Final Illstration Portfolio

The goal for this piece was to create a realistic illustration of a product. I chose a cell phone and did the project in gouache. i also chose to do the phone from 2 separate angles. I'm pretty happy with how this piece turned out considering it was only my second time working with gouache.

This project required that we take 3 random objects and create a montage. I chose a clown fish, tree and light bulb. The background is meant to mimic the texture of water. This piece was done in gouache. This piece was actually redone. The original has a different texture in the trees and a darker background overall.


This project required that we recreate a book cover for a famous work. I chose Pride and Prejudice. I wanted to go along with the letter-writing concept so for the background I dyed my own paper and illustrated on it with india ink and a paintbrush, adding subtle dimension with monochromatic colored pencils. I added the copy with Indesign. I'm pretty happy with the final outcome of this project and my vision seems to have transferred to the final piece.

The goal for this project was to illustrate a sound. chose to do the sound of a crying baby. I did this piece in watercolor and gouache. I like this illustration, however I think I could have had more contrast and worked with the background a little more.



This project required that we illustrate a world record. I chose to illustrate longest fingernails and do it in a humorous manner. I did this piece in pen and ink and then used watercolor. The copy was added in photoshop. After this Rusty banned cartoons...boo.


This piece is a watercolor landscape exercise size 5.5 x 4. This piece is when I first started getting the hang of watercolor. Even though I didn't do this piece from real life, I feel like I was able to capture the elements that I wanted to. I also enjoyed making the clouds in this piece.


This piece required that we make a postcard that reflected Missouri. I found a photo of a frog that I liked which had his reflection in the water. I illustrated this with gouache and did a watercolor glaze over the reflection to make it look more "watery." I actually kind of enjoyed this piece and am pretty happy with the result.



This project required that we illustrate a conversation. The conversation I overheard was "Baby, you know I love you, but I really want the mint chip ice cream..." I did this piece in pen and ink and then colorized it in photoshop. I am happy with the final outcome of this piece and I've come to find I enjoy painting in photoshop.

Book Cover FInal

Final book cover illustration. India ink painted onto dyed paper with colored pencil and with text added in indesign.

Illustrations for book cover

Here is an update on my book cover. These are the illustrations I plan to use which i did on dyed paper (parchment) with india ink and shaded with colored pencil.

Final Cheesy

SOOOOOO cheesy! These dolphins are so in love...and so cheesy. Final illustration. I hate airbrushing.

Dem Nails are LOOOONNNGGGG

Final illustration for World Record. As you can see I did the World's longest fingernails. I went the sassy cartoon route with this one. I am pretty happy with the result. If I could change anything I would add a sidewalk wand work with my bricks a little more. My printed version was a great deal darker than this one, but the one above is the true color of the piece.

Final Sound Illustration

Here is my sound illustration of a crying baby...can't you just hear that wail? I did this with gouache and watercolor.

Pencil comp Sound Illustration

Pencil comp of sound illustration. Mine is a crying baby (they are OBNOXIOUS AND LOUD!) I hope to intensify the sound aspect with a very bold "loud" background. Color comp to come!

Missouri Postcard Final

Final Missouri Postcard. As you can see I chose to do an illustration of a frog in water. For my medium I used mostly gouache but used watercolor as a glaze for the water. I'm pretty happy with my outcome but I wonder what other things I could have tried in the background.

Re-Do of World Record Marker Comp

Re-Did this comp...mostly changed stuff in the window...final soon to come

Missouri Postcard Marker Comp

Missouri postcard marker comp, I'm doing a frog in some water...as you can see above

Fruit numba 2...Apple Time

Second attempt at airbrushed fruit...an aple this time. Definitely more successful, but note to self: Don't put your airbrushed pieces away before they're dry! I thought it was dry...it wasn't. Paper stuck to it...

Ugly cherry...

If I were to eat a cherry....it wouldn't be this one. First attempt at actually airbrushing an object didn't go so well. I tried to do the highlights first, then masked them, however, when i went back to reveal them they were the complete wrong color and too orange. To try and save it i used white and red gouache...now it's a hot mess, that's all.

Cheesy marker comp

Here is a marker comp for my cheesy illustration, precious I know!

...not looking forward to airbrushing this fyi

Final conversation piece. Conversation:
In Walmart - "Baby, you know I love you, but I really want the mint chip ice cream..."
I chose to draw my illustration with pen and ink and scan it and add color through photoshop. I feel this worked well because my piece had a cartooney feel and this helped to emphasize that. I'm pretty happy with the final outcome of this project but could probably work a little more on the guy's hair and maybe do something else with the background.

Marker Comp for World Record

Here is my marker comp for my world record illustration: Longest finger nails

Illustration Midterm Portfolio

Midterm Portfolio:

I will start from the top. The first piece I chose was the gouache montage, which is our most recent piece. I really enjoyed this piece, and it took a decent amount of time. The scanned image scanned in darker than the original, but it doesn't look too bad on the screen. I enjoyed my composition of this work and the objects I chose. I also liked how I worked with scale and the shading of my objects. I like my background, however, I wish it was perhaps a little lighter so there would be more contrast with images such as the clown fish. Another slight issue I had was with my tree. I wish there was a little more depth when it came to my leaves and branches. Overall I liked this piece and the final outcome.


The second piece is my DMV Cartoon. This piece required not only the cartooning, but a concept as well. I enjoyed cartooning and working with expressions. For this particular character expression I chose the look of shock and dropped jaw. To emphasize this look I added a burst of color behind the character. I liked adding the color in photoshop and experimented with a few different methods. I found that flat color worked best with my piece, but I added a few shadows as well. As far as concept goes, mine is pretty obvious. I'm doing a play off of the long waits that always seem to be present at the DMV. I liked how this piece turned out in the end. It took around 3-4 hours for the final piece, and more if you include sketches and concept work...



The third work above is my memory portrait. I actually redid this piece so it is completely different from my original. I wanted to go with a look that wasn't so flat and cartoony, but still not realistic. I am happy with the new portrait. I sketched the portrait and then went over with ink, using scumbling and shading to help build the form. Afterward I went over with watercolor, emphasizing the shading with this as well. Overall I am happy with this piece and feel I've developed the character fairly well.





Fourth you'll see my gouache product illustration. I'm fairly happy with how this turned out. I chose a cell phone and was ambitious by doing 2 images from different angles (brownie points Rusty?). There are a few issues I had with this pieces, such as a couple areas where the paint color was a little off on the phone. I also feel like the phone looks flat in some areas. I like the composition of this piece however and I also liked the background; I wish I would've extended my background "splashes" a little more though. This piece probably took about 4-5 hours to complete, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Lastly I've included one of our watercolor exercises. This was when we first began landscapes and this was one of my first ones. When I did this piece I was just getting the hang of painting loosely with watercolor and learning about dabbing clouds etc. By using some new techniques we had learned and not trying to control the watercolor too much I actually created a piece that I enjoy. This piece probably took about an hour or so even though it was just a little half sheet of watercolor. Also, this landscape was made up rather than taken from a photo, which I liked better. It was nice not stressing over making a piece look exactly like something else. This is my favorite of all the half sheet exercises I believe.

Fail...

Dear Blog...

You're my only friend.

Today Rusty said we have to re-do our gouache montage.

fml

Final Gouache Montage

Here's this little booger. I'm pretty happy with the final result. I wish I could've made the tree have a little more depth in the leaves and I wish there was some more contrast with my fish and background. Other than this I like this pieces.

Memory Portrait...re-do

I re-did my memory portrait...i did someone else this time, i like it better...here it is

Second Marker Comp

Second marker comp...ready to move on to final stages of production. The only thing about the marker comp that will be different on my final piece is the background. On the comp the background color is solid, however, I hope to do a more watercolor-looking approach with some areas of more concentrated color than others

First Gouache Montage Comp

First comp attempt...apparently not good- doing over. Tree needs more detail along with light bulb and background needs to be added. I'm thinking of a pale pink/lavender in the back, but not solid...different tones of the same color I suppose

Final DMV Cartoon

Final DMV Cartoon. I'm pretty happy with it. I feel it's a little flat but there wasn't much opportunity for depth...and it's a cartoon so I'm not too concerned about it. I've come to find I enjoy cartooning more than I expected.

Depart of Motor Vehicles Cartoons

DMV Cartoons...whoop whoop.

assignment: create single panel cartoons depicting the DMV and using characters...

Cartoons...Memory Portrait

Initial and second memory portraits...not much to say here. Initial cartoons

Product Illustration

Here is my product illustration of a cell phone. It needs a little work and has to be cleaned up a bit but I think it's salvageable. The most difficult thing about this was blending and adding highlights etc. without picking up too much gouache...

Gouache numero uno

My first attempt at gouache. Obviously this piece is unfinished but I hope to change that. I enjoyed gouache more than watercolor because it was more opaque and I liked being able to easily pick color out. Hopefully I'll get to this soon because I like where it's going...

The Watercolor Beast

GIANT WATERCOLOR!

So we had a 20x30 watercolor...I chose to do a landscape. My proportion was ok and I liked some of the techniques I used, but it wasn't realistic enough for me and I don't think I had enough contrast. Picture to come...boo watercolor!

20 watercolor + pen & ink

This time we had to do 10 watercolors with a pen & ink of each one as well. I chose to do mostly objects and landscapes. The line drawings were challenging because I found I only had 01 and 02 size micron pens, which really aren't that large. This made my line drawings pretty weak and scratchy looking. Above is an example of a watercolor of watercolor and a pen & ink of the same thing.

10 More, Architecture

This assignment required ten more watercolors. Subject: architecture. I really didn't like this, I'm not gonna lie. Watercolor is hard enough without having to worry about straight lines. Also, Kirksville doesn't offer much great architecture to work from...I'm just sayin'.

10 more watercolors...

This assignment was to create 10 more watercolors, but this time landscapes. After doing a couple in class I found I enjoyed this more than painting from observation. I was getting frustrated with the first ten because I could never make the watercolor do what I wanted, however, with the landscapes it was much easier to work with the nature of the watercolor and there wasn't a specific look I was necessarily trying to achieve. 10 more for friday...get excited.

First Assignment

Our first assignment was to do 10 watercolors from obsrrvation. I haven't worked with watercolor a whole lot so this assignment was a little challenging. I enjoy working with acryllic because it will do exactly what you want, where as watercolor does simply what it wants. However, I have come to find that the fact that watercolor is a little more difficult to control can actually be it's strong point. I'm slowly learning to let the watercolor take it's course and work from there.