Illustration Fall 2011

Final Portfolio

2011-12-12T05:32:00.000-08:00

Final portfolio. This is where I'm supposed to write something worth reading. Thank you Rusty for everything you've taught me this semester. There was a lot. I don't know how much of it I'll remember or use again but I can honestly say I'm glad I learned it, glad I did it, and I'm ecstatic that it's done. By far the worst pain of the semester was the digital illustration and the greatest pleasure was the combination of line art and watercolor. The most I can say at the end of this semester is, I hope I did the best I could with the resources I have. This most important things I think I learned this semester is that problems happen, and they can be fixed, that there is always more to learn and that when it really comes down to the nitty gritty, a kind soul can always be found to help.

Classical Cd Cover, "Scheherazade"

I had very few printing problems with this project. So it jumped right to the top of my list of favorites. I think this is also my best example of a piece where my line work is strong but not overwhelming. The watercolor still holds it's own in this piece.

World Record, "Isobel and Lydia"

This project is by far my favorite from the entire semester. I realize the line work is extremely heavy but that's my style and while drawing this I felt like I was doing something right which was not a common emotion associated with the majority of projects in this class. I lightened the tattoos around her breasts to bring out the tattoos and to separate her from the background.

Native American Heritage Month, "Thanks Rusty"

This one was more pain than it was worth. I loved the illustration that I did for this one, but my incompetence in incorporating that many design elements was a real wake up call. This design was a big hand from Rusty's genius design mind. I do know how to move and place the text now, as well as how to make layers interact with each other on photoshop. I'm also pretty confident in my spot color skills after this project. Although this is not my best example of personal work, it is the most educational project of the semester and there for earns it's spot in the final portfolio.

Book Cover, "To Kill"

This illustration is a combination of gouache, watercolor and line color. This is what a mockingbird looks like, I did use a reference photo. I believe this illustration is also very much my style but I achieved the contrast through painting and not through excessive line work. I like the design of this cover, regardless of it's simplicity. I think I made a good design choice to not make the text large or too bold because the illustration itself is very bold. I think that the simplicity of this design compliments my style of illustration. This is also one of my favorite books so I was trying very hard to respectfully represent the book.

She's outrageous, and intends to always be

2011-12-04T16:21:00.000-08:00

I love her. She holds the world record for the most tattooed elderly woman. She is a lot more tattooed than this now if you look her up, her head is shaved now. She's not gorgeous, she's kinda scary, but drawing her was more fun than I've had in a while. Look closely, she has chains hanging from her nipple piercings. This is again pen and ink and watercolor. I really had fun with the watercolor process in this piece, I worked on a couple of layers and if you look past the tattoo design around her you can see the warm watercolors interacting with the cool.

Classy

2011-12-04T16:12:00.000-08:00

For a cd cover or itunes image we had to pick a classical composition and illustrate it. I chose Scheherazade from 1,001 Nights. Also known as, Arabian Nights. This was fun, as Rusty says, everyone in the class is running back to comfortable now and so I've resorted to watercolor and pen and ink. I am getting more loose and gestural with the watercolor. My pen and ink, as always, remains tight.

N.A.H.M.

2011-12-04T16:09:00.000-08:00

Here is the poster for Native American Heritage Month, word to the wise don't get behind on blogging. Also, this was my first lesson in typography and design. I learned a lot, for example, design does not come naturally to me. I thought it must be instinct. Rusty, I know you're laughing right now. The first image is the initial illustration, the second is my attempt and the third is a big helping hand from Rusty that is now my final project to turn in with the final portfolio.

Society of Illustrators

2011-11-04T07:09:00.000-07:00

Well, this isn't exactly like the comp I made. I decided instead of wash in the background it would be more powerful for my concept to have a ghost image of the monarch to echo the color drain from the woman. She is changing and he has changed, or he "is" change. If you've ever seen the painting of a woman sleeping with a demon on her chest, it's a medieval myth, this is meant to reference that. Change being the demon. It was nice having an open subject for this Society of Illustrators project. Now that I've said that I'm sure Rusty will never have it be open again. Ha. Don't worry Rusty, you'll get the feedback you really want out of the Native American Illustration.

"Change is King"

Life and Death

2011-10-26T06:12:00.001-07:00

For the life and death illustration, I can honestly say I wasn't content with the lack of creativity. I thought that a match lit and then blown out was pretty typical. However after speaking to Rusty, I think I found myself satisfied with not having these typical images illustrated with typical elements. I like what can inferred from the flame having so many colors and casting such wild shadows in the background. And I really love that the no-longer-lit match still has glowing embers and the smoke is thick and very visually dominating. This medium is a mix of water color and gouache. And just a pat on the back to myself, I did the printing process all by self, cross your fingers it prints well.

5:00 Somewhere

2011-10-20T15:18:00.000-07:00

For our #5 Illustration, I illustrated that it is in fact always 5:00 somewhere. I think this somewhere might be kirksville. I don't think that phrase has ever specified a.m. or p.m. Thank you Rusty again for helping me with the printing process but I was so close this time, I think for the next six illustrations I'll have it down. I used watercolor, line art and gouache for this illustration. I didn't realize that mixing watercolor and gouache together, not only works but is an excellent solution to having to paint over or on top of a previously painted area. Gouache's opacity really brings the pigment in watercolor up a notch.

Midterm Portfolio

2011-10-17T06:57:00.000-07:00

-Three Traditional Line Art Illustrations:

I chose these images based on their rendering strength in the pen and ink line style. Based on feedback from professors and peers these three images are good compositions and realistic style. I have been focused on realism for a long time so I thought of these as compliments to the work I've put into technique. After seeing the work from the other students in class I realized that expressive style can be equally as strong and just as effective. I learned a lot about my strong desire for control in these examples.

-Two Watercolor Illustrations:
The first example was an in class practice illustration. I chose this illustration because I felt as though while creating it I began to understand the medium. All of the watercolor illustrations that came after I felt were dramatically stronger than the ones that came before. I chose the product illustration of a Hershey's Kiss because I'm proud of the texture and accuracy that I accomplished. I feel as though this illustration best fit the assignment for which it was created.

-Three Traditional Line and Color Illustrations:
I've decided that combining line art and color for illustrations fits my style and the mediums in the most complimentary way. I can be loose with the watercolor, as is most evident in the two portraits, and add the structure that I can't resist with the line art. I chose the landscape illustration along with the portraits because, although much tighter in style, I feel that I accomplished color mixing and matching that accurately represents the place it is portraying and that the line art brings out the texture of this place.

-One Gouache Illustration:
For this example I chose the first gouache assignment, the three image montage. I chose this example because I learned a lot from it that allowed me to become a lot more proficient in this new medium. The main critique I have from this illustration is that the highlights should be brighter. I think the composition is successful at keeping the eye busy and on doesn't allow it to drift off of the page.

-One Digital Line Art Illustration:

Digital line art was a complete struggle for me. This is one medium, if you chose to call it that, that I need to practice a lot more. This example was the last of many attempts and I feel as though I had warmed up to the style as much as I could for the assignment by the time I completed this last illustration.

-One Digital Line/Color Illustration:
The digital color illustrations pushed me to get better at the medium quickly. In black and white illustrations seem to have a strength that color can't hold unless the style itself is in fact strong. My style is weak in this medium but the color illustrations are much more successful and progressive than the traditional black line art illustrations. I let go of a lot of control and began to focus on simply getting the image to work visually and the lines became expressive.

-One My Choice:
My pick is the Abe Lincoln gouache illustration because I think the concept is strong, the composition is neat and fits the parameters of the assignments, and I feel that it demonstrates my proficiency in the gouache medium. I was able to accomplish high contrast, strong highlights and dark, structured shadows. This illustration is a combination of gouache and line art. This is one of the few illustrations I've done where the line art is not the most powerful aspect of the piece and that I did not use local color to express the content. I think that this piece is clearly my tight, controlled style and also a step out of my box.

"My Hero"

2011-10-07T06:51:00.000-07:00

Abe Lincoln is Lady Justice's hero. Even though Rusty keeps calling him her daddy, same thing. I still don't have the hang of the printing thing, but I've got the blog down pat. I'm fine with gouache (how is it supposed to be spelled?) if it has the gesso backing because the whites and highlights are stunning and so easy to manipulate. On the three image montage I didn't use the gesso and I didn't enjoy the process anywhere as much. I'm glad we're moving into conceptual illustrations as well. I think it makes me more invested in the technical and aesthetic aspects if I care about the concept.

Pomegranate, Forrest Gump and an elephant

2011-10-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

First time using gouche, honestly I prefer watercolor but I think that's because I worked with it longer than I've worked with gouche. I'm excited to get the hang of yet another new medium. I'd like to try more of the wiping technique to get whites and highlights because in this piece I used quite a bit of white and black gouche to achieve values. In the next assignment it will be my goal to push value using color. I liked how Rusty gave us the opportunity to add to the pieces before turning them in, I realize mine was basically complete at the first turn in but I can see how the extra time is beneficially to anyone at any stage.

Another Big one

2011-09-28T05:35:00.000-07:00

20x30, I didn't like this one too much, on a personal note. I'm tired of the subject matter. But other than that relatively no problems. I think I just need to, as my friend John Hitzel says "chase the muse." I don't know why but unless assigned it's hard for me to just draw a random animal or landscape without reason. But I need to stop being hard on myself, I need to just create to be creating. Regardless, this is what I have for this free subject assignment. I'm looking forward to the random montage due soon.

This took way too long.

2011-09-25T20:11:00.000-07:00

For what these look like they shouldn't have taken as long as they did. Let's just say I had to warm up and loosen up a lot first. I opted out of using black line art because the first round wasn't terribly successful and I think worrying about one element at a time was the right choice. Another good choice was my subject matter, the simplest things I could think ok. Except the dragon fruit, it's the one you were going to ask "what's that?" about. Albert asked me to draw it. I'm not even comfortable calling these drawings.

Kiss it, make it better

2011-09-25T15:59:00.000-07:00

I thought doing this without pen and ink would be hard but I chose an object that had a lot of line work in so that I would be sure to push myself into learning lines with the water medium. I think I was successful, next I need to learn how to work the water color into very smooth gradation. But over all I'm pleased, other than the amount of time it took, which I don't mind dedicating, it wasn't much of a pain.

And a special thanks to Ashley and Shelby, who this title is dedicated to. Thank you for making my inability to use a computer... better.

"Facebook" Profile Self Portraits

2011-09-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

I'm really glad I don't have a facebook. In all honesty I'm fine with these self portraits, they were a real spirit lifter after the digital art assignment. Watercolor and line are are getting warmer and warmer. Ignore the angst in the last one, it was only the product of boredom. I'm still not satisfied with my creative use of color but I feel like I'm trying to step out of that box.

When life gives you lemons..

2011-09-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

This is my ode to digital lemons and my attempt at making lemonade. Drawing digital art on a wacom tablet felt like having suffered a serious brain injury and attempting to re-learn how to walk. I've never felt such a disconnect between my hands, eyes and mind. But it's certainly still art because I found a way to express how this process made me feel. This was so painful just making lemonade wasn't good enough so I had to make something a little stronger out of these lemons.

Go Big or Go Home

2011-09-21T07:17:00.000-07:00

This is Delphi my 20x30 line art and watercolor landscape. I had a little bit of trouble but I feel like I'm getting more control over the water color. I'm still not confident enough to abandon line art to support the water color, but Rusty doesn't care. I will eventually have to paint line instead of pen and ink. I am happy with this painting. Delphi is an important place to me so I was careful when I was producing this to make sure it was something that reflected a place thats cared about. Learning how to take a picture of it and adjust it on photoshop was... painful. I asked Rusty for private lessons.

Memoriam

2011-09-19T07:19:00.000-07:00

This is a water color and line art portrait drawn from memory. I drew my grandfather because of some of his memorable features. He has a prominent nose and ears, always wore a hat and plaid shirts. The hat said "lame and lazy club" on it but I opted to not add text on this one. His eyes are wider than I think they actually were but it's my nature to accentuate eyes more than they're supposed to be realistically. I attempted to draw the first couple of sketches as realistically as I could, this was not successful. The mind does remember things in that way. This was the last sketch I tried, much more loose and gestural. It allowed me to be less tight when I went back to add water color and I like the color being loose and as Rusty would say "water color being water color." If I could keep my water color loose and stress free and combined it with my own more precise line art, then I think I'd had a style that I really enjoy working with.

Water Colors, Learn something new everyday

2011-09-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

Today I learned how to resize images, save them as jpegs (you cannot simply change the last three letters to jpg and try to save it), copy them into photoshop, stitch two images together, and about fifty other things that everyone else already knows. Now if only I could learn how to water color. Thank goodness for line art. I'm sincerely attempting to improve my water color technique but I always end up correcting by depending on my line art. As shown in my first image, I tend to treat water color like acrylic or oil. I understand that layers are the key, to let it dry and everything else Master Terry taught us, but I can't get aways from thinking that with out strong line art structure my water colors look like markers in a child's coloring book. And I know its not great to be really critical of things in the art that weren't part of the project requirements but I'm disappointed in my last image because the line art drawing is the aspect I take the most pride in. The proportion of the lower hand, and the facial expression were rushed and not given enough attention before I started the coloring and inking or I would have noticed how large the hand is and the off coloring on the brow. But there is improvement from the first set of ten watercolor landscapes.

Water Color and Line Art

2011-09-14T07:28:00.000-07:00

How bout whiskey colors instead of water colors? Maybe I could loosen up my paintings if they loosened me up. I'm happy to have line art re-introduced. I believe in quality over quantity. If we had five a days instead of ten a days, those five would be at least twice as good as these. In class after seeing some of the techniques that class mates were using I made the olive tree. I decided to include it in my blog instead one of my original ten because I think it's the closest I've come to figuring out how line art and water color can compliment each other. Before the peace offering with water color, I felt like I was water coloring without the intent to use line art for structure and then slapped on the line art in order to meet requirements.

Water Color, Day 2

2011-09-12T07:25:00.000-07:00

Second day of ten water colors, the new theme is architecture. I have to admit that I think I would do tremendously better if I spread out the work load and dedicated more time to each exercise because what I see myself do in (last three images) always seem to have more quality than the ten I try to do before the next class. The last three I think are a drastic improvement from the twenty exercises before them. Architecture was more fun for me, I was pleased to have more structure than the landscapes.

Water Color, Day 1

2011-09-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

Another set of ten, including a water color wheel and one of three practice examples (bee on flower). I'm sure more practice examples are sure to come. Water color is without a doubt a challenge. I kept in mind the four techniques and practiced all four plus one combination or favorite technique on each of two landscapes. My preference is for the dry on dry and wet on dry techniques because I felt more in control than when the pigment moves significantly after I apply it to the wet paper. The wet on wet and dry on wet techniques felt impossible to compose. I don't know if this is because of my unfamiliarity to this medium or my lack of patience to allow the wet layers to dry before continuing. I also notice that I treat water color like oil or acrylic in my application because they are more familiar to me than the fluidity and transparency of water color's layers. I will learn, this was a disappointing exercise but I did see improvement and I think I will continue to.

10 A Days, Day 5

2011-09-07T07:22:00.000-07:00

Fifth day theme is people. I admittedly thought that I would do very well with this one because I usually prefer to draw people. I'm learning that skill at drawing people varies as much with medium and style as the people being drawn vary in appearance. My plan of attach was to go to the library and draw people studying, I figured they'd be the most still in this environment. Apparently studying makes people anxious or something. Most people moved every few minutes so I found myself capable of getting gestural drawings to a moderate accuracy and some value in faces if I didn't focus on entire body proportions. I'm honestly not pleased with this set as much as the previous sets. That's all I have to say about that.

10 A Days, 4th Day

2011-09-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

Day four's study is of natural subjects. I decided to work on my initial style of pen work using the three pen widths for the range of values. I also used solid line work on a few of the images because I thought the subject matter could be flattered by accentuating its lines more than its values. The sketches of thyme, sage and the outline of the calla lily are those examples (last three sketches pictured). I wish that I were getting cleaner and more controlled with the style I'm developing, but the lines tend seem expressive even when I do my best to pay close attention to line direction and spacing. I'm sure that is reflective of my personal desire for, and disgust of control. I can't live with it, can't live without it. I hope to be able to reach a point where I've mastered a personal style of mark making with pen and hopefully a few different styles that I can choose to express in a controlled fashion or not.

10 A Days, 3rd day

2011-09-02T06:35:00.000-07:00

The theme of our third set is architecture. I haven't experimented with any new styles for this round, expect for high contrast, which I think works for the image I used it on but I'm not convinced works for any image. I admire architecture but drawing this many straight lines didn't hold my attention for long. I found myself drawing the same building multiple times or drawing the same image in a multiple styles. I did find that for different subject matter I prefer different styles. For the previous two sets of ten I think the style in the first three architectural images, with a range of values works best. I venture to guess that I'll like this style for the majority of subject matter this semester but for the architecture set I think the wide range of value detracts from the angles and other interesting elements happening in the buildings. For this theme I prefer the simple thin lines in the last image and the line style of the fifth image that combines the thin lines for details and the thicker line to outline.

10 A Days, 1st and 2nd Days

2011-08-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

These first ten studies in line drawing involved the observation of ten different objects. I chose to use a Bic crystal pen, Sharpie pen ultra fine point and Sharpie fine point markers. There were no specifications about style to use so I took the opportunity to see what my hand and eye did naturally. My process started with the Bic crystal pen because it made extremely fine lines that I felt comfortable making corrections on top of if I needed to. My favorite style became the combining each of the three mark making tools on the same illustration. The technique of directional cross-hatching fit my preference for expressing the various values in each object. These are the images I studied and style I developed:

The second set of ten illustrations was the observational study of only one subject in ten different line drawing styles. My initial plan was to isolate each of my three line widths. I drew a self portrait in isolated Bic Crystal, isolated ultra fine point Sharpie and isolated fine point Sharpie. I also solved these styles by drawing gesturally, in solid line, controlled cross-hatching, expressive cross-hatching, broken lines and combination styles. Compared to the fist ten drawings, I felt more challenged in this study because I couldn't depend on what I knew was a successful technique that I had the chance to begin to perfect in the fist study. I had to change how I viewed the values of my subject ten times. These are the images I produced: