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The commercial result of this series of northern Arizona images can be previewed at this online Cafe Gift Shop, for those Flagstaff, Sedona and Grand Canyon enthusiasts!

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The "Flagstaff Experience" is incomplete if you do not include the rocky mountain elk.

An original oil painting and several detailed illustrations are available imprinted on several items from this Cafe Gift Shop Online. Direct giclee printing and sublimation make all of this possible.

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The online Cafe Gift Shops now offer many full color imprinted items for people planning on or have already been down the Colorado River on a Grand Canyon River Trip. This items are exclusive and cannot be found in any regional retail store. Enjoy!

I was requested by some local merchants to create a themed digital image for t-shirts, mugs and more for our locals and the tourists as Flagstaff, Arizona is a Grand Canyon gateway with many additional historic and cultural sites. Nearly five million visitors a year come through here to take in the "grand" scenery and Native American culture. Over the years I've created many designs for product imprint. So, here's another ustilizing the latest technology. Instead of being screen printed as in the past, this full color image will be directly imprinted on several items using sublimation and direct giclee. Unlimited!

Sitting within the largest forest of Ponderosa Pine trees in America, filled with Aspen trees at higher altitudes, the Flagstaff "experience" always includes these images which have become icons in our culture. Most local businesses utilize these images in their logos, brochures and web pages. It's what we're known for.

Aware of this it was automatic to go to my own online clip art collection for some easy-to-use images to give this project a fast start. I chose image NT_041, a vector based image of a stylised sketch of a ponderosa pine cone and pine needles. Then I selected image NT_005, posterized autmn aspen leaves. I'd play with these until an idea crystalized.

Using the vector pine cone and needles image in Illustrator I developed this first sketch. It has an immediate look and feel I like, it is bold and it will work on both black and white backgrounds, which I plan to do.

In Illustrator I separated the parts to make them more accessible in Photoshop and I reduce all of the elements to black and white, no blends.

I rastered this first image at 400 dpi at fifteen inches wide. This gives me a clean and sharp master file to work with.

As you've seen in many other of my digital painting tutorials I use alpha channel masks extensively. Before I did anything on this project I separated the pine cone from the needles, duplicated everything and placed all five elements on separate layers.

With these first elements in place where I want them I then proceed to create masks of each shape, as indicated here. Once these alpha channels are saved I can paint and experiment freely as these "cookie cutter shapes" allow me to undo and restart anytime I wish.

This is the mask for the fill color of the large word FLAGSTAFF.

This is the mask for the color outline for the large word FLAGSTAFF.

This is the mask for the upper pine cone.

This is the mask for the upper pine needles.

This is the mask for the lower pine cone.

This is the mask for the lower pine needles.

Using all of these masks I developed this second sketch. Up until now this has been fairly prosaic in nature and it shows a practical way for anyone to create line art for any project. From here on however, it becomes three dimensional and exciting with texture and subtleties of color that take the design to a whole new level.

At this point I brought in the Fall aspen leaves. I immediately created a mask for the aspen leaves similar to the ones shown above.

Here I get to use one of my favorite texure creating Photoshop Plug Ins ever created... Flaming Pear's BladePro. Be aware immediately that without the masks created early in the project this program can NOT apply its genius to specific shapes.

So, step by step, item by item, I work my way around this design experimenting with bevels and textures until I get a cohesive final impression I find desireable.

In the end I inadvertantly created an embroidered look to the design, a nice surprise. Variations of the same combinations of textures and bevels were applied to all elements, except the red orange border around the letters. It was left smooth for contrast. This, then is the completed master file for this design. From this I interpreted it into all the variations needed for imprinting. Thank you, Jim Thomas.