Thursday, July 31, 2008

More Illustration Academy Projects

Most of these require minor changes, but for now you can get the idea of some of the projects I worked on at the Academy...

Week 1 - Mark English's project was based on a slice of life in sarasota and limited to flat color, which helped to put the focus on composition, color and value. This was a really challenging but great first assignment because it forced me to think more about the essentials of picture making without relying on rendering to make an impact. painted in acrylic gouache.


Week 2 - John Foster's project was a portrait of a fictional character showing an emotion. I chose Tita the main character from "Like Water for Chocolate" due to a family tradition she is forbidden to marry her true love and confined to a life of caring for her mother in which cooking is her only means of expressing her emotions. This is an acrylic painting with a burnt sienna oil wash, it was the first time I had tried an oil wash and it really helped with the skin tone and in unifying the colors overall.

Week 3 - Gary Kelley's assignment was on the concept of a color chosen randomly - i picked yellow and so after cycling through a lot of ideas choose to do a dozen sunnyside-up eggs, I learnt that conceptual doesn't always mean complicated and I had a really good time painting this one - I poured white paint from a coconut shell to get the spontaneous spatter of a cracked egg and used watered down gouache and acrylic.

Week 5 - C. F. Payne's assignment was to illustrate a conversation using expressions to make it clear what was happening. I was happy with how this turned out, the main change that was suggested is putting some reflection on the scissors which I think will make it come together really well.