Native American Heritage Month

So ... Native American Heritage Month. For this illustration, I used the gouache pick out technique. I was pleased with the way that this illustration turned out, and used this simple imagery for the poster. 

I edited the image slightly to make it work for this poster, and ended up using part of the background of the gouache to create the background of the poster. How about that? This isn't 100% finished yet but this is what I have so far and I really wanted to blog about it so here it is. 

Teacups and Stuff.

Real life scanned in image of the teacups. 

World Record

So for this piece I went with the world record of "World's Largest Tea Party". I had initially did some research (note: google search of "weird world records") and settled on the aftermath of the World's Largest Tea Party, which, apparently, is a thing.

So once again we've got the stellar iPhone picture ... but it's too large for the scanner at this point so when I get it actually scanned in I'll repost. 

So ... time budget. Can we just start measuring time in the amount of Netflix watched whilst working on these projects? Because this was about seven episodes of Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaid Edition. (Please feel free to judge me as much as possible for that one.) But this was about six hours on final art on this one. I would say about three hours on marker comp, so that's eight hours overall. Also, Rusty, here are your three favorite words to hear: you were right. I started this less than twelve hours before it was due, and finished it about six hours before it was due. Good. 

So challenges in this illustration: teacups. Drawing each one of those teacups individually was a bitch. I drew a few stacks of them, and then developed a system to give the impression of a million and a half teacups in the background behind the defined stacks. So I sketched everything in in pencil and then went over it with a Micron pen. Another challenge was figuring out which colors to do the teacups, as I didn't want one color overpowering any other. I wanted it to be bright and colorful but not muddy. I used different techniques for various teacups, and did a few with polka dots and stripes for variety. 

After doing the bright and colorful and obnoxious teacups, I wanted to stick to a somewhat muted palette for the rest of the kitchen area. I went with browns, grays, and a weird yellowish hue. There's an awkward shadow on the bottom of this photo but the floor is a strange mixture of green and gray and blue. 

"3"

So for my illustration depicting the number three, I chose three peas in a pod. 

So for this assignment I used gouache on a raw piece of watercolor paper. I used a wet on wet technique for the peas themselves in order to get the effect I wanted to achieve. One of the main struggles in this piece was choosing which hues to utilize for the work to be dynamic. I really like the way that the effect that I used turned out in this piece. I spent about four and a half hours on this piece, which was half of the budget allotted.

Life and Death.

So ... final artwork for life and death. For this assignment, I chose a pumpkin in a pumpkin patch and then a rotting jack-o-lantern sitting on a porch. I 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. Also, this piece is watercolor, which I neglected to mentioned in my earlier ramblings. 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.

I Was Drunk the Day My Momma Got Out of Prison

So ... not to inflate your ego and give you the impression that you're actually funny, Rusty, but I informed my mother of this morning's events and this was the response: 

 

 There is now only one person  another person in the Rusty Nelson Fan Club. 

... so there's that. 

But in real life news, here are the re-submissions for my midterm portfolio.

According to the little grade sheet thing, I am resubmitting these for Watercolor 2, 3, and 4, as well as Gouache 2. 

Watercolor 2: This was part of the 10 A Days, I believe on the ones focused on skyscapes. I spent about twenty five minutes on this piece, fulfilling the time budget. I think I utilized the medium well here in this piece, especially in regards to the reflection of the sky in the water. If I were to redo this watercolor, I would approach the boat and ripples differently. 

Watercolor 3: This piece was in the first set of watercolors, and took a little over twenty minutes. I liked how I handled the tone in the trees, but wish I would have spent more time in the foreground. 

Watercolor 4: This piece was a part of the "Skyscapes" Assignment, and took a little over twenty five minutes, which was the budget. This is a painting of a sunrise, and I think I depicted that scene well. I like the interaction between the two hues in the sky, achieved through a wet on wet technique. If I were to do this piece over again, I would use a less harsh hue than black to depict the trees. 

Gouache 2: This gouache piece involved a lot of layering of the medium to achieve the effect. I had initially utilized the pick out technique, but it wasn't working to my liking so I just started adding differing layers of gouache to achieve the darkness and highlights. If I were to redo this piece, I would approach the bright white highlights differently, and only use them when absolutely necessary. 

Product Illustration

So here's my product illustration. 

I chose a bottle of Coke for this illustration, and used about three different reference photographs in order to compose this illustration. 

In regards to time, I was pretty near the budget of 12 hours. However, contrary to a certain professor's theory that all homework for his class is done within twenty four hours of the deadline, this was not the case. Only the last four hours or so was like that ... so, you're kind of right, Rusty. But only kind of. 

One triumph (if you can call it that) of this piece was the way in which I rendered the form. I think I did well with this aspect, and am happy with the way the highlights worked out as well. However, I ran into a bit of a roadblock when I worked towards the top of the bottle, as the photo I was using for reference featured a clear bottle. So naturally, I made up a green color and used it for the glass, and threw in a few green highlights towards the bottom.