Blue Star Mothers emblem needed

[Cassondra Bennett]

Does anyone have the Blue Star Mothers emblem that they would be willing to share? I am doing a bunch of Christmas ornaments for them at cost trying to help to raise some money for our local chapter. They sent me the logo in an email but it looks just awful!!! so fuzzy you can barely even read the lettering.

Thanks in advance for your help!!!

[Dee Gallo]

Cassondra,

I went to the website, grabbed the logo and hand traced it - took about 15 minutes. It's very small, but you can stretch it easily to fit your needs. Obviously you will want to change the colors to black and white for engraving. There is a black contour in the back in case you want it, but you don't really need it if you increase the size of the lines.

You should really learn to do this yourself as it comes in handy all the time and is not as hard as it might seem at first. Practice, practice, practice!

cheers, dee

edit: also, if you are going to cut the ornaments out, the design is made in 3 pieces that you can use as layers: black base piece, red banner piece, blue lettering/star. Just change the lines to hairline. And figure out where a hole can go to hang it.

[Vicki Rivrud]

Hi Dee,
You really do some amazing work! I am trying to improve my "tracing skill"!

Do you hand trace your artwork , scan it and then clean up in corel?

Are you using a Wacom to trace or actually pencil tracing? Are you using a lightbox?

Thanks,
Vicki

[Dee Gallo]

Hi Vicki,

Glad to help. I do have a Wacom, but I never use it... I'm used to drawing with my mouse so why bother. When I design my own things, I do pencil drawings and scan, then hand trace using CorelDraw tools. I rarely use the trace tool in CD because it seems to make more work to clean up than just doing it myself. On rare occasions I will have something perfect for auto-tracing but that's when I have clean black pen line art. Even so, there is always one or two nodes that need work... I hate it when there are extra layers, especially that white one you never know is there until it's too late.

I have a lightbox, but only use that when I have a pencil drawing and want to do several alterations to see what will work best. But a piece of Aquabee deluxe vellum is just as good in my opinion, practically clear.

When you have a logo like the one you posted, it's just fine to bring it into CD and get into a 200% or bigger view and do the tracing by hand. That way you can correct little things that might be defects in the original too. And you can arrange the pieces as you wish, grouping them in a sensible way instead of the crazy way CD trace makes things.

The more time you spend practicing, the easier and faster it gets. Believe me, that is time well spent. Once you can trace line art, you can then move on to photos and creating your own art from whatever sources you like.

cheers, dee

[Cassondra Bennett]

Dee you are my HERO!!!! THANK YOU more than words can say!!!! I have a wacom but don't like it at all I always end up feeling like I spend more time removing nodes and wasting time.....It takes me forever to redraw in CD but I am getting better so you are right I will keep up with the practice....practice ....practice!!!!

When you are drawing a new image from an existing one like you did here do you just draw the line free hand with the mouse or do you drop nodes and then move/curve the line around the image where the line needs to be....I think that makes sense...LOL

Thanks again sooooo much!!!!

[Dee Gallo]

My technique is to quickly click-doubleclick on corners and center of curves first. Does not have to be perfect. Then, selecting ALL with the bezier tool, I make them all curves. Then it's easy to grab a node and move it to wherever it should be, and grab a line and bend it to your will! Compound curves are easy to control with the node arrows. When I trace, I keep the hairline in the center of the original lines, then after it's right I make the line the correct thickness.

If I have a complicated drawing, I do it in sections (let's say, do the head first, then eyes, nose, mouth) and group them before going on to the next section. That way you can move it or change it easily later.

Keep going, you'll be fine!

[Mike vonBuelow]

Since my Mom is a blue star and a gold star Mom, here's my versions

[Cassondra Bennett]

Dee I didn't know you could do this "Then, selecting ALL with the bezier tool, thanks for the tip!!!

Mike I tried to open your version but wasn't able to??? when it opened in CD there was nothing there....what did I do wrong???

I swear some days the learning curve here feels like its going to swallow me up!!!

[Mike vonBuelow]

Not sure... using X3?

[Neil Pabia]

Mike, hope you don't mind, I saved it in 12 so Cassondra should be able to see it.

[Mike vonBuelow]

no worries, it's for a great cause

[Cassondra Bennett]

Thanks Neil!!! that worked!!!! Is there a way when a file won't open like that one did that I can save it myself some how and then be able to open it in 12??

Mike.....THANK YOU!!! for your SERVICE!!!! and your help with this!!!