Concepts I Update!

My "Secret Santa" assignment: Create a pop up card

Page 2. These two pop up pages are part of a series I have in mind illustrating the lyrics to "Fly Me to the Moon." I hope to finish the book as a personal project during Winter Break.

This is my first time making a pop up and I didn't expect to like it at all. But now I'm excited about this new way of working and I love that it's a combo of drawing, cut paper, craft and story telling.

scrap paper dummy

the originals

Sustainability poster

Spot illustration for "Bright Star."

I’m not totally satisfied with everything I’ve done–I need to step it up!

Rotating sketchbooks:

Rotating sketchbook topic:" Superstition"

Rotating sketchbook topic: "Music"

Rotating sketchbook topic: "Dislikes"

Rotating sketchbook topic: "Likes"

Rotating sketchbook topic: "Self Portrait"

Rotating sketchbook topic: "Cookery Book"

EDIT: Just came back from figure drawing for the first time this semester. Holy crap I am rusty/lethargic. From now on I am committed to my sketchbook alongside all the mandatory stuff. It also FEELS good to just draw for myself so I must make time for it. MUST!!

 

posters, eros, scraps from brainstorm & Halloween

Assignment for Design and Web: design a poster for our own gallery show and include a guest speaker. (I chose Edmund Dulac). We could only use one image.

Alternative color scheme. Although I like the colors here, I submitted the first one because the text there is more legible than this one.

Eros HW: design a poster advocating one of the causes of Annie Sprinkle, the sex educator/artist and first known prostitute with a PhD.

Eros HW: Illustrate a romantic scene that is also sexual. WIP. Acrylic.

At first, I had a whole scenery planned out, but ended up painting something straight forward. Somehow, it was difficult for me to fuse romance and sex in a single image, so I just kept it simple for the deadline.

Two drawings of my dorm room for my Concepts I homework. I did the top one after I did the bottom one because I was searching for something that suits both me and the assignment. To be honest, I feel a lot of pressure to define my "style" when I feel like I still need a little time to explore what's out there and what's within me.

Concepts I assignment: Sustainability poster. WIP shot.I'm thinking about redoing this thing, everything is too soft and fuzzy!

Illustrated Book: Process shot of a cover of a book that I will be working throughout this semester. I will let you in on more details when the project gains momentum. Currently, I am trying to figure things out, it's been a painful, exhausting process---and it's only just the beginning. It's one of the hardest things I have ever embarked on because I care about it so much. Book illustration is what I love and this of course, means that however this will turn out, it will be a great learning experience.

New sketchbook pages. you can kind of see my idea doodles for the sustainability poster project.

Sustainability poster doodles

My new sketchbook has become where I go to for practice, reflection and class notes. I'm starting to love spiral bound sketchbooks. I feel like I can be informal and free with them whereas perfect bound books are more like art books.

Happy Halloween!

EDIT:

My friends and I made our pencil “costumes” the morning of the Halloween party. We’re all busy kids who needed a quick and easy excuse to attend the event (so that we can check out the awesome costumes that other people labored over).

I made my pencil sharpener/stuff-holder with Julianna's acrylic and shoe box (thanks girl!)

Click for larger view:

Still Kickin’

I just came came back from Fall break (which is really just a four day weekend) and it’s already mid terms! I am trying to get everything together, fixing previous projects and working on current ones while matting ready pieces for presentation. When everything cools down a bit I will be sure to post my projects up along with some sketches I’ve been making on the side. I’m trying to push myself, but not over the edge. Or maybe if I push myself over the edge enough times and live…I will learn to fly? We will see…anyway, off to bed!

Concepts I sketch & Business Cards

My home work for Design and Web: design a logo for yourself and apply it to the design of a business card and letterhead.

This week's rotating sketchbook topic is: Wishes

I’ve been working on some longer and more interesting projects, they should be done next week.

Eros

My first assignment for Eros: the pinup. Charcoal, digital.

close up shot: did you notice the woodpeckers? There are other hidden tidbits, but this one is the most crucial to the narrative.

Second project for Eros: a spot illustration for a Savage Love letter of our choice. I chose to illustrate one about a sixty year old virgin. I might redo this when I have time.

I’ve been ask many times why I’m taking Eros. The main reason is that I’ve been on a track to do children’s book illustration, which is very close to my heart, but I also want to expand my horizons and explore different dimensions of what I can do. So far it’s been very satisfying. I’m exploring the contextualized figure more than ever and hopefully this will help me in other areas of illustration.

Concepts I HW

Illustration of "American Hot Pizza". Medium: Acrylic, purple oil pastel.

The pizza is heavy on pepperoni and gives three choices of pepper topping. I depicted a Marilyn Monroe inspired pinup girl in a pepper dress. I had to restrain myself from adding “Some Like it American Hot”, referencing Monroe’s film and adding to the cheese factor.

This week's sketch: "B&W"

Poker

Everyone received three random poker cards. The assignment was to illustrate the faces of each card with a theme that links conceptually to the card number and suit. I chose children’s books as my theme, which made this project a real treat to work on. I tried to represent a story in each card and allude to the  meandering nature of tales in my line work and composition.

Click images for larger view:

7 of Diamonds: Seven Dwarfs Returning Home

3 of Clubs: Story of the 3 Little Pigs. Did the first two pigs get eaten or were they saved by the third pig as depicted by Disney? I kept the status of the first two pigs ambiguous.

Ace of Clubs: The Ugly Duckling and what's to come

I drew everything out in pen and made some changes in photoshop. I had promised myself that I would draw more children’s book related pictures as well as practice coloring digitally this semester. I’m glad I got to cover both of that for this first assignment and I hope to continue  to do more.

I don't love this week's doodle, but I have to post it for the class haha

I will post my eros assignment next week. It’s a little big so I will need to find time to scan & patch–you know how it is!

The weather is beautiful over here btw. Looking forward to the changing leaves.

“Under the Rug” & “Life’s Too Good”

For Illustrated Book, we were given a sentence that we had to illustrate a mysterious image for. My sentence was “Two weeks passed and it happened again.” I had to draw a clue “under the rug.” This is a line from one of Chris Van Allsburg’s books/collection of drawings (?) if you don’t recognize it. Anyway, I tried to put my spin on it.

Looking back, there are many things I want to improve upon this piece (perspective, clarity, line work, color…etc) but I’m glad that I worked a little with photoshop and I’m looking forward to the next project.

_________

For Design & Web, we got to pick a music album and redesign the front and back cover. We didn’t have to use our own images since it’s suppose to be a quick exercise, but I made a little illustration for it anyway. I chose to do “Life’s Too Good,” but in my mind, I was fixated on one of the songs on the album, “Birthday.”

Sketches and Works in Progress

T.G.I.F

Concepts I sketch

"Book of Dreams" sketch

Hey! I just completed my second week of classes and so far so good! I’m busy with lots of exciting projects including this weekly side project for Concepts I. Everyone was given an old picture book with a theme predetermined by the professor on the first day of class. We are to work freely on top of/within these books then exchange our book with someone else’s to work on the following week. This means that we won’t be keeping the physical copies of our images at the end, but it’s a great way to experiment and not get  too precious. This week, my book’s topic is “dreams.” We are required to post these on our own blogs every week so you will be seeing them weekly–even if I’m shy about how some of them might turn out! I will try to scan and post more of my work when I take time off from making new ones.