.'s raster/vector grid called Pixtor, from this topic: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=10007 And RM. already has done something like holiday clipart with his Frankie smiley collection: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10170. (Frankenstein is a hallween character, right?)

So off we go!

Great idea! I'm going to make some.

*by the way, the new tutorial guy ( ) has a pumpkin tutorial on his site, we should ask him to upload it!
http://2dgameartforprogrammers.blogspot.com/2011/10/bringing-in-gradients.html

Ya, and there's a halloween black cat posted in Finished Work forum. Have to navigate to DA to see it though, unless he fixes the url tag. It's more of a poster than a clipart, though.

I have so many different projects going right now (with Inkscape). But if I can't get something done soon, we have a plethora of holidays in the next few months, lol.

This is my pumpkin, it can be used for Halloween or Thanksgiving or...

Oh yay, our first image for this category!

Nice punkin

Ok, here's my first one. I'll probably do more for other holidays, but maybe not right away.
Actually these are several. I'm not good with color and artistic stuff, so I have a few different versions here. My favorites are the 2 on the right. I'd like to animate the ghost, but it will probably be a while before there's a mature animation software for SVG images. (And these are technically PNG, but the original is SVG.)
Comments welcome



Oh, well actually I guess I have another one. I found a font that I thought looked Halloweeny. And in all caps, the 2 "E"s side by side gave me an idea. So I flipped the first E, converted to path, and tweaked them to look sort of like a spider.



(All are small because clipart is usually on the small side. And my goal for Halloween is to make clipart for forum postings....at least for now.)

Hi Friends,
I should start on the Thanksgiving or Christmas, or even just winter season images soon. But for now, I'm still trying to make some for Halloween. Here's my jack-o-lantern.



I don't know, it's hard for me not to want to make images look realistic. I can really see this one as a full size and realistic image....maybe I'll try it, we'll see
Actually I just now see where I could make some changes to this one.....

Edit
Well, I'm not sure the changes (on the right, original on left) are really much of an improvement. I think I just don't have the kind of artistic skills for clipart type of drawing, or cartoon style, or whatever. But it's fun to try anyway. Comments always welcome

I say go for it with xmas. people need them by end nov, early dec.

Hello guys not sure what size you need, but I post my christmas tree.
Used for a a postcard on the italian website but we can use as well like clipart for Christmas


Clip art



Original size

Oh, very nice!

Hey, that reminds me of a holiday card, which makes me realize it would be fun to do drawings for cards (of any type). Maybe another topic though?

Ok, I made a candy cane, with a couple a variations!
I might actually put these on OCL....??

Hi Friends,
spaventapasseri's last post reminded me of a greeting card, so I thought I'd try to make something similar. I guess this would be kind of a postcard. I'm not sure if it really would qualify as clipart, but I'd say it could fit the category.

As is usually the case, I've made a few different versions. I think it's always interesting to hear comments, and I always learn a little more from them

So this is the 1st, or maybe basic version. It will probably be my final choice, unless I can make the tree idea work (in next 3 variations).



Then I thought it needed more interest, so I added a tree:



Since I've given the background hills and mountains a little depths and dimension, I think the tree looks too 2 dimensional. I tried making it a little smaller:



which I think is an improvement. But somehow, the 2 dimentionality of it still stands out, and contrasts too much with the rest of the drawing. I tried a little blur, but it still sticks out like a sore thumb. I think what I need is a different design for the tree, but I'm not sure I have those kinds of skills.

It's supposed to look like a snow covered landscape at night. I'm not sure I've got the colors right though. I guess I'll still be working on the tree, and trying out some more different ideas (than the few I've already tried). But any comments or suggestions are always welcomed

(btw, the blank area in bottom left corner is for signing my name before I send it)(assuming I can figure out how to print it onto post cards, lol)

PS - I came up with another idea before I even finished posting! Here I've just used the same font with the "|" key, which I filled in with dark brown, as kind of a tree trunk. And enlarged it a bunch. So the tree matches the font. This may be my favorite



All best

This is my holiday clipart. I imported an image for kids without colours that I found in Internet, then I traced my drawing using colours and gradients.
Do you like it?

Hi all

Brynn, yes! Do upload your candy canes to the Openclipart library. They are certainly up to the OCL's artistic standard. They're bright and cheerful, exactly the kind of thing people will be looking for in December. The ghosts and jack-o-lanterns are cute. About your greeting card, the first version of the pine tree is my favourite. I'm sure the last one was fun to do, but I think the first fits the style of the landscape better. I like the clean, simple lines and the distinct but softly blended shadows of the snowy landscape.
spaventapasseri, thanks for posting your Christmas tree greeting, How did you get that shaggy look in the greenery? Very nice
Pippi2011, I like your pumpkin.

I've enjoyed following this thread and seeing what everyone has posted so far.

I've done some things I hoped might work for clipart , Some of the images are a bit big. I'll try to get the files cleaned-up and posted soon. Brynn mentioned a website (it was the personal discussions forum) in the original post in this thread, and that got me thinking. I tend to forget that there are many people who don't think of clip-art as a print media resource, but use it a lot on electronic media for their web pages, in forums, and such, so I started playing with simple elements that I thought might be useful for that. I had a lot of fun making the drawings but I'm still having some trouble finding the right place to upload them so I can share them here.

Oh nice, marydonata!
Welcome to our little challenges

Thanks for your comments, Inkspots. OCL has actually be down recently, but is now "back in business". So I think I will look into uploading the candy canes.

I was playing around with spiro splines, as I enjoy doing now and then. I like how you can drag around a node or nodes until the renderer freaks out and draws some wild things. (I will miss this, if the new renderer expected with 0.49 "fixes" it!) Anyway, it's like a child looking at clouds and seeing shapes in them. So I look at the squiggles, and see whatever I see. This one reminded me of a turkey, and after adding color, actually kind of looks cute.....to me, at least

This is the small version of Spiro-Turkey:

Apparently, spiro splines are contagious ,)

Lol, very nice!
I like that kind of airy effect on the tree. And of course I love those splines

Marydonata, your Santa and reindeer are very cute and colorful. I like them, and hope we will be seeing more of your work as time goes on.
About spirosplines: Yes, they are fun to play with, and bryn, your "wild" turkey is a very creative use of them, not cute really, but visually appealing and fascinating. Spiro splines give me fits, lol! You never know how they're going to react if you move a node or two, and I'm still not so familiar with them that I can find them comfortable to work with, I glare at them very sternly when I begin so they will know not to try their mischievous tricks with me. ( and it does me no good at all.)
Maestral Your splines Christmas tree is very nice, I like the airy look of the tree, and the bright complimentary colours, that greeting card is colourful and attractive, the new years greeting with the Christmas ornaments is Lovely and I love the subtle colour scheme paired with the bright Golden accents of the sparkle and ornament caps.

I love making things for Christmas, painting vintage toys,Christmas decorations, and scenes, cheerful, playful,Trendy,or sentimental, creating for Christmas is just plain fun.
so....I usually start some time between the end of august and October 31st . This year...for the first time, I actually used Inkscape for more than just creating minor accents or bitmap tools to use in other software, like Gimp. I've learned so much, and it's been an enjoyable process.
Since we're posting our greeting Cards here, I'll begin by uploading that. Please be gentle, this is my first time at sharing one of my digital images with "the world", and in an artists community, I hope you all will like it. I went a little crazy with the clipart Idea, and most of it is probably not worth sharing, but I will post the images I liked the best, the ones I think others might find useful, over the next few days. Here's the greeting card.



Happy Hoildays Everyone

Thank you for the kind words, which are accompanied by such a beautiful greeting card.

Omgoodness, Inkspots, that is absolutely stunning!
I don't know how you managed it, but you stole my next idea. I'm drawing another "card" now, this one with bells (which I can only hope look half as good as yours) which is just going to be a New Years "card". I was stumped on the ribbon part, and went looking for tutorials. But I haven't found any yet. I did an ok one on the candy canes. But the sparkly dots and border on yours is amazing -- inspired even!

Did you use the Voronoi Pattern extension to get the pattern on the bells? However you did it, it's really nice. The only thing I see that seems a bit off, is the size of the text at the top on the left seems a bit small. Other than that, I'm just stunned -- amazing work!

Oh Maestral, I just noticed the new one that you added -- the New Years one. Nice! I really like the simplicity. It has a kind of quiet glory to it -- just like what you want for the new year!

Thank you for your words, you are very kind!
Here it is a banner I made for my blog, I have only changed the language, of course. My blog is in italian.

Thank you all for your comments, I'm so glad you liked the greeting card ( I was a bit nervous about sharing it with so many awesomely talented artists in the forum)
Brynn about the ribbon, yes I know exactly what you mean about drawing ribbon bows and curls. I couldn't find a good tutorial on it either, and I searched for days. Maybe we should write one. I think the calligraphy tool would be great for that if you have a graphics tablet and can use the pen tool pressure and angle to vary the path thickness and line angle. I don't have a tablet , but I want one desperately. If you want the svg of the bells I'll hunt up the link and post it here as soon as I can. The sparkly dots on the ribbon are actually tiny stars, and the ribbon design was inspired by some florist ribbon I had taken out and happened to see while I was drawing the bells. The original image was done in A4 size, and all those tiny details are clearly visible in the svg, even on a letter sized greeting card. Shrinking things down for posting in the forum unfortunately made it impossible to see them in the png.The lace crackle pattern was drawn by hand using the pencil tool, but when it was finished it had about a million nodes, so it had to be simplified several times. As I was reading your post I opened inkscape and searched for the veroni pattern extension, but I couldn't find it. I would be ashamed to admit how many hours I spent drawing the crackle lace and if the veroni extension could make it faster and easier next time, I want it! You are right that the text in the upper left is very small, but that message would normally be on the inside of the card, and I put it there on the left panel as kind of an afterthought. Sorry If scooped your idea with the bells..but hey...you did the same to me with your candy canes. I had just finished drawing mine, and thought they were ready to share, when I saw yours, and they were so nice I just didn't bother posting mine. I liked the ribbon you did for yours. please do post your bells when they're finished, I would love to see them. Oh, and if you want to, you can pm and we can discuss ideas for drawing ribbons. Maybe we can help ourselves and other Inkscapers in the process.

I decided to embed only png images in forum posts, for the sake of people who's browsers wont display svg images, or don't show them properly...but if you want an svg of something I've posted just let me know and I'll be happy to share it.

Here is my clipart garland

Marydonata I love the ornaments in your banner, How can we find your blog so we can see it in it's native habitat?
Thankyou for translating the text for us.

Extensions menu > Generate from Path > Voronoi Pattern
And I suppose you drew the garland branches too, instead of the Random Trees extension (Extensions > Render > Random Tree)?

(more comments tomorrow - I'm falling asleep...zzzzz)

brynn Thank you so much. I found the Veroni pattern extension and tried it out. It would have saved me so much time, I wish I'd known about it earlier. I'll experiment and play with it bit to try and figure out what I can do with it, and if I can get the cell shapes to look a bit more organic. About the pine branches in the garland: I used the L-system to make a few twigs,and then duplicated and modified, etc to get a branch I liked. I did begin by TRYING to draw the branch by hand, but it took ages, and I never got a result I liked. ( also, that created more nodes than my computer could handle and inkscape bogged down so badly I couldn't work with the image.) I know in many cases there must be easier ways of making complex details, than just drawing them by hand, but I've only recently, over the last few months begun trying to really put Inkscape to use, and there is a great deal for me to learn. I've more or less abandoned my book, and it had only got so far as describing the bitmap trace function, and briefly introducing the use of built in patterns, and filters when I decided it just didn't cover the information well enough, and was a bit too outdated to be my primary guide in learning the software. I think the Christmas bells, and the garland have been some of my most ambitious Inkscape projects up to this point. They were both created for use as greeting card elements and I really wanted them to be the very best that I could do. There are a Holiday wreath, and several small accents that belong to the same set. I used them all in designing my greeting cards for this holiday, all for the first time done completely with Inkscape.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Card

I made few different holiday cards and this is one of them:



and the same card in .gif: