A book cover

Sorry it has been a while since I posted....busy with life and painting:)  I just finished my next project at the Academy, a book cover.  I was allowed to choose a subject from a bunch of topics an robots was one of them....so I chose to do a cover for the Iron Giant.  Now I have never seen an Iron Giant book, but I'm sure they could make one and when they do I will be ready to provide them cover art:)

So I thought you might enjoy seeing the whole process start to finish....
First are the rough thumnail ideas...

After the thumbnails and feedback from my professor I did a value study of the chosen thumbnail that I would move forward with.  My professor picked the one I liked the best, so I was glad!

Then it was on to color studies.  I did more than I am posting....thought I'd edit for just the best.

And then finally the finished art.  This is a mixed media painting on cold press illustration board.  I start with a watercolor lay-in of just the colors and then put an oil wash over top .  I pull back the wash in places I want it to do lighter and add oil paint in places I want it to do darker.  I add details with prisma color pencils and pen and ink.  It took about 20 hours to complete the finished paintings, but I was happy with the results.  Enjoy!

I need to get a better camera to take better pictures of my art with.  This one is a little bit brighter than it appears in person.  Hope you enjoyed seeing the process.
Till next time.

More illustrations!

Value Study

Color Study

Finished Painting (but it's not really finished, just where I stopped before I turned it in)

So a new semester at AAU has started and I have almost finished my first project.  I turned it in, but have the option of continuing to work on it so I plan to make some more improvements, but thought I would post for you all so you can see what I have been doing since my last post.  Our assignment was to illustrate a scene from a novel from a list that was provided...I chose Harry Potter.  The scene that stuck out in my head was when Harry "blew up" Aunt Marge and she floated away.... too funny!

So this was my interpretation of the scene.  I used a walrus for the reference for Uncle Vern and a toy dog that I had for the reference for the dog.  We had to create a final value sketch, a color study (I did 5 studies but only posted my favorite), and then a finished painting.  I created this painting with a watercolor underpainting, then an oil wash, prisma color pencil in the background and then more oil on the main subjects to make them come forward and create a focal point.

I still need to do a lot of work on Aunt Marge and her skirt, and I want to still bring in some pen and ink.  But I think it has potential and I like the action and composition.

Final Illustration for Fall 2012

Ok, our last illustration in my AAU class was an advertisement.  I chose to do mine with the product Lysol.  They provided a tag line of "they had made breakfast for their mother" and we had to interpret what an illustration for this product might look like.  Being a mom myself an image came immediately to mind of my three little monkeys covered in flour, in the middle of a messy kitchen, making something special for mom.  The image felt so homey in my head that I decided to give it a old time nostalgic feeling with a warm color pallet and and old time bottle of Lysol.  I used a combination of my own children and photo-reference from the internet for my models, and partial views of my kitchen as the environment.  The mom is from photo-reference and I liked her bob and hairband because it fit in with the nostalgia of my piece.  My professor this semester was the best and he provided me some great feedback along with my classmates.  Together they helped me improve this painting to what you see below.  I still can make a few tweaks based on my last critique, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet:)  I thought I would post the painting by itself and then the painting done up as the ad using illustrator to place text and product.  Enjoy!

Finishing touches

A few more updates from the class I was taking at AAU this past fall.  I worked some more on my album cover for The Dangling Conversation.  I added the conversation and the title and worked on the values some more.  I actually used Illustrator to add the conversation and had fun remembering how to tweak, swirl, and warp letters!  It turned out pretty good for a first attempt at Illustrator in about 10 years!  So here is the final version.  I also have to mention that the painting in my painting is a Matisse Original that my wonderful husband bought me in California when we were visiting family there.  Matisse is one of my favorite artists and my husband thought the girl in the drawing looked like me:)

Inspired by John Koch

Here is the next illustration I had to work on for my course at AAU.  I was inspired by John Koch's painting called "The Discussion".  This was my own take on that painting.  It is designed for an album cover for the Simon & Garfunkel song "The Dangling Conversation".   I used a watercolor underpainting with an oil wash technique to do this painting.  It's a technique used by many illustrators, so it was fun to experiment with.  It's my second attempt with this technique and I think I'm getting better.

Change takes courage

Well, change has come upon me again.  I'm having a show tomorrow and after that I am moving out of my studio because my landlord is taking back the space.  I am not happy about this or the change.  I'm afraid that I will lose momentum, not to mention most of my paints and art supplies!  But I can't do anything about it so I might as well embrace it, right?

In the meantime I have been working on an illustration class at the Academy.  Here are the first three illustrations that I did for that class.  I am loving it and learning a lot.  And I have the best art teacher I have ever had!  Makes a huge difference to have a teacher that you like and who encourages you!  Enjoy the work I created.  The first is the Frog King, the second is Pirate Mice at the Sea Serpent Saloon, and the third is Taking the Merchant Ship.

Playing with friends

Playing with friends, charcoal and nupastel