Conversation

Our assignment this past week, given by Chris Payne, was to illustrate a conversation. It had to include at least two people in a horizontal 8 x 10 format.

This was a challenge for me in a lot of ways. First off, I worked much larger than I usually do (about 16 x 20) and I had a lot of detail to paint. I really enjoy watercolor washes and lost edges, but lately I have been wanting to tighten up my technique a little. I think this piece was a little over the top, but a much needed exercise.

I also had difficulty with the color. I did a color study on the computer, and had a hard time translating it to watercolor. Some of the colors and values are still not quite where I want them to be, but it's getting there.

Overall I really had fun doing this illustration. This is the first time in a long time I had more fun going through the process than doing the final piece. I don't know if that is necessarily good or bad, but it did inspire me to continue working larger and with more detail.

Conceptual Portrait of Edie Sedgwick

Our second assignment, given by Anita Kunz, was to do a conceptual portrait. Since I have been taking an interest in fashion illustration, I wanted to do someone who I could work into my portfolio.

I chose Edie Sedgwick, and I wanted to play up both her distinct look and her close friendship with Andy Warhol. She was known for her thick eyebrows, heavy makeup, long studio photographs of her just being beautiful.

In this piece I gave her Andy's hair, but I think it causes some confusion for those who don't recognize her right off the bat. A couple people thought she might be Madonna or even Marilyn Monroe.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out. I did so many 'practice pieces' with a cool background color, but it detracted from here heavy eye makeup. Who would have thought that yellow would have been my saving color?

Slice of Sarasota

Finally finished the first assignment at the Academy. Our project was titled "Slice of Sarasota", where we had to depict some aspect of Sarasota using only shapes, with two values in each shape, in a square format. I used the Met as my inspiration for this piece.

On my final of this painting, I was very careful to stay within my pencil lines. After the critique I realized that the shadow cast on the stairs was way darker than it should have been. I went back and repainted the shadow shapes, but in doing so my strokes became more painterly and I lost the meticulousness of my original layer. Oh well. I think it turned out alright in the end.

I still like the color study a little better, but I think that's because Jon Foster helped me come up with it. I had such a hard time mixing my greens, and they ended up so blue! Whoever heard of turquoise palm leaves??

Linger on the sidewalk where the neon lights are pretty

Sorry for the lack of posts! Whoops! Anyway, here are some funky pictures of the new studio- in Chicago. I took pictures, used the 'photomerge' on Photoshop, and this is what I got! Crazy...

Etsy

Finally got around to opening up an Etsy store! Check it out!!