Fruit Ladies... and an Easy Tip for Perfect Symmetry

For my midterm assignment for Illustration 3, we were assigned to create 5 "icons" that fit together under a specific theme. These illustrations are called "icons" because they are meant to go together in a set, and each illustration is meant to fit inside of a 3x3 inch square.

For my theme, I decided to illustrate a set of fashionable ladies wearing cute clothes- and the clothes are all inspired by different types of fruit.

Here are my little fruit ladies (pear, strawberry, pineapple, watermelon, and banana):

Lesson Learned: If you want to make a symmetrical object in Adobe Illustrator, just draw ONE side of it really well, then copy, paste, and reflect it and voila! you have perfectly symmetrical object!

Monkeys with Maracas... and a Tip for Procrastinators

For my latest Decorative Illustration assignment, I had to create a general occasion greeting card. I decided to do a birthday card for kids.

Here are the designs for my little dancing birthday monkeys:

Lesson Learned: Digital illustrations are way faster than traditional for simple illustration styles like this. When I did my initial sketches and color comps for this assignment, I had not decided yet which medium I wanted to use for the final illustration. When it came time to do the final, I was running low on time, so I decided to do it using Adobe Illustrator. This made it so much faster because I could alter the colors and shapes quickly and easily as I went along, and it could be printed quickly without having wait for anything to dry or having to scan the artwork. 

My advice to all: For short deadlines, GO DIGITAL!

Satin Ribbons... and a Lesson on Printing

For my decorative illustration class, we were assigned to create an 8.5x11" stationery sheet with a matching envelope.

Here is the fun, girly design that I came up (inspired by my BFF Kelly's upcoming wedding):

Lesson Learned: Color laser printers do NOT do justice to projects like this (no matter how nice the paper you use is or many hours you spend trying to print it in different file formats from different programs). The quality of printer you use WILL determine the quality of your artwork with a project like this- if you want the colors to look rich and bright, you have to use the expensive inkjet printer or you will be disappointed with the result. 

Hula-Dancing Hippos... and a Mixed-Media Experiment

For my latest assignment in my Children's Book Illustration class, we had to choose the first letter of either our first or last name and create a double-page spread illustrating that letter for an ABC book.

My initial brainstorming for the letter H ended up with a disconnected assortment of H words:

happy, humungous, hippopotamus, hairy, hammock, hero, hip-hop, hummus, home, heart

I ended up picking a few of my favorite words from that list: happy, hippopotamus, and hammock and started there.

I thought about where a hippo in a hammock would be happiest: Hawaii! This location conveniently brought along two more H words: hula and hibiscus...

And here is the finished H illustration: (the line in the center marks the page break)

Lesson Learned: Chalk pastel works very well over gouache for adding highlights and transparent washes of color. I used colored pencil to add detail later on, and I'm quite pleased with the result of this mixed-media experiment on cold-press illustration board.

Also, pattern is a great tool to help focus attention where you want it.