Illustration

 To start this week we had to view one video from  https://www.societyillustrators.org/video-archive . I chose to view the caricature video as I am very intrigued by caricature art. After viewing the video, it really inspired me to continue to practice my drawing. Of the artists that were shown, I chose to view Jake Panian. I chose to view his work because it looks like his drawing took the form of caricature. After viewing this piece I realized that as of right now I do not think I can compete with his work. I believe this because I am just learning to draw and overall my drawing skills are not the best. I plan on focusing the caricature style throughout the semester to really get a feel and generate some skill towards it. I hope that this class will give me the opportunity to push my comfort zone a little by making me draw more with my hand rather then a pen tool in illustrator. I do believe that one day I will be able to compete with these artists and hopefully it can be by the end

 Today our finished projects are due. I have decided to go with the portrait of Hughes inside the trumpet. Instead of a trumpet though I am now using a saxophone because that instrument screams more jazz to me. After meeting with Nancy, I have a better idea on how to create caricature drawings. She linked me a YouTube channel that does tutorials on how to create them. I took advantage of that and watched most of the video to gather ideas and learn how to draw them. After reviewing the video, I realized that it isn't as hard as I thought it would be. I only sketched a couple due to the time frame, but I think I have a pretty good idea on how to draw them. I want to keep up with this style throughout the semester, so that will give me good practice. The part that I wish was done better was the background. I was rushed and I believe that it could have been executed better. What I did was incorporate what I had in my sketch, but replace the music notes with some of his poetry. I also p

 I have the rest of my sketches drawn out and this time I went with a different theme. Instead of only choosing to do jazz, I wanted to get some other interests that Hughes had. Poetry is what some of these sketches will include. The first sketch is a portrait of him and coming out of his mouth will be lines from his poetry. The style of this illustration will be semi realistic as I a can get it, while having a calm mood to match the feeling of his poetry. The next sketch is a collage style portrait. I want to have different cut out pieces of his poetry/books, and music and form them into his face. I have some examples of what I was thinking when I sketched it out. My last idea also combines a bunch of his interests. This sketch has his head opening and all of his interests and things about him are emerging from his head. This is to illustrate everything about him and what he'll remember and what we all remember about him. Here are my sketches This is a very rough sketch and the fi

 The week we are starting a new project which is a portrait of Langston Hughes, but illustrated in an unconventional way. I started to sketch out some ideas and looked at other images of him to start getting some ideas. I noticed that he was really into jazz, so I came up with an idea to incorporate some music notes within my illustration. The first sketch has him popping out of a trumpet and music notes will be coming out of his mouth symbolizing that he is the one producing the music. I want this to be drawn in a cartoon like style. I would like to try to draw him like a caricature drawing. I will also have music notes filling up some of the background area and maybe incorporate some jazz color palates within the piece. The next idea that I came up with is similar, but its just a portrait of him with various music notes in the background, I was also thinking of making a collage of his albums to add to the background. I want to try to add some photos to this illustration to get a nice

 For my final 5 illustrations using found objects, I have decided to use the staple remover to make the snake that I originally had planned. I also used a hot dog bun to create a dachshund by having the bun be the body, a hole puncher to create a dragon like creature that spits out fire, a few marshmallows to create a snowman, and two bottle caps to make an owl with sunglasses on. Out of all the illustrations I personally enjoy the dachshund the most. Below are the pictures of my final illustrations.  

 This week started off with a critique of the Compound word project. It was really interesting to see what my classmates had created. I was also surprised to see that there were no repeat words if I am remembering right. Some of the projects that stood out to me were Sandman, ladybug, and sunflower. I found these ones to be very effective based on the art style and how the chose to illustrate their word.      For our next project we have to create illustrations with found objects. I have no idea what I am going to do yet, but I gathered some materials together and will begin experimenting. I have gathered a hole puncher, a fidget spinner, some bottle caps, a close pin, a staple remover, and some other objects. The staple remover kind of looks like a snake head with fangs, so maybe I will try to explore that idea. 

 I decided to go with the french fry container on the retro style sign idea for my final product. I added a bunch of gritty textures to really give it the vintage and dirty feel to it.  I made a few different versions altering the layout and coloring to see what would work better. In the end I decided to stick with the muted color style instead of adding the white to the container. I was playing around with drop shadows on the word finger especially. After I did some research I found out that on most of the vintage signs, the main product that was being advertised typically had a drop shadow while the other text did not. Below is the final product and below that is the different iterations of the styles.

After I received feedback on my initial sketches, I was informed that lightning bug was not a compound word. After realizing this I decided to pick a word from the list this time. I decided to choose finger food because I immediately thought of an idea. A couple ideas I have for this word is to have a french fry container filled with fingers instead of the fries or have a big guy sitting at a table about to feast on human fingers instead of real food. I am thinking about going with the french fry container and having the style be vintage/retro. I want it to be grimy and dirty looking because I fell that it fits the disgusting nature of eating human fingers. I also want it to be illustrated on a sign that advertises this hot new food item.  Below are some of the sketches that I drew up and an example of the retro sign that I want to put the illustration on.