Final Portfolio

So this is my final portfolio. We had to pick 4 of our best illustrations out of a list of eight things. It took me a while to decide which ones that I would pick, but I finally decided on these four: Gouache montage, product illustration, album illustration, and my poster illustration.

This is one of my favorites. I love working with gouache so I found this project very fun. I learned a lot about gouache while working on this project. I also was able to effectively put three random images in an interesting composition. It was a challenge at first but it worked out in the end.

This is another piece that I did with gouache. This time I used more colors than I had before with gouache so that was interesting. It took me a long time to get the color of the bottle and the shading just right. Overall I think that it is an accurate representation of a Jones Soda bottle.

I really liked the way that this turned out - I spent a long time on the dress. Again, this is completely gouache. (Can you see a trend here? Haha) I enjoyed painting it.

And from way back in the semester, my poster illustration. The was done with watercolor. The colors are bright and vibrant, which I had a really hard time achieving with watercolor, so I think that this shows that I was progressing and getting better.

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Here are my ten technique exercises. The six below this were created in Photoshop using the Wacom tablet and basically messing around with the program. I think that they turned out very nice.

This one is my favorite.

The one above is my second gouache attempt. I love everything about it and I think it turned out great.

Watercolor bird! This is one of my better water colors.

Well these make me have extra technique examples, but I liked them so it's okay.

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Now for my comp - this actually isn't a marker comp, but it is a comp, I just used water color instead. It was the comp for the inside of my Red Barn pamphlet. I think it's pretty nice.

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Overall I learned a lot in this class. I enjoyed being in it, though I wasn't so much a fan of getting up so early for it, haha.

Final Projects

Hello everyone! Illustration is almost over - all that is left is the final. Today we had three projects due: Album cover, Book cover, and cheesy. Here are the results.

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Cheesy airbrush! I.. don't like airbrush. :P

My bookcover! I am really happy with the way that this turned out. Everything was done in Photoshop and InDesign. It looks really nice on the actual book as well.

This is my album cover. It's all gouache except for the text, which I did in InDesign.

Soon I will be posting my final blog. Stay tuned!

Airbrush!

Ah, airbrushing. Definitely not my friend. We had to make twenty circles and twenty cubes as well but they're so bad that I don't even want to put them on here haha. Here are two of the assignments: the planet and the fruit.

Airbrushing is a lot harder than I expected it to be. Masks drive me insane! Hopefully I will have better luck with the cheesy project. I will post my comps later on so you guys can see!

Gouache Montage

Wow, I haven't blogged in a while. Well, here's what I've been working on - the three image gouache montage. I think it turned out pretty well.

There's always more that you could do to make something better, it seems.

Product Illustration

Well I haven't blogged in a while.. also I am super tired so I don't have much to say. Here is my product illustration.

Yep, it looks way better smaller. Haha.

Finished gouache painting!

I finished the gouache pick-out painting that I was doing for my friend for his birthday. I figured I'd post it on here to show you guys. I thought it turned out alright!

Yay! :)

Midterm! Oh no!

Alright so here is my midterm. It took my a while to pick out my worst - that's really sad, isn't it? Looking back I realize how many bad watercolors I painted. They're terrible, haha. Well, for my WORST piece I chose this building. It is so bad - I think that seeing it is self explanatory.

It has absolutely no line work to give it structure. Also, the colors are bad - the saturation is really bad. I attempted to make it better by adding some vines on the building but it wasn't successful. It just looks like a block with silly windows on it. Let's just say I've done better work, haha.

For my best piece, I actually chose my red barn cover illustration. I think that it has great saturation and great style to it.  I really like the colors and how I handled the paint on the surface. It makes the piece look a bit sketchy/blurry, but it fits with the overall style I was going for.

I also chose it to show the difference from the buildings that I did before and the ones that I do now.

It's really neat to look back on all of your work and see how much you've improved. It seemed like I wasn't but once I looked back on those old watercolors I realized how much I really have improved. It's pretty cool.

Anyway, have a good fall break!

Gouache Progress

We started painting with gouache last Friday. We are using the "pick-out" technique, where we draw an image on the board and then coat the illustration board with a mixture of matte medium, gesso, and water. Then we paint a solid color over each of the areas of the painting and let that dry. Once it is dry, we use water and a paintbrush to "pick-out" the colors and move them around, enabling us to make highlights and stuff like that.

So my one from Friday is really bad, but I expected that. Here it is:

I was just trying some things out and getting used to the gouache so it was more like a test.

On Monday we started another one for practice. I am painting a picture for a friend, for his birthday. So far I think it has turned out really successful but I still have a lot more to do. I am starting to enjoy painting with gouache - I definitely like it way more than watercolor. Here is that one:

I'll be working on that one again on Wednesday.

Final Illustrations

Our final illustrations are due today. Since I really liked my front cover from last time, I wanted my final to look like it except making it better with more detail. So that's what I did with the front, and I think that it came out very well. With the inside illustration, I fixed a few things with adding painted line which I think makes the illustration turn out better. The illustration goes at the bottom right corner of the paper. (My brochure opens to a poster like format with a landscape cover)

I am happy with both of my illustrations. Sorry that they aren't really in scale to what they are in real life - the inside one is smaller.

Mural Design

Hello everyone. Here is my final mural design. We had to make a design that encompassed campus, community, and world diversity.. or something like that. One of my scans was bad (the middle one) but I couldn't get it to scan evenly for some reason so I just gave up. So the yellow hand is really blurry because the pictures don't line up. Haha. Just ignore that.

The quote says "We must build a new world, a far better world - one in which the dignity of man is respected." -Harry S. Truman

That's it for now!

Red Barn Color Comps

So for today we had to have our Red Barn illustration comps to show what our final piece was going to look like. I am actually really happy with mine so I was excited to bring it to class. Also I got some very good suggestions to work with. Here they are:

The front illustration.. it is landscape format.

The inside illustration.. it is in the bottom right corner of the paper, leaving enough room for a lot of text.

Have a good week!

More 8x10 Watercolor

So.. we had to do two more 8x10 watercolor. Here are my results (also there is one from the other day in here too). I don't like them at all.

I don't feel like I'm getting better at all. Watercolor is frustrating - no matter what I do, my work still sucks. Oh well I guess I'll keep trying.

-End rant-

8x10 Watercolors

For class today we had to do some 8x10 watercolors. 2 for Monday, 2 for Wednesday. I actually do have 4 of them but apparently I left the fourth one in my dorm room so I have three to show you all for now. I only like one out of these three - the flamingo bird one. I like it because I had more control over the values and paint because I only had one color to deal with.

Overall I think that it turned out well.

The next two I don't like at all. I was trying out some different techniques and I don't think that were successful.

The water color of the sky has some good qualities about it but once I started messing with new techniques I kind of messed up the way that it looked. Hopefully for Friday I will have some new, really good pieces to post on here. Until then. :)

Water Color 13x19 Number 2

So we had to do one watercolor on a 13x19 sheet of paper the other day. Mine wasn't very good so I decided that for the next one we had to do I would work really hard to try and make this one good. I think that I did pretty well - her skin could have more different tones but I think I was pretty successful. Sorry about the camera distortion (the colors are off and it looks just odd) - I had to take a picture of it on my dorm room floor.

Hopefully I can take an actual scan of it soon so I can show what it really looks like!

Poster Design!

We had to design a poster for an event on campus. We had to make an illustration for the poster and then lastly make the layout and put the two together. I chose a bake sale on campus. I did a watercolor of a cupcake and then used Photoshop to make the text and background.

I am happy with the watercolor in the illustration but I feel if I would have added heavier line work then it would have made it more successful.

Photoshop Illustrations

This is my first post in my blog so first off I'd like to say hello! I guess here I'll talk about my experiences in Illustration.

For this assignment we had to draw five images in Photoshop with color. First of all, I've never really used Photoshop before so this is definitely a learning experience. I wanted to make these images kind of look like I used water color to create them so they kind of have a free flowing/sketchy feel. They didn't turn out as well as I hoped though.. I wasn't able to get to the lab in time to do the assignment so I had to go to the library. They don't have tablets so I had to use a mouse.. also an interesting experience. Well, here they are:

-Alyssa