Doodles

Hola, children, my apologies for not posting in a while. I recently finished Jenna and Michael's wedding save-the-dates. They're printed and mailed now, yay! I am now working on Jenna and Michael's wedding invitations. I still need to finish the musicbook and get that printed. Ugh, it looks so cool... in my brain. As if I don't have enough to do, I have two new projects. One is a mini-book for my time at Oceans. It's called Early Bird Special, and it will consist of mainly doodles that I make while bored at work. My other new project is called Adrien Brody Doing Things. It is exactly what it sounds like.

I've been wanting to get back into illustration since I got my new scanner on Black Friday. I'd had terrible "artist's block" since leaving school in May. It was quite sad. Right now is an exciting time because I am over it! 

These character development doodles were done with the Pilot G2 pens as a result of me feeling an inflated sense of pride in my pen collection. They are sort of a jumbled sneak peak of things to come. 

I bought the G2 party pack at Target once when I saw it on clearance. I can't wait until I use them up... so that I can get more. Last week I bought a pack of rainbow Pentel R.S.V.P. minis, and they have since caused me to go out of my way to write rainbow notes. Grocery list, to-do list... all rainbow.

In case you didn't know, I love pens. I regularly read penaddict.com, and I browse office supplies like most people look at porn. I've used artist pens like those from Prismacolor, Staedtler, and Micron, but my love always goes to the common man's office supplies. On Friday I picked up the Sharpie pen in Medium. It's like a number 4 or 5 Micron pen... but cheaper! I am very pleased. Next I think I will get the Paper Mate Profile Elite pens, in the rainbow party pack no less. I think the reason I'm so comfortable drawing in ballpoint is because I've had the most practice with them. Hundreds if not thousands of hours spent doodling in my notebook during lectures.

More Illustrations

I realize now that I haven't shared hardly any of my illustrations at the Jammery with all you lovely people. Feast your eyes on these! Please excuse their beauty! Feeling a change in the wind, says I... and it's not that I've been eating a lot of protein lately.

(front)

This is from an assignment in my Editorial Illustration class. Everyone picked a fantasy/sci-fi book and completely re-did the exterior of the book. I chose the Princess Bride. This illustration was done completely in black ballpoint pen. Ballpoint pen is probably my favorite method of illustration. It takes quite a long time to do, but I really enjoy going into a meditative state with these obsessive lines. I scanned the finished product into the computer and added the color in with Photoshop. I also hand wrote the text, scanned them individually, and arranged them on the computer.

I wanted to depict the Princess Bride in a more intriguing depiction because most people believe that it is a "girl" book/movie. I feel that with this cover, it would catch more people's attention and generate a larger audience. I was very much inspired by the lavish description of Princess Buttercup's hair in the story.

Feel free to click for a larger view!

(back)

The back illustration is in reference to the "Cliffs of Insanity" in the story. It can also be interpreted as a nod to Princess Buttercup's hair. The text is from the IMDB page of the Princess Bride.

"They exited through the front door!"

This is a portrait of the amazing Willem Dafoe (in my favorite scene from Boondock Saints). I painted it in acrylic paint, and it is 8" x 10". I'm actually not finished with this one (see, his hair is all wonky!), but I really wanted to share with the Jammery. Consider it an exclusive sneak peak!

This is a watercolor painting of a fennec fox. The original painting is about 2" x 3". It is from an assignment in Melissa's class where we were to mimic the style of John James Audubon on a small scale.

Wedding

This is a watercolor painting where I merged two photographs that I found in a National Geographic magazine. One photograph depicted a hyena dragging off a deliciously dead baby gazelle, and the second photograph showed a young gypsy girl on her wedding day. I felt a parallel between the two seemingly different photos. Gypsy brides get married as young as 12 years old, many times without a choice. Barely out of childhood, her life ends. I envision her wedding with her hyena of a husband dragging her off to inevitable suffering and death.

wow, I'm just a barrel of sunshine.

That is all for now, but I am feeling extremely inspired as of late. I am hoping to be able to update on more jams, but May 6th is creeping closer and closer... much like my tweed-wearing gentleman friend at Barbarella  D:

Character Development

Greetings all!

I come bearing a new shipment of jams for this week. We've been without jam since March 31st. That is unacceptable! What would Tyra say about this? (probably that he expected my jam business to fail anyway so this is no surprise).

"Gaga Monster"

Woman on UT Campus

Rabid Bunny

I return from the weekend with renewed energy and inspiration though. I finally got to see the Kills in concert. I am writhing like a heathen to their new album Blood Pressures. I highly recommend them, especially after having a religious experience in the front row that night. I was losing my mind, losing my dignity, and losing my panties. Jamie Hince... feel free to punch me in the ovaries. Alison Mosshart... sh*t on my chest!

In my last Illustration Techniques class, Melissa assigned us a character development exercise. We were assigned to develop characters depicting various emotions. Here are a few of my favorites. I used a new "scribble" method that I learned from Melissa last class. The entire illustration is based on making a scribble, and I pick lines from the scribble to create the basic shapes of the form. I really like this way of creating new characters. Creating order out of chaos.