Take 2

I think I like this one better..

plate 2

I'd probably be better off being "inspired" by something else..

bookplate illustration

Need to do two bookplates for Graphic Design History. One from before 1900 and one after. Worked on the pre-1900 one first.. Tried to go for the Art Nouveau style, highly inspired by William Bradley, but obviously failed..haha.

Here's the one with the text on it..

I might remove the border, but it seems to have been a common thing to place borders around the illustration back then..

Gonna go to bed now since it's almost 6am.. The next one should be more fun.

back cover

Need to work fasterrrrrrrrr

color test

The red stays but I need to work on the second color.

closeup

Back to work..

Everything's a WIP..

That's more like it..

So it's one of those days..

in which I actually have work to do..

Although I enjoy working on stuff for them, I feel like it's a bit hard to come up with compositions. I don't really put a lot of details in my work..guess I need to work on that.

So the original concept is below. Thought it'd be okay.

But as soon as I got more details in, it just didn't work.

Still not working. And this is why thumbnails are important. Because that one idea you have wouldn't always automatically work. You'd think after what I learned over the summer I would know a thing or two by now.

One more thumb, done while I was at the dentist. Creating the rest of the layout would be easier with this one, plus it just feels more composed. Unfortunately it really makes me feel like a one-trick pony.. :/ I hope it goes okay. Back to work..

7/12-7/22 WIP

Managed to complete more than I thought I could for today. Only two hours tomorrow as it is the last day of class and we have critique for the rest of the day. Hope to finish this early enough since I still have to touch up this other piece. The camera on my phone seems to be kind to my paintings. At this size the reflection on the pot seems like a reflection, even though it doesn't seem that way when you're right in front of it.

The underpainting and some color, which was eventually replaced with another as seen above. I wonder why others aren't told to change the color of things when they replace it with another.. This one girl painted the cloth bright red even though the color was more like salmon..（´・ω・）

The project before this one, completed. I really dislike the composition, I don't know what got into me. It's really awkward. Should've gone for something more dramatic.

7/5-7/8 WIP 1

Finished the third painting. I have to say that I like how the background goes pretty well with all the elements.

So we started a new one. Somehow there were about 6 of us again for today.

I don't think I know what to do with these. They're all kind of creepy.

06/28-7/1 Part 3

We get an extra day for this due to only 6 people showing up for class last Friday, lol.

06/28-7/1 Part 2

Contrast is still pretty weak.

06/28-7/1

 

Started with thumbnails. Tried going for a more abstract picture as seen in the ones on the right side but they didn't work out too well. Was told by the professor that the ones with the figure are more interesting. Lately I've been trying to them better(by adding more detail) than I usually do...

 

 Because it makes creating the sketch for the painting much much easier.

 

Final line art. I didn't notice that the right shoe was too small until after it had been sprayed with fixative. Oops.

Underpainting. I still need to do a better job on this. It doesn't exactly need to be perfect but if done properly, it can make things go much faster.

Added some colors. 

More colors. I wonder what the background should be.

6/21-23 Painting WIP part 2

We get an extra day. Need to fix the shadows and the flowers and the leaves. There's still a lot to work on.

orange peel

Trying to see if I've improved any in terms of coloring digitally now that I have a bit of real life painting experience. I'm still pretty weak when it comes to contrast; had to rely on auto-contrast to get a better color. Hopefully by the end of the semester, I'd be able to do achieve good contrast without having to do that. I think it's my biggest weakness when it comes to painting. 

6/21-23 Painting WIP

 

We started on a new painting this week. Again, it'll be for only two sessions although it could be extended to three if there need to be. Based on how far everyone has progressed though, we'll probably be ending next meeting.

For the line drawing I went with charcoal. I feel like it's easier for me to render and get more "accurate" proportions with it as opposed to a pencil. I used a leadholder for the last one though.. I think if I do a bit more rendering, I could probably skip having to do an underpainting.

I originally wanted to paint this mannequin instead of the skull but the instructor insisted that I do this instead. I was a bit disappointed initially but I'm glad that I ended up with this one. It's pretty fun painting the skull. I hope to make this better than the last one. It feels weird having an easier time painting with colors instead of my usual method(perhaps having taken two color theory classes have somewhat helped?), which involves laying all the values down in grayscale and then just going over it. I've only done that digitally though, and I'm sure that had I done that in oils I wouldn't have been able to get this far.

Now that I've looked through the pictures again, the photos do the painting too much justice..

WIP

 

Worked in oils for the first time today. Because it's the summer session we pretty much have only two meeting to complete a project.I really need to get better at defining contrasts. And to use less paint.

At the Zoo

I went to San Francisco Zoo last Thursday to draw. I don't really draw animals that much to be honest.

The penguin area stank to the high heavens. They are cute but you could only tolerate the smell for so long..

A goat.

That bird's probably the best thing I drew that day. And the polar bear's proportions look really off now.. I have to admit that I'm much better at catching mistakes these days but somehow this slipped.

Alpaca butt(it was busy eating and wouldn't turn around), demonic goat eyes, an actual goat sans eyes and a duck.

Prairie dog. They kept on moving around like crazy. We also spent too much time there.

Best part about drawing animals would be all the curves they have.. Hmm, I guess that also applies to figure drawing.. San Francisco Zoo is a pretty sad zoo, there aren't that many animals.. It doesn't help that the weather was pretty cold that day, so a lot of the animals were just hiding in their caves. I'd like to try drawing the rhino(with its horn cut off) next time I go.

I need to learn to draw with less lines.. There was a time I drew a lot on the bus and actually managed to draw with a lot less but then I kind of stopped, now that my commute isn't that long. Also, a regular pencil is much better to draw with than mechanical pencils.

Summer school finally started yesterday. I'm taking painting this last semester at CCSF. I originally planned to use acrylics due to having leftover paint from the previous semester but eventually decided to go with oils. I'll post what I work on here as soon as I have something to show.

Shadows

Supposedly for Illustration Friday but I'd like to try coming up with another later or something.

Word Illustration

I picked magnet. If I had to redo it, I'd probably add some space at the bottom or between n and the e and t, just so that the "action" is more obvious.

Giraffes

Some more from Color class. Probably should have posted these before the other one since this was from earlier in the semester. They came out a bit different after printing, but then it was on an inkjet printer. When I first saw the printouts, I thought the screen version looked better. Now I'm more fond of the printed version..

During critique, the discussion suddenly turned to this guy who is being charged for painting giraffes on the sides of buildings. Apparently you can see it if you go on Caltrain. I'm not sure if they've been removed, but maybe I'll go see for myself one of these days, not like I have anywhere in particular to go down south.

Color Final

Final piece for color class, I was short on time so I ended up doing it digitally. We had to pick a natural object, create a color chart consisting of horizontal bars based on the proportions of the colors(obviously violated this one) and then an abstract design. A classmate pointed out that the pattern would look good on a plate. If I knew pottery, I'd attempt that.. I guess I could also paint it but I don't know where I could fire it..