The Journeys Project

This was my favorite assignment in Illustration Word and Image. We were to make up an explorer and illustrate/document their journey. We had to depict where they went, who they met, what they found etc. and create an illustrated book around this story.
I decided to make a Celtic children’s story: The Journey of Sionann Donnelly. This decision was inspired by a book I recently read, The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog by Patricia Monaghan.  

I made this one another accordion book. I made the cover out of illustration board and book cloth. The image on the cover (drawn with colored pencils) was an homage to one of my favorite motifs from history, The Three Hares. I snuck them in throughout the book.

cover page

Beginning of the story, intro to the character. First illustration shows her home-base (bedroom.)

page 2 and 3 are a little map of the journey…..

SURPRISE! Fold out, detailing the journey

Northern Irish cemetery (sorry about the blurriness)

Biddy Early’s cottage

Newgrange

At the Climax, Sionann is confronted by the goddess Ériu, who chews her out for stealing and tells her to go home.

Sionann flies home, and when she unpacks her things, she finds a book that tells the tale of her journey. 

THE END

There’s a little hidden raven in every image, as Ériu’s raven spies on Sionann throughout the story.

Stylized Portrait

For this assignment, we were to chose an artist that we liked that worked a lot with the figure. We were then supposed to create a self portrait in the style of this artist. Immediately I thought “Great, I’ll do Giger.” This turned out to be hilarious. My classmates all chose more conventional artists, demonstrating their amazing skills at rendering life-like portraits. I was the only one, it seems, that decided to portray themselves through the aesthetics of some creepy surrealist.

Trying to complete this piece in a timely fashion with charcoal was a giant pain in the ass. I tried my best to mimic the airbrush texture with charcoal and conte. I wish I had more time to execute this piece, as there is so much more detail that I would have liked to put in it, as well as more time to render the details of the textures. I salute you, Hans Rudolf Giger. You are a freakin’ genius.

Gigeresque Self-Portrait, charchoal and conte crayons

Drawing II Spring 2010

Perspective Still Life

The assignment was to create a composition that displayed a still life that contained some element of figure within it, and showing some level of atmospheric perspective.

Last Spring, I found a statue of Pan in the dumpster outside the art department at Clark College. Made out of plaster, he was painted to look like bronze and his head had apparently busted off. I instantly fell in love with this statue, and I’ve displayed him in my room ever since.

I made this drawing as a tribute to my statue. I drew him from a very low angle as an art challenge. I wanted him to be high in the composition, as to suggest his importance, but I wanted to see if I could successfully convey that he was merely a small object drawn from close up. I drew all this on craft paper, which gave me a mid-tone to start with. I rendered this with white and black Conté crayons.

The Headless Pan, Conté crayons on craft paper

Drawing II Spring 2010

The Joanie B. Titles

This was an interesting project. It was apparently inspired by a personal friend of my Professor’s, art rep Joanie Berstien. When artists contact her asking for representation, she sends them a list of phrases that they are to create illustrations for so she can get a sense of their work. This is a long list of clichés, things such as “Relax and Rejuvinate” and “Love and War.” We were supposed to choose a few items from this list to illustrate. The point was that we would all come up with different ways to illustrate the same ideas. Much like the Commons assignment, this assignment was also challenging for me. I felt way out of my element. But I must say, I was pretty happy with the results.

“Wine Country” ink and goauche on drawing paper

Both sides of my family are from Sonoma County. People generally think of Sonoma County and they think of all the beautiful vineyards, all the rich countryside. My family is from the other side of the tracks, full of Hillbillies, Hippies, and Ghetto. Poverty, crime, and addiction problems everywhere. So this was a little homage to my roots.

“Think inside the Box” ink on drawing paper

Pretty self explanatory. I draw a good portion of my inspiration from historical art.

“Swamp Thing” ink and goauche on drawing paper

This one is my favorite. Another huge aspect of my work is the figure and an element of fantasy/mythology.

I think these came out a little smarmy for my Professor’s taste, but they generally went over pretty well.

Murder Mystery Still Life

For this assignment we were to set up a still life at home that looked like the scene of a murder, and then reproduce it in a drawing medium naturalistically.

I threw stuff about in my room and set up the still life. I don’t actually own a severed head, so I just had to wing it without reference. Same with the blood. I rendered the still life on 18″x24″ drawing paper with washes of ink. I wanted it to look a bit awkward, so I basically painted the image with indian ink and water. The image vacillates between naturallistic and stylized, which I lik

Murder Mystery Still Life, ink on paper

Drawing II Spring 2010

Commercial Illustration test run

This illustration was for Illustration Word and Image. The assignment was to draw the commons at PNCA from observation, then take on of the model drawings we had down from class and superimpose it in the commons drawing. Then we were to tie it all together, with color and/or text if necessary to create a complete illustration. I found this assignment especially challenging as it is so far from the stuff that I normally due. Thankfully I have few issues drawing from observation.


To make a long story short, I drew the commons, drew the model, used light washes of gouache for color, inked in all of the contours, and then tied all of the empty spaces together by putting text over them. 


The text is totally irrelevant, I used the poem The Human Abstract by William Blake, and then as an extra something I wrote “BEESTICKS: what secrets do you hold?” in the background.

The Human Abstract

Illustration Studio I Spring 2010

Ink translation of a black and white photo

Just what I said. Drawing II Spring 2010

Sketchbook Shinannigans!

Work from my sketchbook was integral to my curriculum this semester. Up until this point, I mostly used my sketchbook to hash out compositional thumbnails for bigger pieces, practice through my own sketches of other people’s work, and for general rough sketches. This semester I took Illustration Word and Image from sketchbook luminary Kurt Hollomon. It has been YEARS since I created any complete compositions of my own in my sketchbook, so I wanted to display here some of the pieces from my sketchbook this semester that I was especially happy with.

My version of a Tara McPherson piece, acrylic

Still Life. Simple, but I like it. Ink.

Portrait of Aleister Crowley, ink

Another portrait of Aleister Crowley, goauche

experiment in naturalistic illustration, goauche and micron

The only drawing I have made start to finish with only ink, no graphite preliminary sketching!

Eleanor

Portrait/Still Life
graphite
2007