Final Magazine Layouts.

This is the final magazine layout for the How Safe? article. I like how this turned out. I struggled with how to take up the space considering how little type we had to use. I think I utilized the space well and made an interesting and visually appealing spread. Yay.

This is the final spread for the Secret of Feeling Full. I like the basic structure and colors of this one. I think it is structurally sound but it still needs something extra. I haven't really been able to come up with anything else considering the massive amount of text. But I'm happy with it overall.

Time spent revising: a little over 1 hour/spread

Estimated time: 2 hours

Grandma Portrait.

This is the final illustration of my grandma! Doesn't she look pretty?! She's terrible at smiling even though she's probably the nicest lady in the whole world so I wanted to show that in her portrait. Watercolor and pen on watercolor paper.

DMV Illustration

So this is the illustration cartoon I came up with for the DMV cartoon. We were assigned to come up with a funny/interesting commentary on the Department of Motor Vehicles. Rusty picked this one. I need to develop the drawing as a whole and develop the facial expressions.

This is the illustration versions of my grandma that I did. I like the middle one the best. It still needs refinement though. I like the rosy cheeks on the bottom one as well. Gotta love the G-Ma!

The Secret of Feeling Full

This is our assignment dealing with a lot of text. It swamped me. I had a difficult time using a info bar, title, pull quote, picture, and kajillions of text. So after consulting, he told me that I need to use my picture more aggressively. Possibly grayscaling it and then photoshopping the pill to be a different color. Wa-hoo.

How Safe?

This assignment deals with type and layout with a picture. I chose to find a picture of veggies and had quite a time figuring out how to balance everything since we had such little text to use.

Estimated time: 7 hrs

So far layout/research: 4.5 hrs

The bottom one is after he edited my spread and told me the revisions to make. I have to deal with the top of the page because he didn't like the line that went through the pages. I need to find some interesting way to balance and have a no bleed object.

Illustration Family Member.

These are sketches of my grandma that we were supposed to do from memory. I suck at working from memory and came up with these drawings based off of some sketches I did earlier of my grandma. They are supposed to be more caricature like but I hate caricatures. I was told to continue on with the top right drawing. We are now supposed to take that sketch and duplicate it three times and paint/color it in different ways each time. I'm thinking watercolor. Yep.

Gouache Photo Realism.

This is our product illustration assignment. I think it turned out well overall. I wish I made the edge softer and straighter in the background. I'll have to keep working with it. I like photorealism and I think it is easier than working on portraits or landscapes. I do think it is much improved from the last gouache we did on Friday.

So here is the final Stressed Out magazine spread. I think the illustration was exactly how I wanted it. I also think that even though it is a cartoon, it is age appropriate because it is a man at work and it is a bit light-hearted as opposed to dreary pictures of people looking stressed. It's been done a million times and even older people get tired of looking at pictures of other stressed people. So, I finally put all the text in and I think it worked well. I'm happy with the turn out and I'm happier to be finished with it. ;)
Time estimated: 7 hrs
Planning/research: 30 min
Rough sketch/first draft/illustration: 1 hr
Second draft: 1 hr
Execution: 4 hrs; 2 in class 2 out of class
Printing/finishing up: 1 hr

I went over by 30 min but I think it was necessary and it is pretty close to my estimated time.

Gouache.

So we had our first gouache assignment and I already dislike it. I am a much greater fan of watercolor and gouache is much more ambiguous and you have to work for results much more and layer and build. Watercolor offers much more instant gratification since the colors flow and develop on their own. This was the beginning stages of my first gouache of my best friend and me in Rome. I discovered that small details are very difficult to do and to work on larger objects proves much easier.

Stressed Out!

This is the most recent assignment that involves an article about stress and it involves a massive amount of text. The most difficult part of this is fitting this much text in a magazine spread. I want to illustrate a cartoon of a person stressed at work. I enjoy watercolor so maybe I'll use that. Pretty simple yet gets the point across.

Final NAHM poster.

The final Sitting Bull poster. I think it turned out well and am happy with it. I had a few difficulties printing it. I tried to do a drop shadow behind the text but it made a faint box behind the entire text. After talking to Matt D., he told me just to do an outline instead since he didn't think I really needed it if it was causing an issue. So, I'm happy with how it turned out and am glad to be finished with it. The past two weeks have been devoted to this sucker and now it's done.

Our most recent watercolor assignment involved us doing 10 more paintings/sketches. Apparently I don't pay attention very well and I did 10 paintings of different things. We were supposed to do 10 paintings of the same thing but in different mediums. Oops. I really like how these turned out though. I'm thinking of framing one and giving it as a birthday present to my mom. I like the saturation of colors and how they blend into one another. Enjoy!

Revise Native Americans Heritage.

Having had a the discussion with Rusty about the sitting bull concept I sketched out a bull and went and put it into illustrator. I also comped out the text and how I wanted the 5 column layout to work with the text and titles. I think the critique in class went well. I also got feedback on the color that we are supposed to work with and I think that I am going to either add it into as the stripe under the bull or as a large block behind the title phrase and the bull. I estimated to spend an hour or so comping out the sketches and another half hour designing the bull. Overall, I think I've spent almost 2 hours designing/sketching the comp. We were also assigned a revision of a poster that involved TSODA dance recital. I'm not so proud of this one (hangs head in shame) but we have to post it. I spent probably a half an hour coming up with a concept and sketching. That was probably what I estimated.

Combinations.

We were assigned, yet again, ten more watercolors. But this time, we were to do a sketch in ink before and after the watercolor was done. I preferred to watercolor before because I enjoy working loosely with the watercolor and found that with the lines already drawn, I was holding back where the color could move and flow to. Overall, I think the execution was done well and I am remembering what a fan I am of illustration and watercolor.

Gilligan's List: Go-To Typefaces

So, being told to pick the top 5 fonts that I use (and probably abuse), I had a difficult time picking which ones I enjoy the most. I am not really one to use serif typefaces....I like the simplicity and curves of sans serif type. Although sometimes, it is necessary in large font to use some serifs. Sometimes a girl's gotta give.

Futura
ITC Avant Garde Gothic
Impact
Memphis
Didot

This is a bit overdue. I should have posted this before the watercolor posts and the other design post, but oh well. This was done a week ago along with the Latin Dance Party poster, which will be added later because it's not on my hard drive. Eh, both of these posters were flops. I couldn't find anything original or inspiring about these. I thought the concept was decent, but the execution was lacking. Boo.

Drowning in Watercolor.

So we were assigned 20 paintings/sketches over the Labor Day weekend. That was so much fun. (sarcasm does not translate well, no?) It was fine the first 5 or so, and after that it was all just a slow and painful process. Each painting underworked and each sketch scribbles. Though I really do enjoy watercolor, it really is difficult to force creativity. This is obviously a skill necessary for my major, despite my resistance. I think parts of these sketches/ paintings were done well but I think I could have had more quality paintings that I did. Time crunch rears its ugly head once again.

Watercolor AGAIN.

Once again, we were assigned 10 more paintings of landscapes with architecture of some sort. I think these best represent what I did best in my paintings. The first one, I think the execution of color is done well. The second, I also think the colors I chose for the land in the distance worked as I had hoped. The third, the clouds were executed the best. The fourth and the fifth are overall the most pleasing. If only I could combine all the best parts to make one super painting.

The Native American Poster

Our most recent assignment was to re-design a poster for the Native American Month. We were told not to go the route of a dream catcher or some lame Indian drawing. This proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be. I came up with two ideas....I'm not really sure which I like better. One is more based off of a tag line and play on words and the other is more traditional with the wild horses. The bull one is a very rough draft. With the right illustration it could be developed into something much more interesting. Update: After discussing things with Rusty he chose my sitting bull sketch. If I develop the drawing properly, things could go very well. The task is deciding whether or not to do a cartoon or a real drawing which could prove difficult because there is no reference from which I can draw....I mean have you ever seen a sitting bull?

Watercolor

For my Illustration class, we are experimenting with watercolor. I've taken a few classes in high school and one in Italy involving watercolor so I know a little about it, although I'm sure I can always improve. I have done a few large watercolors in my Drawing III class involving marine life and a few others that I think turned out well. I really enjoy watercolor and hopefully I will improve with this class. I like to work loosely with the flow of the color and blend and let them run however they want. I also like to utilize bright, vivid colors. Our first assignment was to paint 10 small scale paintings of anything. For two of them, I chose to do one of my make-up brushes and a tree down the street from me. Our next assignment, was to paint another set of 10 but this time paint landscapes. Most of what I came up with was from my imagination. Because to be honest, there isn't much variety in the landscape of Kirksville.

Try, Try Again

Today, I worked on the same kind of project: to re-design two different flyers. I think time-wise this was a vast improvement. I worked in 3.5 hours for the two designs. I'm happy with them for the most part, and even though I feel like they could have been better, I was trying to get them done in a time frame as opposed to having some complex illustration or brainstorming for hours. I prefer the sauerkraut one because I like to have a little humor in my designs. I like to find some kind of play on words and use that as my base.

The First of Many

A few days ago, we were assigned our first Visual Communications II assignment: to re-design some flyers that Rusty had collected off of campus. These flyers were very unattractive and were mostly just word vomit with some google images pasted in. Our first task was to re-design these. I worked on mine for far too long I discover, I spent a good 6 hours of my Sunday thinking/brainstorming/illustrating something that didn't even turn out to be that great. I get to class and to my dismay, mine got picked to be critiqued. I hate having my work critiqued. I realize it is a major part of the process, but it still sucks. Hopefully there are at least some improvements made from this past class period. I learned that, to be a good designer, you not only have to work creatively, but FAST. This has been quite a challenge for me. I also learned that my flyers were, for the most part, not very appealing. So, better luck next time.