new final gouache montage

conversation illustration

what a sensation to produce a conversation illustration!
(shall we also build a dalmatian plantation?)

the assignment is to illustrate an overheard conversation... here's my process:

overheard convo ideas- i chose to illustrate a girl's dream about flowers growing out of her fingers-
and some initial sketches...

the blue is rusty's sketch of a creepy hand... i veered away from that idea...

here's a "tight pencil comp" of the dream.

classmates' comments on the pencil comp.

so i re-did it. rusty liked this comp better... so did i.

marker comp!! the background is gonna be a dreamy-ish blue-gray made by letting the gouache do its thing w/ the H2O. magical things will happen, i'm sure of it.

MIDTERM!!!

1. Three-image gouache montage. (Uh... I'm still mastering the art of getting the jpeg version to look like the real, live painted piece... please excuse the annoyingly bright palette and high contrast for now, thanks.) I'm finally getting quasi-comfortable with gouache these days. I used the reduction technique to start off with, and then went in with some medium and darker tones of different hues to create dimension in the three objects. The background (which is not so neon in the actual painted piece...) is sort of an abstract sky, which I thought might thematically be appropriate with the hot air balloon and the umbrella. This took me about 8 hours in all.

2. The giant watercolor! I was initially scared to do this assignment, but I ended up loving it. I really like how the water and the paint sorta take over with this medium...most people seem to want more control when it comes to painting, but I freely let it go. I used the kleenex/dobbing technique for the clouds and a mix of round, bright, and bamboo/watercolor brushes throughout. This took me around 6-7 hours total.


3. The gouache barn. This was one of my first experiences with gouache, and I instantly enjoyed the fact that it is just as flexible a medium as watercolor (i.e. I didn't have to control EVERYthing...) but with more opacity. Meaning, I wouldn't necessarily have to paint as many layers as the watercolors required. This project took around 2-4 hours.


4. Memory portrait. I enjoyed the process of this piece. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed stylizing portraits of people until Rusty made us draw a relative (from memory!) in various styles. I also enjoyed working with watercolor; I think the softness of the watercolor in this piece helps express the personality of my grandfather- the strong, silent type with a big heart. I did a lot of waiting for each layer of skin tones to dry- it might not look like it, but I ended up painting about 5 different layers of watercolor. All things included, this project probably took me 6-8 hours.

5. DMV cartoon. I also enjoyed the process for this project. Doing the brainstorming and sketching was great, and I learned that making a cartoon isn't actually as scary and/or difficult as I had anticipated. I'm going to utilize the photoshop-coloring technique more in the future. I like the contrast of the expressive, hand-drawn lines with the clean, computerized color. In the end, this project took me around 5 or 6 hours.

3-image gouache montage

whew! what a process! the end goal is a 10x14" gouache montage of three unrelated objects... here's what i've done so far:

these are the three initial sketches... i think Rusty liked the 2nd one, but I thought it was boring... too nature-y. so i went with the third one to refine...



marker comp!! i'm not very experienced w/ the prisma markers... so that was fun to make. rust said this composition was crap (which... i admit, it is.) so i went back to the drawing board...


interesting, right?! rusty said it sucked...
ahHA! the boss approved one! i think the background color needs some serious help, but... the gouache medium will hopefully save my booty.

ta-daa! doneskees.

decisions, decisions

here are different covers i'm considering for my viscom4 magazine... it's called wh(eye) magazine- it presents social injustice issues that need awareness to documentary photographers... i'm still working on the masthead, don't worry... i know its a little clunky.