Blog Murder.

So I haven't blogged in a week so sorry about that one ... does that mean my blog is dead?  but I suppose it's excusable with being gone for five days, right? Right. Okay good.

So in lieu of bringing a sketchbook and working on Illustration during my fall break, I went to Oklahoma to serve those who had been affected by the series of tornados that hit late May of this year and did not do any illustration at all. I brought my Nikon but did not take a single picture with it, as I really wanted to be immersed in service and did not want to hide behind the lens. Although I took some pictures on my phone, so here are a few of my Instagram pictures from the trip:

Naturally if you're on a road trip you need a picture of the road. Especially if it's an open road and you have nine more hours of driving ahead of you.

We spent a morning sifting through a pile of rubble and throwing away all of the glass, metal, toilets, trash, gutters, etc that had ended up in that pile from the tornado. Also in that pile of rubble was a large wooden stick (with nails sticking out of random places, let's hope everyone had their tetanus shots up to date) as well as a baseball. So we played some good old fashioned stickball in the dirt during lunchtime. 

We also got lost somewhere between Shawnee and Moore, but it proved to be a very scenic route through rural Oklahoma. 

I don't know what it is about water towers but this one was cool. Also, Moore is the home of Toby Keith so that's exciting if you're into that kind of thing. 

After one day of service, we drove through an area that was most physically affected by the storm. It was a very surreal experience, driving through what seemed like vacant lots. But as we looked closely, we realized there were sidewalks, driveways, and foundations of homes. There were areas that were completely sound after the storms and areas that were just flattened. But it was incredible driving through this neighborhood and seeing this message. 

But anyway, that was Oklahoma and this is Kirksville, and when I got home after driving all day on Sunday I worked on Illustration and came up with a few ideas for the modern day slavery assignment. After doing a bit of research on the different kinds of modern slavery, I decided I wanted to focus on child slavery in the modern world. I drew up a sketch, and am currently working on a comp of this piece. So here's the unfinished version of it so far.

FOUR LINE ART 

The work: this piece is from one of the ten a days for line art, specifically the "selfie" assignment. The picture that I used for reference for this one was taken outside of a restaurant when my father came to visit me one time freshman year. I think he took a picture to prove to my mother that I was still alive or whatnot. So there's that. 

Technique: I used a Micron pen for this one, and went in with the intent of making it more stylized. This photo was taken a few weeks before I cut of (almost) all of my hair a few years ago, and my hair was a bit of a wet, scraggly mess during this photo. I decided to use that to my advantage stylistically and not focus on drawing each little clump of hair but instead drawing the hair just all over the place. 

Time it took: This one was around 20 minutes, five minutes under budget. 

Success you believe you had: I believe I was successful in my stylistic intent. This was one of the ones that Rusty marked to re-draw twice as large. 

Things you would do next time to do better: The eyes and nose, in my opinion, look a little bit awkward. I think I could have taken a little bit more time to be more detailed, but then again, that could also ruin the free strokes of this drawing. 

The work: This was another one of the selfies. That's all. 

Technique: As noted above, I wanted to use more of a stylized approach in this one as well. I focused on the detail in the features and then just did some basic line work for the hair. I used two weights (I can't remember which they were off the top of my head) for this one. 

Time It Took: This was just a little bit over budget, about 31 minutes. 

Success You Believe You Had: I liked how this one turned out. I think I was successful in the execution of the features, especially in regard to detail. The heavy weight of the eyes and eyebrows contrast well with the fine lines of the hair. Additionally, the facial expression is captured well in this drawing. I also had success with the hair, because I was afraid that the little curl things at the bottom would turn out looking too ... childish maybe? stick figure drawing? I'm not quite sure what the right word for that would be but it doesn't matter because it didn't turn out that way. 

Things You Would Do Next Time to do Better: I think I would clean up the line near the nose that looks a little bit jagged, and maybe clean up the hair lines as well. But there's not much else that I would to do change this piece. 

The work: So ... I kind of sold out. Sorry Rusty. I was going to redo one of my line art things because I couldn't find one that I liked but in the sake of time/the fact that I'm going to Oklahoma in 58 minutes, I decided to run with this little deal. Also, sorry I'm not sorry that I picked three of the four to be selfies. So there's that

The technique: This one was done with micron pens, and I did it a little bit stylistically different from the other two self portraits. This was a mixture of crosshatching and whatever the hell the hair is. I focused on detail in the features as well in this piece. 

Success: I think overall this piece works well. I think I rendered the features and the overall form nicely but stylistically it's a bit different from what I usually do. 

Failures and or what I would do differently: The teeth are kind of a mess. And I have this fear of drawing teeth that has been instilled in me since a young age due to my mother's advisement against drawing teeth in a mouth because it always looks like there's too many. So I went with this. Which was a little rough. 

The work: The scaled up of a ten a day architecture. This one was the clocktower at the Anheuser-Busch brewery. (There seems to be a theme here. Also, I have a problem.)

technique: This was a line art with the technique of stipling. Which is an awful decision to make because it takes forever and ever and ever and ever. And is just all kinds of tedious. 

time it took: about fiveish hours. Which I think is an hour over the budget that we had? 

success you believe you had: Actually I think this worked well. I did well with the shadows and the overall integrity of the piece. (I actually have no idea what that's supposed to mean. Let's try again) Overall, this piece worked well, but there are aspects of it that could be improved. Which leads us to .... 

things you would do next time to do better: I'm not quite sure how that line on the right side got so ridiculously skewed. How does that happen? I don't know. But it can be fixed. So that would be one thing. 

WATERCOLOR

The work: This piece is one of the ten a days, from the first landscape assignment for watercolor. Actually, this may have been the first watercolor that I did. Don't quote me on that one though. The photographic reference for this photo was shot at my family farm in Pershing, Missouri. 

Technique: I knew for this piece that I layed down some pigment on both the top and bottom, and used a range of blue-grays and green. One of the things that I learned in doing the first set of ten a days was patience, that there's a lot of waiting for watercolor to dry. So I layed down that pigment and then worked on other things while it dried. After the first layer, I added in the middle portion which was just dark blueish gray hues and worked with some suggested mountainy hill things. After that, I added in the trees by loading my brush with green and yellow, and later threw some clouds up in there. I liked how loose this piece is. 

Time it took: This one was about twenty five minutes. As I mentioned above, I was working on multiple watercolors at a time, and would basically just do an assembly line of work. But I believe this piece averaged about twenty five to thirty minutes. Which was just around the budgeted time. 

Success you believe you had: I believe that I utilized the medium of watercolor well in this piece. I was able to "let go" and let the medium do its work after I had made the decisions as to what pigment I would put down and how I would add the pigment to the paper. After that, I put all "fussing" aside and just let it be. Because of that, there were some really nice things that started happening in this work. 

What I would do differently: I think I would work a little bit differently in the foreground. I'm not sure what, but something a little different. Also, the horizon isn't totally and completely straight, but I suppose it works. 

The work: So this is Kirk Memorial, which was a photo I had taken way back in the day in like the first week of freshman year when I thought it was really cool to walk around campus with my Nikon and take pictures of everything. I was probably even wearing purple at the time.  Not lame at all, right? #bulldogpride 

technique: Well this is watercolor, so there's that. I sketched this out very lightly with pencil as I believe it was one of the parameters to not use line art. I tried to use different approaches in how I handled the different aspects of this piece, as I used wet on wet for the marble-y (that's the technical term) parts of this building to give it a bit of a worn effect. The bricks were a hot mess. I started at the top and they looked real good but then after a bit of time I lost ambition in the bricks and realized I could have just done some suggested bricks instead of painting every. damn. brick. in the building and that frustration is translated in the bricks smack dab in the middle because a. they're about seven times larger than the bricks at the top and b. they're not even in a straight line. 

time it took: This took probably about six hours. I believe our budget was four for this one. I watched a lot of "Undercover Boss" while I was working on this one. If it weren't for the bricks, I would have been right on time, and would probably have saved myself a lot of frustration with this piece. 

success you believe you had: Even with the things that I'm not 100% thrilled about, I am happy with this piece. I think the application of watercolor works well in most areas. Overall, I think it's a good work, and I believe it would be effective as a promotional spot for Truman. 

things you would do next time to do better: Well, first and foremost, the bricks. I would do some suggested bricks, maybe save myself some time and a little and/or a lot of frustration. But, it's okay. Because I learned a valuable life lesson from that experience. Also in the realm of valuable life lessons, I learned that one should not use a stencil to make a perfect circle unless they are very light with their hand and don't dig ridiculously hard into the paper because then it creates a mess and then said person tries to overcompensate by painting some trees that do not at all in the slightest go with the piece and just look like a mess. I mean that might have happened just a little bit in this piece. But, hey, life lessons. 

The work: This is the large watercolor, done on 22 x 30 watercolor paper (which is by far the most awkward size of paper/foamcore/anything to carry). I'm just a big fan of Red October and was really feeling the StL pride and just really miss St. Louis and went with this (possibly overambitious) deal here. I mean the only way this piece could be more St. Louis is if everyone in the crowd was eating t-ravs and Ted Drewes and if Nelly was driving the hitch.

Technique: I printed off the photo in black and white (this was taken from a playoff game that I went to over fall break freshman year at Busch) and then did the whole Lucy deal and spent a good part of Friday night meticulously transferring the bridles and harnesses to the paper. I didn't quite realize how detailed this was until I was about halfway through tracing. But it's alright. Also I strayed away from using any kind of corporate sponsorship (minus the obvious Anheuser-Busch promotion because that's just the best) but I did away with the other advertisements in the background because I didn't want that to influence the piece. 

Time Spent: I'm going to estimate this took a solid nine hours. I spent about three hours Friday night on it, partially transferring the image and partially laying down the initial pigment. Then I spent a glorious six hours straight (I wish I was joking) on Sunday morning/afternoon because I out in the middle of nowhere in Novinger all Saturday/early Sunday morning. So that's that. 

Success You Believe You Had: I'm a big fan of this piece. I'm actually really surprised that it didn't turn out a total shitshow. I really liked how the horses turned out, as I used a wet on wet technique for those little buddies. I also liked the contrast between the sharp edges of the wagon and that technical form with the organic form of the horses in motion. Also, fun fact, the dog that's sitting on the wagon's name is King. Also no one really had a name on their jersey but I just really love Jon Jay so some rando got a Jon Jay jersey. 

What I would have done differently: (Also, I think the name of each of these subcategories changes slightly with each work. That's okay, right? I mean it is. It's happening) So anyway, there's a lot more that I want to do with this piece but I wanted to get it to the point where it could be turned in. But there is a lot more of detail that I want to add in and a few more layers that I want to work in, especially in the crowd area. Also, the baseballs (which are hard to see right now and might actually just be my OCD in this work) could have been handled differently. Also I knew that I didn't want to draw every single person in the crowd so I just did the front row in order to differentiate between the dirt and the seats but then I didn't really know what to do so I just went with a sea of red. Which is really just what Busch is in postseason October. 

The work: Another one of the ten a days from the "landscape" assignment. This was a photo taken of the lake at Thousand Hills. 

Technique: I laid down blocks of pigment in this piece for the water, the trees/hills/whatever the hell that is, and the sky. The photo was a little bit "dreary" and wasn't the best in regards to coloring, but I made it do. (What? That's not even a real phrase). I came back in and added the little pink clouds and reflection and the trees and mountainy things and whatnot. 

Time Spent: 25 minutes. Right on the money.

Successes you believe you had: I think I handled the reflection of the sky in the water well as well as the texture of the trees. I don't really have much else to say about that. 

Failures What you would improve upon (let's stay positive): The trees in the background get a little bit muddled and I could have handled that differently, and the grass in the front is kind of just hovering on that patch of green. 

GOUACHE

The work: One of the gouache assignments. This one was of my dear Great Aunt Shirley. 

Technique: I decided to stay monochrome in this one. I ran into problems in the gouache before this one when I tried to add color in, so I wanted to master just the picking out before I went with more color. 

Time Spent: About five hours. Which is an hour over budget. 

Successes you believe you had: I believe I was successful in this piece in regards to what I set out to accomplish. I handled the highlights of this piece well, and didn't "overwork" or "fuss" with it. The approach to the hair was a tough decision to make, but in the end I decided to use a Kleenex to get the effect and I liked how it turned out. I believe the features were  handled well additionally in this piece, especially the ear and the nose. And, this isn't really that important or anything but I just really liked how her wedding ring stood out in the shadow, and I wanted to incorporate that into this work.

What you would do differently: I got a little stuck on the background, and couldn't decide what to do with it so I just let it be. At one point, I had started working on it and then decided against it so it looks like someone violently attacked the right top hand corner of this one and then tried to cover up their tracks. Also I would want to approach the wrinkles a bit differently, although I'm pleased with how they turned out. 

3 COMPOSITION GOUACHE w/ ADDITIONS 

The work: Here was the three composition gouache. I chose a giraffe, a teapot, and a cupcake (repeated twice). Then I did some trippy-ass modeled gouache in the background. 

The technique: I chose the three images and then arranged them in Photoshop meticulously trying to get the perfect composition. Like, I actually spent probably an hour rearranging to get it perfect. So there's that. And then once I got all of that out of the way I traced it onto some watercolor paper. Actually let's rewind. I started with a totally different composition with three different objects. Then I ran into some problems with the pigment and scrapped it. And then I started over with this little composition here and made horrible choices in regards to what hues I used and maaayyyybeee two minutes in I literally threw it in the trash. Wasn't the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. So then I started over with this one, and went with some more muted hues. I started with the teapot and painted that a dark blueish gray, then the cupcakes, then the giraffe. I did this in bits and pieces and then once I finished all of the picking out and adding in and all of that good stuff I went with a super trippy background. 

Time spent: forever. 

Successes you believe you had: That teapot. Big fan. I think I handled this really well, and that the picking out on this one worked. The my new giraffe friend wasn't bad either. Overall, I think that this piece works well in regards to the assignment. 

What I would do differently: I really need to add in some definition in the giraffe. But sometimes there's just not enough time in the world. Also the cupcakes could use some work, I really struggled with these little guys. The icing on the cupcake was rough. 

All Kinds of Overdue.

So gouache. 

This week's assignment has been a little rough. Just a little bit. 

In regards to my three object gouache, I had initially started (#redundant) with three different objects. I had a cupcake, an elephant, and Theodore Roosevelt. (In searching for images of the latter, I discovered this gem http://fuckyeatheodoreroosevelt.tumblr.com/ and may have spent wayyyy too much time perusing the site. Does that figure into my nine hours? Probably not. Good.) So anyway, I was about half - maybe a fourth - of the way through and realized it wasn't working. Mainly because that demon spectrum red that I was struggling with. The elephant was pink, as were were forced advised to not use the same color as it had been in the photographic reference. And if even an ounce of spectrum red is in the mixture, the whole thing is just stained a horrid shade of pink. So the whole gouache pickout technique was not working. 

So what is one to do? Obviously scrap the piece. (Actually I still have it and may post a picture of it if I find the time and/or the motivation. It wasn't the worst thing in the world but I wasn't happy with it). Also, the composition was a little off. So naturally I spent the next hour or so with Photoshop painstakingly arranging three separate images in the hopes of creating a decent composition. I ended up with some cupcakes, a giraffe, and a teapot. I started with this idea that I wanted to use really bright colors and it would look crazy and cool and all it was was a hot mess. It was bad. It went straight in the trash about five minutes in. Maybe about fifteen. I don't know, all I know is that I actually threw it away. 

So third time's a charm, right? I redrew the composition and then only used a black and white photo for reference ... so I was not even tempted to use the original colors. I used muted hues because I of what happened with the bright colors, and knew that I could introduce those cRaZaY colors in later if necessary. (Also please ignore my reversion to the kind of internet language of about 2006, apparently blogging this early makes me type like I did in the 7th grade.) So I used a blueish gray deal for the teapot, which is what I did first, because I'm more of a "let's build my confidence and then I'll think I'm able to conquer the rest of this deal" rather than "let's do the hardest part but OH MY GOD this is a shitshow and it's never going to get better" girl when it comes to projects like this. So moral of the story, the teapot came first. 

Then came the cupcakes. Those were a little rough. I used the whole spectrum red dealio for these to my advantage, as I whipped up a brown hue for the icing parts which had a little spectrum red thrown in the mix, so that when I scrubbed (and did not cause pilling of the paper this time around, thank you very much) it lifted up to a nice light pinkish. Which was great. The wrappers of the cupcake aren't my favorite thing in the world but hey, they're alright. 

Thennnnn the giraffe happened. I was a little afraid of it. But it wasn't that bad. It was actually almost kind of fun. There were a lot of highlights which was nice because it makes the pick out technique a lot easier and kind of fulfills the purpose of the picking out. And everything's in proportion, so that's good. I did run into a few of those pencil lines whilst picking out the neck which were a bit of a nuisance because I just wanted to be a free spirit with those spots but fate wouldn't have it so I was bound by the constraints of my original sketch. But alas, it turned out alright. Apparently the giraffe needs "definition" and a little "contrast" (note the quotes ... that means I'm not entirely sure that's going to happen but maybe I will forego all of my other classes/responsibilities/semblance of a healthy social life in order to make that happen by portfolio. We shall see about that.) And finally I threw in a few little baby white highlights and a smorgasbord of hues for the background. It's a little trippy. Actually it's a lot of trippy. But it's alright. I'm okay with it. 

(once again we have the award winning iPhone photography working in our favor ... I'll scan it someday and by someday I mean by next Wednesday for the portfolio) 

Blogging Ahead of the Game (Kind of. Not really)

But anyway, here's what we (meaning me) started in class on Friday. I finished it up yesterday, and wanted to blog about it before I forgot.

Obviously the image quality is realllyyyyy good. But I'll scan it in tomorrow and hopefully make up for the fact that this photographs strangely due to the curling of the watercolor paper. 

But anyway, I feel like I didn't really use the whole pick out technique here. I mean, I used it, but it didn't really produce the same effect. There are about a million layers of gouache on each of these apples, which was a lesson in patience as I waited for each one to dry. I also experimented with using different pigments (note: purple) to get different effects as I didn't want to use black except for in the bottom of the basket deal. Also, those white highlights are really awkward, but I didn't know how to approach the highlights otherwise as trying to pick out those highlights just resulted in rubbing the paper raw. And the tape ripped a little bit in the bottom left edge, which was sad. But overall, I kind of liked how this turned out. 

More Pickin'

So here's the next round of gouache using the pick out method. This is supposed to be what we started in class on Wednesday but that one looked awfully horrendous so I started over when I got home. For this one, I used photographic reference of my great aunt Shirley. 

I really enjoyed doing this round of gouache. I chose this photo because there were a lot of highlights and shadows on her face, and I think that translated well in this illustration. I experimented with different brushes and techniques as well. I used a flat brush swept straight across for the arm of the glasses, but used a smaller round brush for the shadow of the glasses because the line was a bit warped across the cheek. For the hair, I used a balled up Kleenex (I was at work and didn't have ready access to Viva #productplacement #notreally) and really liked how it turned out. I know I could work more on this piece and add more detail, but I'm happy with how it looks right now. I also wanted to stick with the whole monochromatic deal, and didn't want to add any other pigment in (also I'm scared that I'll mess it up. But we're working through those fears, right, Rusty?)

This Looked Really Good Until ...

I took it to Rusty's office for help.

So it turns out skipping class on the day the demo is done is not the best idea in the world. Apparently.

But regardless, we are now experimenting with the technique of "pick out gouache".

Frustrations with this whole deal:

1. This technique requires patience. I'm not really the best with patience. After perfecting the ratio of gesso to matte medium to water (perfecting = squirting/pouring a bunch of each into a tupperware container and hoping for some kind of balance), I had to wait for it to try before I could lay down any pigment. So there's that. And then once the solution was dry, I had to wait for the gouache to dry. Also, I'm really proud of myself for being able to spell gouache correctly without spellcheck. #smallvictories. Anyway, just getting to what seems like square 1 took a lot longer than I had anticipated. So ... I guess a lesson in patience wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

2. I followed the directions on the blog in order to learn how to do this technique (and took a little bit of direction from Rusty when I went into his office to whine after I had skipped class) and may have a slight different interpretation of what a "fairly thick" layer of gouache is. Meaning, overall, that my pencil lines didn't show through, and I was kind of just guessing. Which actually turned out kind of cool, because I wasn't bound to that initial framework. But lesson learned: make sure the pencil lines show through. If you're into that sort of thing.

3. I got stuck. Like, really stuck. Like I did the eyes about seven times before giving up and asking for help from Rusty. And this looked really cool before I took it to Rusty's office. Like, really cool. And then I mean I guess it looks okay now and I guess I didn't ignore a crucial component of this illustration. So that's not really a complaint but rather just a PSA that this looked good at one point.

Small (and possibly insignificant) triumphs:

1. I actually kind of liked this. Have you ever had dinosaur egg oatmeal? It was my staple from about grades 1-3 in the morning. Well the cool thing about dinosaur egg oatmeal was that there were these little eggs of brown sugar and when they dissolved in the hot oatmeal, there were little dinosaur sprinkles inside. And that's how I felt doing this assignment ... that I dissolved the gouache with water and a brush and the dinosaur was revealed. Or, in this case, a nose, teeth, some eyebrows ... you get the gist of it.

2. This forced me to look at shadows and highlights in a different way. I looked at the forms in the face in regards to highlights and lowlights and shadows instead of features, and I picked them out as shapes.

3. I did two of these in the event that one turned out horribly wrong. One is definitely preferable to the other. But it's okay.

4. This was overall a cool technique. I suppose. As much as I complained about it, it's cool.


I guess I could now actually show what I was referencing above:

This one here is a picture I took of one of my grandfather's friends. I actually have no idea who this is but I took a picture of him at some point so hopefully he's one of Grandpa Dave's friends otherwise that's real weird.

And my second attempt, a picture I had taken of my brother a few years ago. We don't need to acknowledge that this exists. 

The One Time When We Only Had To Do One

So the paramaters for this assignment was to choose one subject to do a spot illustration that could be used in a promotional piece for Truman. So used a photograph that I had of Kirk Memorial building that I used for reference. 

So thoughts about this assignment: 

1. The problem areas that I had here were the trees and the bricks. About halfway through doing the bricks, I found a new system that I could have used that would have saved me about half the time and about 90% of the effort. But by that point, I was already committed to each and every one of those little rust colored demons. So I just had to go with it. And that frustration is easily seen right in the middle above that little archway thing, as the bricks are larger and more spaced out aka less attention to detail. 

2. So the trees ... I laid down a framework of pencil initially and behind where the trees were to go, I put those pencil markings down a liiiittle too dark. And tried to compensate by laying down more pigment so those circles didn't show through ... and ended up just ruining the whole thing with these blobs of trees. And the pigment is way too heavy for the rest of the piece. But that's okay. I learned from it, right? Right. 

3. I really utilized the "wet on wet" technique in this piece and I liked how it turned out. I was initially (you know, back in the day aka two weeks ago when we learned different watercolor techniques) skeptical of this technique and its practical application, but it's one of my favorite now. I used that for the gray parts and liked how it kind of created a marbled effect. 

4. Detail really makes a difference. There were a few things that I went in later and added, and it made a big difference in regards to contrast and really making this piece what it is. (What? How cheesy is that? Let's pretend that didn't happen.) So anyway, detail = good. 

5. This piece is too big to scan in so we're rocking the always professional phone photo today. Until I get this actually scanned in or decide to take a picture with my DSLR. 

This may be the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. (Rusty's approval, not my illustration)