Final Portfolio

Well, as fun as it has been, it is now time to wind down the semester.  This is my final portfolio.  The requirements were to pick our 4 best from a list of eight.  Here's my first one:

This is my three image gouache montage, I probably spent the most time out of any on this piece and I wish it showed a little more.  It shows in the iguana's eyes, but not on the mouse.  I think it's more of a  scan problem, I have tried to rescan, but to no avail.  Looking back, i think i coulf have made the background a different color, i was looking for something neutral, and that seemed to fit.  however, i feel it clashes with the iguana.

Next is my product illustration, as you may or may not recall, I had some problem with this project starting 3 different times!  I finally got a winner and kept it.  I did go back in and work on the cord some more, but I found the gouache a little harder to reactivate, so it just did not flow quite right.   I think the hamburger part itself came out nicely though...I am espically proud of the little shine by the mouth part and my detail work on the dialpad.  I used my pin-striping brush for that, it's got a longer tip and is really good at getting little details out.

Third is my album cover.  I blogged about this recently.  I think this is my favorite piece from the whole semester.  My only real concern was the name of the album at the bottom, it does not sit quite right.  however, i really like the composition, and this is one of my better pen/wash illustrations.

Lastly, i have my book jacket.  I am actually not a big fan of this piece but it's probably one of my better projects.  the guy just looks too orange.  If i had more time i would have done more line work on his face.  I think the layout is pretty decent though

For the next part of our portfolio, we had to pick out our 10 favorite exercise/technique works.  things we did, but wern't projects.

Well, apparently blogge won't let me post on the side of the pictures anymore, ugh.  Anyways, this is the first one i selected.  It was one of my very first watercolor works.  I think i did a really good job on the clouds (which don't show up too well, but still)  I think this was the one i finall loosened up on.

Next up is my hen.  I did this one when we had to do watercolors and then put line work on them in photoshop.  I really liked how my hen turned out so i decided it would be a good addition to this portfolio.  the angle is not too interesting, but i think i got a really nice texture and feel for the surface of this particular feathered friend.

This one also came from the photoshop line art assignment.  I really enjoyed how the different colors came together to make something new they couldn't make alone.  This is the piece that made me enjoy water coloring more then i had at any other point. 

I had painted this gouda-looking watercolor when i was working on the poster illustration assignment.  I had chosen a small-scale cheese making event and did not quite know what goat cheese looked like, so i painted this.  This is the first piece i did in watercolor i felt i really got some good depth to and did not look completely flat.  Did you get my cheesy pun?

This was not part of any project, it was merely practice.  I was going to work on something and decided it would be a good idea to practice a bit before i started.  I turned to a page where i had started to do a wash (the big yellow stroke) and wanted to paint something quick, but i didn't know what.  I saw an article in the paper nearby and decided to follow it and paint a horse.  I think horses can show some really good movement, and i think that's present here, i tried to add to that by creating the splatter at his feet.  Although it was just a practice, i am very proud of this one.

I did this one in the same breath as the previous one.  I was really struggling to find something to paint so i just took my brush into my paint and put it on my paper.  I had a bigger brush, that's how the biggest mesa came to be.  I looked at it after i did that and said this looks like a mesa, i'll take it.  So then i went with that idea.  I'm very proud of my sky and texture on the mesa. 

We were tasked with painting a large scale watercolor and i was still really struggling to come up with something to paint.  I decided to paint a larger subject matter to match the size of the area we had.  This was my first real work with line art in combination with watercolor.  I really like this one, it's probably in my top 5 best of the semester.

Oh my avocados.  This was my first gouache project, i spent quite a lot of time on it and it really helped me get the techniques down.  I almost picked this for my best of the semester, but i still think Shark Sandwich has it beat. 

This is a practice work from when we were working with airbrush.  We had to make a planet and put it in space.  I really liked how the space part came out.  It was also probably my best remasking job.

 And finally, out best marker comp.  I was having a tough time finding one i felt was up to the task of being the best, but i think i found a winner.

This is my marker comp for the Ryle Hall cafeteria mural.  I think all my marker comps had the same level of detail ,but i think i put the most amount of planning and though into this one.  As it could actually be considered to be done, i took my good sweet time coming up with a concept and executed it.  I really wanted to show these really dynamic angles leading up to the Earth, but it was harder on the left side.

So all-in-all i had some good fun in ARt 219, Illustration, and would gladly take it again.  I think the one thing i took away is that line art can save just about anything.  I will be continuing illustrating if no other purpose, for fun.  It can be an asset to designs and will hopefully boost my portfolio.

-Erik La Londe 

All that and a bag of chips

Well, everything was due today: Cheesy Airbrush, Book Jacket, and Album art.  Not much to say: here they are

The Red Badge of Courage is......a secret, read the book

Soooooo, here is my in-progress art for my book cover "The REd Badge of Courage."  I am a little hesitant to put this into production because the lines are kind of bugging me.  I am planning on putting some more work into the lines because I am not getting the definition I want right now.  Hmm, line work really has helped me out before so hopefully it pays off now.

Oh my, has it been a long time since i've blogged!

Oh my, has it been a long time since i've blogged!  Well, I have been hard at work on both my album art and my book cover.  My plan is to spend a lot of time on those and try to avoid doing the cheesy airbrush as long as possible.  Not really, i am just not looking forward to doing it.  I feel like we should have to do the cheesy project on the side of a van, or a t-shirt given out to tourists in Miami or something.  Know what I mean?  I see them all the time, I was at the Jersey boardwalk one time and they had a whole stand for these lame shirts.  Perfectly good space wasted!  And it's not that the airbrush makes it looks cheesy, it's a big part, but the subject matter is really cheesy too.  It's usually like characters, i see a lot of names too.  Do people actually thing these are quality shirts?  I think for the price of a plain white tee, cost of dyes, airbrushes, and a vendor's license I could make a pretty good living as an airbrush artist. These shits were selling at around $15 - $20 each!  EACH!  So let's see: a cheap white tee is about $2 (max), dyes are maybe $50 for a bigger set (i'll say average one or two bucks on a single shirt, we'll say one because most are one or two color), sold at an average $17, THAT'S ABOUT $14 PROFIT!  UNBELIEVABLE!  What was i talking about, oh right progress. Well today we had to show progress on our album cover.  I did a simple wash and then beefed it up with line art.  I will be putting in a ocean-like background.

Airbrush Practice

So, we've started working with airbrushes for some reason or another.  I really see no point in learning to use them, unless one of the projects is retouching a large-scale image; which i hardly doubt.   So for today, we had to paint a planet; with a space-like background on it of course!  So i did this little number, the planet is okay, just okay.  I like the background better actually.  I think scale could have helped here.  I think i was more free to work with the airbrush on the back because i was not working in such a confined space.  I will have to keep that in mind.  Well here it is, I also added a few variations on it as well, because they just seemed to fit in well, enjoy:

The one on the farthest right was my first attempt at the airbrush, it did not work out as planned because my aribrush needed some serious cleaning!  We've only just started working with them and already it's filthy!  Either did a really bad job cleaning it to begin with or someone just left gunk in it!  I think it's the later one, i mean when i pulled the cap off, purple ink fell on my hand!  Who does that!  I looked to see who had used purple the next day.  The other blue one was my first shot at a planet.  I think it's just okay.  I think scale would rally help as well as making it look a little less flat.  the orange ones are just practice again.  

The way I see it, airbrushing can only go up from here.

Comps comps and more comps, actually just two comps.

So for today we were showing off our marker comps for our book cover and cheesy airbrush.  For the book jacket I decided to go with The Red Badge of Courage.  Since most of the really good covers were taken i decided to go with something a little more standard, but slightly modified.  While looking at what most of the other covers look like, i saw a lot with the guy holding a flag in a depiction of the final battle.  I thought this image really sold the idea of the book, so i decided i'll try my hand at it.  However, I am going to have the illustration wrap around to the back so it's not quite as, ahem . . . stale as some others might be.  Take a look:

And for my cheesy airbrush I thought of someone/thing with a cigar.  I came up with a cat or a used car salesman.  I will most likely use the cat.  I will have to work out his legs because they look a bit awkward as is, but then again they should because cat's legs don't rest like that.  I thought orange was a good cheesy color, I don't know why It just is.  I'm also trying to get him to not look like garfield.  Remember, this will be in airbrush, so it can only look worse. Look at this:

Everybody needs a montage!

I have been working on this one for a while now hence my lack of posts.  It is my 3-image gouache montage.  The images are apparent due to my excellent gouache-ing skills.  The scan does it no justice, the mouse has lost all value, but my excellent shading on the front of the mouse shows up.  It's a lot darker than it actually is, despite my effort to adjust it in Photoshop.  Oh well, I'll keep working on it.  It was pretty hard to paint, i kept wanting to add an extra layer of depth into my iguana, and spent most of my time on that part.  Since i spent so much time on it, the other parts look less developed.  Perhaps i'll work on it some more one day.  I also ran into the strangest problem: I had painted my hot dog bun but it looked kind of green so i scrubbed it and then reapplied a better brown, but painting along the edge of the new bun was difficult because the paint would not stay on the illustration board.  It was like it had a layer of laminate/or like i was painting on plastic.  Super weird!  I also think my mouse lines look odd, though very close to my image, still looks out of place, perhaps a lower value next time.

Here's what i'm thinking...

Now that we "have the skills" It's time for some real projects!  Today we presented marker comps for the proposed 'album art' project.  i thought for a while about what i would do for mine, and it eventually boiled down to: What would be the most fun to illustrate?  There were some pretty good contenders:  "Big Lizard in my Backyard" by the Dead Milkmen, "You can Tune a Piano, but you can't Tuna Fish" by REO Speedwagon, and "She Wants Revenge" by She Want Revenge, but the decision finally went to "Shark Sandwich" by Spinal Tap.  As you may or may not know, Spinal Tap is a fictional band features in the 1980s mockumentary "This is Spinal Tap."  The name of the album came from one of my favorite parts in the movie where they are discussing their discography:  "The review for "Shark Sandwich" was merely a two word review which simply read 'Shit Sandwich'."  Wether the album be good or bad, i guess i really just wanted to paint a shark. . . . . . and a sandwich. . . . together.   I wanted to paint a shark sandwich.  Anyways, here's my comp.

comp here:

Hold on, I'm on my hamburger phone

Yes, you read right!  For my product illustration i painted a hamburger phone.  They are real and you can buy them!  I thought it would be fun and it was, we had to have them to turn in on Friday so I had to stop sometime.  I would have added more detail to the cord had time allowed, but for the time being, it's not to shabby!  Fine enough to be printed in any magazine still printing illustrated pictures of products and willing to sell a hamburger phone.

How do you like them avocados?

Gouache has been getting considerably better, i just found out out that i have to paint things i actually like!  Not things that may seem easy.  Below are my avocados, my first non train wreck gouache pick out painting.  I am really impressed with it!  I hope you enjoy it as well.  I am currently working on my third gouache product illustration, yes third!  I first attempted a rubber duck ,he got to muddled with color, and then i tried a toy race car, but the sizing was wrong and the colors wouldn't go on right.  As for my product illustration, you'll just have to wait and see what it is for yourself.  until then, enjoy some avocados:

The good, The bad, and the ugly. There are only two but the bad and the ugly one are one in the same, so...

Here it is!  MY favorite and least favorite.  My least favorite was one of the earlier watercolors from the 5" x 7" series.  It was of the side of a building i took.  there were a lot of contenders for the worst, but this one took the cake.  There is not one redeeming quality about this one.

And here is the better one.  I had a lot to pick from here too.  I like my horse, but i don't think it shows much skill, i think it's a good example of me loosening up with my technique, but that's about it.  I thought about my hen i drew earlier too, but nothing tops my triceratops!  It's a good example of some watercolor skill, but I feel it's a great example of me adapting to the media presented.  I will be honest, i'm not to good with watercolors, but when combined with line art, i can really make it work.  Here it is:

Final Red Barn Illustrations

These are my final red barn illustrations.  I watercolored then put a sheet over them and did some sketching, scanned them both together because i tried scanning them separately and it would not go over well.  Well, here they are.  The first one will be on the cover and the lower one will be inside.

Gou(head)ache thoughts, actually that sums it pretty well.

So on Friday the 15th, we started playing with Gouache.  Try imagining painting with mud, it's something like that.  I like the fact that it can be reworked over and over again, unlike watercolor, where i try to go over something again and it stains that area.  speaking of watercolor, i had an a-ha moment while painting my red barn photos this weekend.  I realized that i hate watercoloring.  Oh wait, i already knew that.  Hmm, despite my disadvantage to this media, i will continue to attempt to work at it.  I think I do a lot better when I go over it with marker.  I value my drawing skills over my watercoloring skills and think the two combined can turn out some pretty col stuff, i refer to my triceratops painting: 

http://eriksillustrationblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/upscaled-watercolors.html

I really enjoy the graphic style i get from it.  This is, after all, Illustration class, and i have been dying to do some illustrating.  Than again, illustration  is a kind of generic term.

fud

SO...apparently Wednesdays are bring breakfast to class days.   I can live with that.

Ryle Collage final Marker Comp.

For Wednesday's class we had to do a to-scale marker comp of our concept for the Ryle Hall cafeteria's non-existent wall.  Yes, that's right, there's no wall there.  We went there to look at the wall, and guess what?  It's not there!  So, needless to say, i was a little unmotivated on this one.  I mean seriously, the only place where there was anywhere close to enough room was the temporary wall they have up while the other half is being finished and there is no way they would paint on that right?  Hmm...I reminds me of a mural I did my senior year of high school.   this custard place asked two high schools to do murals for their blank walls.  I had the idea to do our on a big canvas so that if (really when) the place closed, it would be able to be moved.  The other school just painted theirs on the wall, with a projector mind you!  Cheaters!  Anyways, the place closed months later and ours got moved somewhere, i have yet to be told its location, and the other school's mural is still on the wall, you can see it as you drive by.  Here's my mural, scanned and posted.  It is meant to show campus, community and global diversity.  I showed this by having a student, then a recent grad in a suit going to her new job.  Next is community and i showed that by having a police officer.  Last is global and i showed some world-leader like people.  On the other side i did a similar thing.  Closest to the middle is a guy showing campus by cleaning up.  Community is next showing a guy teaching environmentalism to the next generation, and then a global power at the end, the prez. to be exact, it seemed like the right thing to do.  My only concern with that is how well it will date.  I don't want kids looking at this years from now and laughing because "he was president sooo long ago!"  I got that feeling looking at the one collage with all the technology as well, i mean in 10 years, heck 5 years, all that stuff will be out of date.  They don't even make film for those polaroids anymore either!  Oh, and i was going for curtains behind the prez. on the far left.  Enjoy:  

I did not eat glue

For today, we had another two 8" x 10" water colors.  I used a failed start of a water color for some practice and ended up getting the horse/jockey illustration.  It just took a few minutes to get me sort of loose before starting up on something big.  I then proceeded to paint another mesa because i was so enjoying what happened with the one i painted for Wednesday's class.  Number two was not as exciting, but okay... I also painted a boat on the sea because i was thinking of a painting i did for painting for painting II.  I considered doing wreckage flying all over the place, but decided against it because i liked what i had.  I think i'm improving, but still a way away from an a-ha moment.

Not Secretariat or glue, yet...

Mesa II

The ship's bow and the sea

Finding Orange in Nature

For Wednesday's class we had to do another two 8" x 10" watercolors.  For this, i decided to use an orange palette in favor of the fall atmosphere.  FOr the first one i tried a bunch of changing trees, with leaves on the ground.  It turned out okay.  In retrospect i should have painted in the tree limbs in later, they look a little weird as is.  I will definitely have to peek-a-boo them in next time.  The ground gave me the most trouble, i had to wait a while for it to dry, but i got my leaves down okay, i will try putting the leaves down first next time.  Then i had a lot of warm colors left over so i asked myself, what's quick to paint and the same colors?  A mesa of course!  Something in Arizona or around there.  It was a pretty quick painting.  I really liked how the sky turned out, and i think it scanned down pretty well.

Not Inspired

I had absolutely no inspiration or interest in painting over the weekend, so i played around with the fan brush.  Meh, it's okay.  I think it's too big for what i was i was trying to do.  I got some pretty good effects, i really liked how my water turned out, the rest of that second one, not so much.  The first one i did i actually tried a little bit of glazing, it turned out okay, and only one tree casualty!  So should i get better at glazes, i should have no issue.  WEll here they are, i will probably use my fan brush more, should i find myself in a state of apathy.

Imagine you're in a clearing, looking up at a forest

Another forest?  With a lake and some majestic purple mountains

Another big one

For Friday we had to do another big watercolor, no (marker) line though...  I was completely inspired, so i decided to go with something else big, so i chose an elephant.  It turned out decently.  I did a background wash then blocked out the body of my elephant.  I then went in a did painted line for his features.  The body was a grey/purple and the line was slightly darker.  Then i did some little plants here and there.  Again, the scan is a little dark...

Upscaled watercolors

For today we had to do a watercolor but larger.  13" x 19" to be precise, actually mine ended up being 15" x 20" because i cut a big ole piece of illustration board up to four equal pieces.  I was thinking something of this scales deserves to be epic.  I decide to go with a dinosaur because no small piece of watercolor paper can contain its awesomeness.  This one is mostly line driven because if feel i do a lot better when i know i get to use line as well.  the scan really doesn't do it  justice it's a lot brighter, but here it is:

The Goats are In!

Continuing with the goat and cheese theme i came with a few more ideas for my poster.  Both are playing with a literal interpretation of the idea.  The one on the top is pretty close to what goat cheese looks like: white, boring, and unidentifiable.  I jazzed it up with some goat features.  And the one on the bottom is a cheesy goat, a stand-up comedian to be more specific.  Lounge singer could also apply.  Maybe if he were in front of a car he could be a used car salesman, that's pretty cheesy.

It's goat cheese, literally!

Not goat cheese, but a cheesy goat

Something's cheesy...

We are now working on an illustration for an on-campus event.  I chose the small-scale cheese making group.  I'm not too sure what all the specifics were becaue when i went back in to truview, the info was gone...oh well.  I knew it had to do with goat cheese (that's what they were going to be making) so i went with that.  Not knowing what goat cheese looke dlike, i painted this up:

As i would find out, goat cheese is white, so i'm contemplating changing the color or going in a different direction all together, otherwise, it's not a bad little illustration.

Mugshot

We had four hours to paint ourselves, i did a few warm-up paintings, but ended up with the train-wreck below:

My only complaint is that the mouth is too far to the right, but in my defense, i was kind of smirking in the photo.  I really liked how the hair turned out!  I still need to loosen up a bit, this is apparent in the face, mostly around the mouth.  It's a little muddy, but not a big issue.  the shadows under the eyes are definitely the part i had the most trouble on.  I'm going to work on this some more and try a little less saturation.

Similar, yet so very different

For this part of the assignment, we had to do watercolor and line art with 5 different paintings, but they all focused of the same thing.  I did flowers, mostly because it was quick to paint.  I did these from my mind, so when i went in to do the line work, i had a general idea in mind by really didn't know exactly what went where, and i do not have much experience painting flowers so some are a little weird.  The first one is the first one i did and so on down the line.

Less detail, more outline work

Darker, and added crosshatching shading

hints at background structure and leaf detail

A lot less detail, painted line on flower, hardly hinting at leaves

Dual color in leaves, background leaves turned out well as they have been hinted at lightly, rose has light and dark spots in an attempt to show highlights

Waste of time lines

So for this assignment, we had to add digital line to watercolor and let me just say what a waste of time this was.  The one assignment where i didn't mind goofing up because i'm adding line in later, i actually get some good watercolors!  Let's look at what i had and then how it was slapped in the face by Photoshop's lines.

Pretty decent hen, i thought

Now, a pretty decent waste of cyberspace

Might be my favorite piece so far

...and the mustache on the Mona Lisa

On this one i tried to do a little bit of watercolor and draw in the rest, that failed horribly so i went in with a colored brush to give it the look of a shell and the same color too.

I'm looking at this right now and i'm not sure how well the color shows on here, i'll tinker with the color levels because i can hardly see my lines, but for now this will have to do...

This is the fourth one, I meant it more as a practice in working with straight lines and i thought i did better than previous works.  I tried some lines on the light brown field but it just looked redundant, like the other lines in the earlier paintings, hmm, maybe they weren't so out of place.

Ugh, it's like looking at a book of old drawings, yes it still has the third grade look, but those are probably the straightest lines i've drawn in Photoshop yet, not using the line tool that is...

My Fifth Image won't upload "file type not supported"  seriously?  It's a .jpg!  Come on Blogger.com!  I'll see what i can do, i might have to rescan...