Ely Poster/Ely number III sketch

This week's Illustration Friday word is "resolutions." This coming year my class will be graduating from The University of the Arts, and we will be on our own. This is a poster of our Senior Thesis called the "Ely". I'm sure everyone has different plans after graduation, as well as different resolutions. I depicted us as baby turtles crawling to the ocean; some get there before others.

This is kind of a new way of coloring for me. Yuko Shimizu recently visited my school and said some things about the way I worked, so I'm trying to pull back on the rendering with photoshop gradations and concentrate on showing form through pattern and line.




It's has taken me for-freaking-ever to come up with a composition and point of view that I'm happy with, but I'm starting to realize that it's probably going to be a typical thing for my work in the future. If only I could pump out sketches that I am always happy with.....

Now to get some reference for the figure!

Ely Sketch number 2 (The Elephant's Child)

Took me a long time before I was satisfied with the composition and design of the animals, but I finally feel like this piece is getting somewhere.



Here is the first version of the final. I'm sure it will undergo some changes, but for now here it is.

Rebirth

was trying to make it for illustration friday but I just finished it and they have a new word now... oh wellz... I believe the word last week was "burning"

I might actually rework this to fit the ely poster since it has to do with "rebirth" and stuff.... who knows

Target Market piece II

The sketch was turned down, but I had extra time, so I did a finish of it anyways.

Target Market piece

For Tim Bower

Alice

Had to do our own version of Alice in Wonderland. Not a fan of the project criteria, but I enjoyed the process anyways.

dewdle

Doodle I did during Al Gurry's lecture on color... Decided to finish it. Eyes are funky, oh wellz.

Good Man

So the word for illustrationfriday.com this week is "afterwards". This is a book cover (front and back). The story is about a family that is murdered by a criminal on the loose. I wanted to hide as many things in this piece as I could (the butterfly, which is found in the back cover instead of the front, the hand, the arm, and the idea). This scene on the cover is at the end, where the (spoiler!) grandmother dies.

My concept is "something good that can come out of something bad". In the story, the grandmother is portraiyed as a terrible person, but right before she is shot she demonstrates some goodness in her, so I chose to show that concept through color and the way I composed things. The hat is supposed to look like a halo, and the cropping of the arm is symbolic of the crucifixion pose. Dead leaves are well... pretty self explanatory. I decided to hide the arm by making the front a road and flattening it out (suggested by Alexi Fisk). I thought it was a great idea so I ran with it.

Halloween Card for Bob Byrd

The front cover for my Halloween card project in Bob Byrd's class.

The inside will have an illustration of a bunch of monster hands reaching for candy, and it will say "Hands off my candy!"

2nd attempt at the passion

Heres my piece for Ralph's class on Tuesday. I must have traced text 3948734 times, and now my desk is a pile of tracing paper that will all be pinned up during the crit as a testament to how bad I am with text.

White shapes-not part of the poster

Raven

Inventor

We had to do a portrait of an inventor with his invention for Tim Bower, and I didn't want to do a portrait of a real person, so here is my way around the assignment.

Final for Bob Byrd

The Eagle and the Arrow

An Eagle was soaring through the air when suddenly it heard the whizz of an Arrow, and felt itself wounded to death. Slowly it fluttered down to the earth, with its life-blood pouring out of it. Looking down upon the Arrow with which it had been pierced, it found that the shaft of the Arrow had been feathered with one of its own plumes. "Alas!" it cried, as it died,

"We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction."

For Ralph Giguere

Mummz

First piece for Tim Bower. Had to make a 2 page spread for an ad. The assignment was to take a historical figure (in this case, King Tut), and a contemporary product (ipods/ipad/ipod tough etc) and combine them in a piece.

this was the original color sketch:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfgDH369bjHB5RhsdUYU-RCIPpl2AysJpkKkyNKvm2vgUj63555I1YVatfqqyetGuVPW07cGjJC1IaMPfKnn-BMm-O9pdT7QmoVu3XAx73_o5qHrYqlPD95najCtFgd6f0eMOGiL0pipU/s1600/king-tut-2.jpg

Bob Byrd

A Hound, roaming in the forest, spied a lion, and being well used to lesser game, gave chase, thinking he would make a fine quarry. Presently the lion perceived that he was being pursued; so, stopping short, he rounded on his pursuer and gave a loud roar. The Hound immediately turned tail and fled. A Fox, seeing him running away, jeered at him and said, "Ho! ho! There goes the coward who chased a lion and ran away the moment he roared!"

Gnarble Fish

Other Sketch

Another color sketch for the same project as the abe lincoln sketch

Sketch

Color sketch numero uno for Tim Bower. First assignment was to put a historical figure with a contemporary object. We had to make a 2 page ad for a magazine, so I chose a razor and... hopefully the face is recognizable... I tried to make his skin look like cracking sand but I think i might have to do something different for the final if this sketch is picked.

Bear

Ill Fri- Atmosphere

Illustration Friday: Atmosphere was the word

A sister piece (or I guess in this case, a brother, to the previous piece for "Trail")
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6962173&id=700280922&ref=fbx_album#!/photo.php?pid=6129626&id=700280922&ref=fbx_album

This is actually another recycled sketch from Tim O'brien that was, ironically, for the same assignment.

Illustration Friday- Caged

This is another piece I did for Tom Leonard. It is related to the other piece I've done. There is not written part of the story, but Tom described it as a progression from no color to full color. The story is about a girl in a boring monochromatic world, and her fish is the only thing colored. As the story goes on, more and more things become colored and weird plants and animals start coming out of objects. This is the middle illustration, so there is a balance between colored/painted and monochromatic/drawn. I thought that it would fit "Caged" because of how the little girl was breaking out of her world and into a new one.

Ill Fri- Artificial

Been awhile since I've posted anything new. This was due to the children's book that I'm currently illustrating.

I guess it was about time I tried making something for myself again. This week's word was pretty hard for me, or at least... I made it hard for me hahaha. I was thinking about how music was something that was created by man, so I attempted to illustrate some guy who has been waiting for his someone or something (which is why I put a watch there) and I guess it/they never show up. I don't really know why I put a trumpet-rose on his hand, but I guess that was my way of incorporating the word into the piece... It is not a well thought-out piece since I kind of rushed it.

Ill Fri- "Diary"

So I have not done Illustration Friday in a couple of weeks because of several things (like the children's book that I'm illustrating), so I decided to look up this week's word. As I thought about it, I remembered the piece I did for Tom last semester, and I also remembered how people kept asking me "what is she thinking?" In a sense, the pieces is sort of a diary because one can never be sure what the girl is thinking, only have a clue.

Here is the very first illustration to the unnamed children's book I did for Tom Leonard.

Ill Fri-Satellite

Rippled Memories

This is this week's Illustration Friday piece. The word was "ripple". I didn't really dig in too deep trying to make the piece work with the concept.. i kind of just wanted to draw hahahaha. I was thinking of "rippled memories".

gasp i used some reference!

Illustration Friday

So here's this week's Illustration Friday piece. The word was "trail", so I recycled an old sketch I had for Tim Obrien and changed it up a bit to fit the concept. It is a girl who leaves a trail of sunshine wherever she goes.

FEEESHHHH

Here's a piece I decided to do for Illustration Friday. The word was "slither". A good friend Jon Laing (who's site is located on the right on "ma peeps") motivated me to do it. Thanks to him, I think I might do Illus Fri more often now!

Amber's Present

Heres a present I did just tonight. It's for my bestfriend Amber Mosher, since I'm going to her house tomorrow in NY. Haven't seen her since the beginning of last semester.

So heres a digital doodle-experiment I did. Dont ask me why I drew a creepy girl with electric hair holding a sparkly chicken with a shiny red eye. I wouldn't have an answer for ya if you did.

In other news... I've been working on a final for a children's book I've been asked to do. I just hope the client likes what I end up making!

Acrylic Expuhruhmunts

So I finally had time to do some experimenting with acrylic paints. I heard about using glue to make the paint "crack" in random areas, and I was really intrigued by the idea. I'm still trying to find out how to control it, but hopefully I'll be doing a piece with the technique soon.

I was washing my hands in the bathroom at work today when I looked at the mirror and wow... I was much darker than I remembered. I guess I've been out in the sun for awhile the past few days.

So I'm finally back home, and I can't say how much I've missed the suburbs and the fact that the sky is actually dark at night. I'm looking forward to taking a few days and relaxing before getting back full force into working.
Up over yonder ^^ is a pic taken by Holly Maguire. It's Tom Leonard with group of acrylic minions (aka the winners of the Tom Leonard Acrylic Award for the past 3 years). From left to right is Dayoung Kim (idk if I spelled that right), Tom Leonard, Stephanie Engel with her sparkle shirt, and myself.

I will be uploading my independent study pieces as a group soon, but right now I need me some volleyball!

Octo Wave

This was a quick octopus piece I did for Tim O'brien. It was the last assignment and I bought a couple of mediums to try out.

So here's a collaboration between Steph Engel and myself... except I'm doing a bad job coloring it, so Ima start ova. She decided to be bored so I told her to sketch something in my sketchbook.
Here's a piece for Tim Gough. We had to do a spread (Title page and spot illustration) for this article about guns, drugs, and money. No sex (surprisingly). I'm pretty sure 99 percent of my class (Jon Laing being the 1%) had such a rough time coming up with ideas for this project since we all thought our work would not fit. In the end (after 209384203943 sketches) me and my classmates found solutions that were unique to us and made the illustrations work. It was a good feeling for me, and I'm glad Tim pushed us to do this assignment.

First Target Market piece I did for Mark Tochett. Wizard of Oz. This was.... my third attempt for the same piece? hahahhaa... I tried painting on wood, then I tried acrylics, but apparently the best solution was.... DIGITAL!

Another Wizard of Oz piece, but for Tim O'brien. This is the first time I tried digitally collaging a bunch of drawings so that it is easier to play around with the design. I can say that I'm finally DONE with doing Wizard of Oz illustrations hahahahah. How many total is that? 3? If you count the redone ones then its 5.
This is also for Tim O'brien. The assignment was "Shadow". He's a big fan of one-word assignments that leave lots of room for open-endedness (yes I know thats not a word). He has taught me much more than I thought. After first semester I felt like I had learned nothing and just got worse in terms of picture-making, but I have been beginning to realize how much of what he has taught is seeping into the way I think about a piece. It's really odd, yet exciting.

On the left: My final Target Market Illustration for Mark Tochett. It's the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz! Why are there 50 bazillion wolves about to get chopped by his 4 axes? Cuz thats what happened in the original! At least, the one I read.
On the right: Tarzan for Tim O'brien. I really like how everything came out, EXCEPT Tarzan. I wish I could just take him out and put "TARZAN" in big hand-done type right above the elephant. Can you find the little birdie?

I posted these two together for a reason (besides the fact that they are on the same page because I set it up that way to print); they are a deviation (did I use that word correctly?) from my usual color-scheme, which is blue.. and.... blue.... and more blue.... as seen below VV
Here is an in-class assignment we had to do for Mark Tochett. We had been given several assignments to choose from and illustrate, so I picked the one about unhealthy relationships. It was funny how this project probably took the least time for me to do, yet Mark said it was probably the strongest piece I did for him all year.


So today was quite the day... I sure hope the rest of the week is the same.

So I finally decided to update my blog for the first time in forever after talking to my friend Steph. This year has been hectic, moreso that I thought it would be. I remember coming into Junior year here at Uarts and thinking to myself that I was not going to let it get me down, but at the end of first semester I almost felt like quitting. Luckily I stuck it out, and im happy I did. I guess things will get worse before they get better.
I will start off with an album cover I did this semester for my Design class. It was taught by Tim Gough (who is awesome, by the way... The sophomores who are taking section 1 are lucky to be taking his class 2nd semester next year). This version of the art does not have any of the text in it, except for the hand done text.Back
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