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A long overdue painting/sketchbook update coming soon! Stay tuned.

Illustrator Portrait: Anna Craig

Portrait of my wonderful and talented friend, Anna Craig, done in Illustrator. Man. This thing fought me right up until the end. But once I stopped worrying about being 100% true to the photo and just making it work as a portrait, I finally achieved a result that I'm happy with. 

Photo reference. 

Postcard Illustration: Orlando, FL.

 Digital.

For Illustration, we had to create a postcard for our hometown. It's times like this that I wish I were from somewhere awesome like Iceland or Australia, but alas I am from Orlando and I had to make due. The assignment was very open and I wanted to do something that I actually wanted to do, not something I was just doing for class. I think I definitely accomplished that. I had a blast doing this. I originally got three different concept thumbnails approved, but I chose this one because it was slightly more complex and I felt like I would learn a lot from it.

So my concept is pretty straightforward. Orlando can't be defined by one type of person or landmark. It's actually a fairly big place that encompasses many different walks of life. I decided to split up my perception of Orlando into four distinct slices, all represented by a person on the bus.

There is the business man, who represents the wealthy built-up suburbs. Windermere, Islesworth, that sort of thing.  Next to him is the obvious: tourist mom and kids with all of their Disney merchandise. There is the artsy hipster youth, which represents the un-florida like areas of Orlando, with hole-in-the-wall places like Austins and Stardust Video & Coffee. And on the end is the homeless person, representing the struggling, poorer side of Orlando like Parramore and the waves of homeless all over downtown.

I really love the way this piece came out. It was a ton of fun and I really tried to experiment with color and colored line (I looked at a lot of Sam Bosma's work for inspiration) and I think that it was pretty successful.  I got a good critique (Anna pointed out that I forgot to fucking put cast shadows on the floor and I want to die) and I got a few compliments that meant a lot. Happy with this one.

Process:

Super messy rough line work.

Finalized line work and value study. The line work was consistent but the value shifted a bit when I started coloring, but not to the point where it became unreadable. I try to turn my color off pretty often, just to see where I'm at value-wise.

Spot Illustrations

First assignment for Computer Illustration: three spot illustrations done in illustrator. I have a lot to say about Illustrator at this point, and not all of it good. But I am still just beginning to understand vector programs and how everything is supposed to work, so I'm not going to go as far as to say I dislike it. Because I don't.  It's just...weird.

Anyways, for my spot illustrations I wanted to do something that would work well in Illustrator. So I chose flat tribal/totem inspired animals. A bear, a porcupine, and a wolf. Everyone agrees that the wolf looks more like a fox though. So I guess it's a folf. Or a wox. Hmm.

I'm iffy on the bear. And I think, out of all of them, the porcupine is my favorite. 

Semester Two Has Begun!

And here is my first assignment from my Illustration class with Brooke Olivares.

The prompt was capturing the spirit/essence of Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth (had to be 8.5x11). I'm not a fan of the circus, but I decided to do a more "behind the scenes" daily morning routine thing.

This was my first time working with my own photo reference. Dani, Garrett, and Megan did a fantastic job posing. It took a few shots but I finally got decent reference to work from. I chose digital mostly because I was worried about the time it would take to do traditional. Digital is kind of my fallback but I don't want to get stuck in that since I am far from experienced with it and I generally try to do a painterly style anyways. I think I learned a lot about light and color in this one and I'm really happy with the way it turned out, for what it was.

I think what I learned the most from this is that I have to give myself at least two or three more hours than I think I'm going to need. And that photo reference can be a life savor.

Process Work:

Reference photo.

Value Rough. Changed a bit, but I stayed fairly close. 

Collage: Lost-in-the-Woods Survival Sandwich

For our last project in Media we had to do a collage of a recipe. This was very open ended.  A lot of people ended up doing recipes for non food related things (like recipe for a road trip, or recipe for a villain) but there were a couple that actually followed a recipe. I found a happy medium between the two. I really wanted to do a food item, but I also wanted to do something that was strange and not entirely believable. So I came up with the idea to do a magazine-type article of for something you might make yourself if you were lost in the woods. I was inspired by the book Sam's Sandwich by David Pelham, which I read quite often as a kid. Originally, I wanted it to be a bunch of nasty things, but some of it ended up looking somewhat appetizing. Or maybe that's just me. Anyways, I'm really happy with the way this came out. 

Done in acrylic, watercolor, pen and ink, tissue paper, as well as various non-copyright imagery. 

detail shots:

By the Slice: Illustrated Zine

So over the summer I became interested in making my own zines. Mostly just because it's a good short term goal and you can pretty much get away with anything. The options are endless. The first one I did is a compilation of stories and poems and some collage type work. But I really wanted to make a zine that focused more on my art. So between late summer and last month, my friend Kaleb and I collaborated to make By the Slice - a thirteen page zine (plus cover) featuring 10 illustrated poems.  Kaleb wrote the words and I did the art.  It was really fun to do something outside of school and to work with someone else. It was a wonderful experience that I'm sure I will do again with many others.

You can purchase the zine at my etsy store in either original or large format.

cover. 

Me in a nutshell. the only bio I'll ever have to write.