Times Square

Greetings, fellow Deke-o-philes!

This issue of dekeSpeak comes from a cool place. As the thermometer dips and layered apparel becomes increasingly conspicuous, I'm enjoying the warm fuzzy feeling I get from sharing the treasure trove of insights available on deke.com. Deke hooked up with Bert Monroy, and got a close look at Bert's most recent masterwork. Read on to get a glimpse of it yourself. Our tip for this installment comes from Deke's Photoshop CS5 One-on-One: Mastery course for lynda.com. And, I bring you good news: we've been able to extend the special (and very popular) Fotolia offer from the previous newsletter.

That's the news for now. As I'm sure you know, Deke sends all his virtual love.

Best regards, and I hope you're having a creative day,
Lou B, Speaker of the Deke, dekeOnline Read more » 

Today I was hanging out at the lynda.com studios (working on my Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Mastery course, if you must know). When I ran into that one artist who isn't afraid to make his own reality, even if it requires hand-drawing individual drops of bird poop and sacrificing three years of his life. By which I mean, Bert Monroy. Colleen was there, too---these days, she works for lynda.com. And, before anyone knew it, Bert was showing us the most recent version of his gigatron-by-teratron piece of bazillion-pixel imagery, "Times Square."

It's radically dazzling. Not to mention, huge. In a way that few things beyond a stretch-Ford F750 hauling 100+ freight cars might be deemed huge. (Seriously, it contains more pixels than there are galaxies in your head.) And it made me realize how very ashamed I am for not having shared the following info until now: By some random quirk of fate---perhaps because Bert is out of his mind!---this excellent man decided to include Colleen and I in his masterwork. Here's a miniature (not to mention, old) version of Bert's composition. With Colleen and I rendered in bright green. We're on the left. You can't miss us, because there's a giant Zapf Dingbats finger pointing in our direction.

I know many of you live in awe-and-wonder over the likes of Bert. (As well you should, I say.) Which is why I thought I'd post these charming sketches: Read more » 

This week on Martini Hour, the lounge is once again full of luminary talent, international charm, and refreshing cocktails. We've invited back that wizard of digital paint, Bert Monroy, to discuss his new work, "Times Square at Night." And we're also fortunate enough to have that salty-tongued Canadian Karen Gauthier from Gridiron software visit us once again. (It's a good thing, too, because with the gazillion terabites of files that go into Bert's 5-ft x 25-ft digital painting, he is the perfect stress tester for Karen's new product, Flow.)

Here's what we found in the mind of the master this week: Read more »