Wedding Invitation

Recent wedding invitation for some good friends. His last name is Fox, and her chosen personal symbol is the dandelion (die to live). They pretty much knew what they wanted; illustration is mine. copyright and all that. some information was changed in case you were thinking of being creepy.

More portfolio pieces.

Digital illustration executed in Photoshop with Wacom tablet. More of an exercise than a well-thought-out conceptual piece. The thing is, it was never completely thought out. So it stands as an exercise.

One of my first 'real' illustrations. The concept was 'magic' and it was for a class, so we were restricted in some ways: no animate objects (so I used coats), monochromatic color scheme. I chose to show magic in a city scene, with chanting and an enchanted trash can. A very large enchanted trash can.

A botanical/nature illustration in watercolor, and I used a tiny bit of white gouache for the highlights on the berries in the middle. These are American beauty berries, two different varieties. I painted the wood grain background on watercolor paper first, masking out the berries, then painted the berries on top.

A screenprint on tea-stained paper. The whole class was assigned to make a print titled "The Most Offensive Thing Ever," and as you can imagine, most people took it literally, some did something like a mirror or something slightly more mysterious (a Virgin Mary with a bullet, for example) but I was the only one who managed not to show the Offensive Thing.

An illustration showing Life and then Death. Executed in colored pencil; type and border added digitally.

mine senior project.

For you to view alone, away from me staring at you trying to figure out what you REALLY think.
My intentions for this were so different. 20 credit hours during the same semester as the project, the thesis, and the portfolio show is... not optimum conditions. (grammar anyone? re-structure my sentence, I'm out of practice)
The Elephant's Child, by Rudyard Kipling. Read the story sometime. It's kinda long but it's a great story.











Hand-bound by Courtney Vaughan.

from the portfolio

From my Into to Illustration class, 2 years ago. Assignment was to do a self-portrait in the style of another illustrator. Executed in ink (pen and wash) on watercolor paper.

IN: Winthrop VCOM Senior Portfolio Show

Our portfolio show was a success! Adrian Shaughnessy, author of How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing your Soul, was our guest speaker. He spoke about three important qualities a young designer must cultivate: Cultural Awareness, Communication, and Integrity. Our program, Visual Communication, includes design and illustration, and in past years the speaker has not been as relevant to illustration as to graphic design, but Shaughnessy's words were applicable to many fields, even those not in the arts. Several parents were heard after the show saying how much they got out of the event. Many parents who didn't 'get' graphic design and weren't entirely convinced of the validity of their child's degree were feeling much better about it.
As far as feedback on our portfolios, I received a lot of positive feedback from mothers, grandmothers, and people who knew something about children's books, or at least appreciated them. I think my portfolio will change a good deal in the next year or so, but I'd certainly like for children's book illustration to be... something I do.

I'll post some portfolio pieces later. Right now Blogger is having an upload problem.

two down

Page 2 (second illustration, I guess it would be page 4)




Page 6? (third illustration)



All will be watercolor with minor digital touchups. like contrast, or his nose sticks out too far, or darken this shadow a bit.

elephants on parade

Sketches.



Second page of The Elephant's Child




Third page