It's Over.

product illustration.

Product Illustration: 

So for this project, I went in to it with the idea that I really wanted to use this new fangled technique of gouache pick out. It was wayyyyy back in the semester when everything was new and cool and all of our supplies weren't run to the ground (I honestly don't even think that's a phrase. So there's that) and I wanted to utilize this technique. I remember wanting to choose something a. this is iconic (honestly, my first choice was a Budweiser bottle but I'm pretty sure I've beaten the whole A-B illustration thing to death at this point in the semester so I stuck to some non-alcoholic products [although I think we might have a partnership with Pepsi but please don't quote me on that] so I settled on this) and b. I wanted to choose a product that would work well with the technique I had chosen. I knew that the highlights and curves of the bottle would look nice on gouache, so that's what I chose. 

I used about 11.5 of the twelve hours that were allotted for this piece. It took a lot longer than I expected, and I spent the majority of the time figuring out the highlights of the glass. 

I used a variety of reference photos to inspire the rendering of this image. The main photo that I used 

was a clear bottle, so I invented a green bottle with a little bit of, you know, magic.

life & death. 

So. This project was a learning experience. It took about seven tries to get to where I wanted it to be, scrapping it each time. I chose it to be in this portfolio because I think it exemplifies a different aspect of my work that hadn't been explored before and I had never worked that in detail in watercolor without supporting linework. So that's why it deserves a spot in the portfolio. (Also let's take note of the fact that it sounds like I'm trying to get this piece in on a reality tv show. It's a worthy contestant, right? For what, I'm really not sure.) 

 For this assignment, I chose a pumpkin in a pumpkin patch and then a rotting jack-o-lantern sitting on a porch. I think this is my fourth version of the live pumpkin, so that's good. It really took a while to get the hang of the scale of the pumpkin in relation to the rest of the piece. I had initially had some little pumpkins in the background of the pumpkin patch but did away with those in the final version of this artwork. I added in some leaves in order to balance the color and make it not all just dirt, as well as to bring out the green of the stem as well as the accent color in the pumpkin. I used a flat brush to achieve the grass effect in the back of the pumpkin patch, and a wash of light blue (which didn't translate well in the reproduced image) for the sky of this piece.

Now, moving on to the jack-o-lantern. This one was much more of a struggle. I had been working so long with gouache that I kind of forgot how to use watercolor. But anyway, my entire technique was wet on dry and I miiight have been just a little tiny bit "fussy" in doing this assignment. But anyway, instead of scrapping the whole piece, I went in with water and "erased" a lot of what I had laid down earlier. And then I went back in, while the piece was still wet, and added in pigment. I used darker reds, oranges, yellows and browns in addition to the black in order to get the decaying effect. I had initially just had a brown floor and a weird grayish blue background but I decided to change to bricks.

From start to finish, I would say I probably spent about 11 hours, possibly more, on these two pieces combined.

three. 

So for this little guy I used a wet on wet technique on raw illustration paper. This is gouache, and I had never used gouache without the gesso + matte medium + water primer (which, by the way, ruined my favorite yoga pants after an unfortunate spill but that may just be a tiny bit beside the point). So I wanted to try gouache in a different manner and included this piece because of the way that the gouache works in this. I really liked the interactions between the different values of green in the peas themselves. 

I spent about five hours or so on this piece. I struggled initially with the structure of the piece, but was able to combat that later after everything had dried as I went in and added in darker hues in order to build that structure. 

world record. 

So, world record. What a fun time. Joke. It wasn't that fun of a time. Because painting five hundred million teacups is my own personal purgatory (or hell but that alliteration is kind of nice). So I went in to this with the concept of "the world's largest tea party" after a reputable search engine told me that was a real world record. I piled up some teacups in the sink in my "air comp" and thought that would be a great idea. And then I was told to "go gonzo" (which, can we just establish is not actually a thing?) and ended up with these many teacups. So I drew each of them with a handy dandy Micron and then filled them in randomly with different colors. I kept with simple muted tones for the rest of the kitchen scene because I didn't want to distract from the worst chore ever. And, teacups can't be put in the dishwasher so that's an unfortunate event for whoever spins "dishes" on the chore chart that day. So anyway, I used line art and watercolor for this piece. This piece took forever (8 hours) and forever equals 10,000 hours so that means I'm an expert now, right? Right. 

classical music album cover. 

And finally, we have the classical music album cover. I started out with an illustration of a cello and then decided to use watercolor and line art. I had never utilized the technique of the watercolor drips, so I decided to try it out for this one and was pleasantly surprised by the results. 

I decided to do the concept of one side regular and one side bleeding rainbow, because, you know, Bach's music makes cellos change colors and explode. Or so I've heard. So I painted the one side brown and then the other I used a reddish purple, as I had originally planned to stay in that color range. However, I started adding in bright red and yellow and green and blue and all kinds of crazy things and was really happy with how it turned out. But, I got a little fussy. Some of the colors (like green and purple or blue and red) started running together and it freaked me out, because it wasn't working the way I wanted to. So, at some points, I went in with the corner of a paper towel and lifted the excess water out. Which I probably shouldn't have done but hey, it turned out well so I'm happy with it. 

Another issue, once everything dried and it looked all pretty, was to figure out what to do with it. I was afraid that the cello didn't translate well into a square, as the LP and all of the other sizes were square, so I tried different ways of coping with that. It took a lot to find balance in the piece (and a lot of whining, thanks for putting up with me, Rusty) and eventually I came up with this. 

Okay the end thanks for a great semester it was my favorite 7:30 Monday Wednesday Friday class of Fall 2013. 

Classical Music

So classical music ... I started out with the idea that I wanted to do some kind of watercolor drip with line art. I chose the subject of musical instruments. I used Bach's "Cello Suites" as well as Mozart's "French Horn Concerto No. 4". I started with the cello but later realized it would not translate well into a square, so did the French Horn as well, seen below. 

Annnnnd then decided this didn't work quite as well as the cello did so with a little bit of playing around in Photoshop and a lot of whining, I ended up with this: 

The whole "balance" thing was an issue here, as the cello had been so close to the right edge of the composition that it was throwing the left off balance. To combat this, I added in paint drops (taken from the French horn piece, see above) to fill the left side of the piece. However, it wasn't really working, so with some help from Rusty (thanks, I guess) I was able to create a composition that was actually balanced and worked. I then put in the type which was aligned to the thing where the strings go on the cello (technical terms here) because this is a grid and I love grids and I always use grids because grids grids grids. 

Book Cover {Revised}

So good news, it's been like half of a month since I last blogged. 

But here is the revised cover for "Anne of Green Gables". In this edition, Anne gets a new hat. 

Society of Illustrators {final}

So ... dragon again. 

I did a few revisions for this piece, I added more weight to the feet and the head and things like that, and majorly beefed up the line quality in the "fire". Which I think worked well. I did the extra lines in the feet and legs and other things with pen, and then did the lines for the fire with the tablet in Photoshop. Also, this time I scanned it in with a scanner that accommodated the entire piece, which was nice.

Book Cover Redesign

So ... 

I chose Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud, as my subject for the cover art. 

So I chose this with the idea of just using the protagonists's iconic red braids and straw hat as the subject for the illustration. I wanted to be able to do this without it looking like she's just missing a face or something. So that was the goal. 

I used watercolor and pen for this piece, and learned how to draw braids so that was fun. 

I knew that I wanted to integrate hand lettering into this book cover, so I whipped up some gold metallic powder + ink + gum arabic and went to town. #perksofbeingacalligrapherskid 

So after painting the braids and hat and adding in some hand lettering, I scanned the whole thing in. It wasn't working very well as just the plain white background, so I took it into Photoshop and added a green background, played around with the layout of the type, and changed the hair ribbons from green to white. 

Below is the original scan. 

And the illustration + text + background. 

And then the square version: 

Annnnd I'll probably have to redo this about a million more times but this is what I've got for now.

Society of Illustrators

So ... Society of Illustrators Poster. 

So I started on this buddy yesterday afternoon, strictly following Rusty's 24 hour rule on getting projects done. I mean, at least it was more than 12 hours more than before it was due, right? Right. 

So I had no idea what I wanted to do for this illustration, and then I randomly decided that I wanted to draw a dragon. Weird? Yes. Very much so. I did some internet researching whilst watching What Not to Wear and became good friends with a website entirely devoted to drawing dragons which I think is really just for boys ranging in the 7-10 age group but whatever. 

So I started with some line art (because line is life, apparently) and then dropped in the watercolor. 

Also, I didn't have a concept for this poster but then I came to class with just a dragon and got some feedback from a classmate (aka they provided me with said concept). 

"Good Illustration is Not a Myth"

Native American Heritage Month {Revised}

So ... let's try this again. Here is the final version of the Native American Heritage Month poster. 

Things that have changed since the last round: 

1. That whole duotone (is that spelled right? hopefully) deal. I brought in some of the teal-ish color into the illustration itself, and that integration of the spot color helped connect the illustration to the text. 

2. I bumped up the font size on the "Native American" and toggled with the opacity. 

3. I lightened some of the highlights in the illustration and added some more hair texture. 

4. I played around with the spacing of the text layout, and I think it's a much stronger structure now. 

5. I think that's about it. The end.