The Art Challenge: Progress Report

Hello!
I've been working really hard on my art challenge the past couple weeks. I wasn't going to show you the progress until I had finished it a bit more, but I was informed it might help inspire any of you who are doing challenges to keep working if I post my progress. So here it is!
I had a really hard time starting this challenge. It was bizarre! I have all the ideas, I can even envision the final pieces in my head, color and all, and I just didn't want to start. I think mostly it was a fear of not being able to put what I was envisioning on to paper. Then I found this really cool artist (as in musician) that my friend introduced me to, and I was really inspired by her music. Since I was feeling creative every time I heard one of her songs, I decided to just listen to her album on repeat and start drawing. Guess what? It actually worked! (In case your curious, the artist is LP. check her out! Here is her website). Now every time I don't feel like working on my project, I start playing her album. So far it's really working for me. Maybe if you are stuck, you should find a new artist that inspires you. It worked for me, it could also work for you!
So here is my process for this challenge (and really any piece I am working on):
The first theme I picked to illustrate a series for was bullying, or being picked on. First, I write down any and all ideas that come to my head and draw the roughest thumbnails. These are so rough I think I am probably the only one who can decipher them. Also, for this series, I had it pretty clearly in my head, so I didn't need as many thumbnails.

The scribbled notes in my little sketchbook. As you can see, the thumbnails aren't much of anything

Then I start making tighter, but still loose, sketches in my sketchbook.

Then, I traced everything onto tracing paper. This enabled me to make everything clean, figure out stuff I wanted to take out, and make the picture a little more legible to me. I traced it with pencil because I wanted that kind of line in my final piece.

Then I added color and texture in photoshop. I've only "finished" one so far, but here is a look.
I wanted to work in a limited color palette to really challenge myself.

I showed these to my friend Olivia who is also doing this challenge (don't forget to check out her tumblr to see her work!). I also showed these to a group of illustrators I have been meeting with every couple of months. They were all able to give me really good feedback, so there will be some changes to these sketches the next time you see them. They also inspired me to make this into a longer story! I think for the purposes of my challenge, I will still only try to finish 6 of the pieces, but I may add the other sketches if I have time.
Now it's time to get back to work. I have a lot to do! Hopefully, this was inspirational for your Monday. How are your projects going?

Road Trip Part 1: San Diego!

Hello again!

It's time to tell you all a bit more about my trip! After the wedding, we decided to stay for a few days in San Diego so we could see the sights there. The first day, we went to Balboa Park. What a beautiful park! Balboa Park is where the zoo and a lot of museums are in San Diego.

First, we went to the art museum. Every time my sister and I travel to a new city, I drag her along to the art museum. (She likes museums too, but I do limit myself to 2 hours in a museum so she doesn’t get bored out of her mind!). The museum was nice. I think it was a bit overpriced for it’s size, but I am a Jersey girl and spoiled by the MET.  It was pretty small, you wouldn’t need two hours to see the entire museum. Granted, we only ever look at the exhibits we are interested in, and that didn’t take long.  There was an exhibit of Joaquin Sorolla’s paintings and drawings that I really liked. He was an artist I hadn’t heard of before, so it was worth going just to be introduced to some new art that inspired me. He drew on location in gouache, and his drawings of New York were amazing. He really managed to capture the busy bustle of it with just a few loose strokes. I loved them, but of course, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures in the exhibit and they didn’t have any postcards of the art I liked. His paintings were beautiful too.

Me! In front of the art museum

 After that exhibit though, we were done at the museum and made our way across the park to hear the organ concert. That was a lot of fun. They literally have a giant organ in the park, and at 2 o’clock on Sundays they have a concert! We sat there for a bit, but really you could hear it from anywhere in the park. I wanted to draw because everyone was using umbrella’s to keep off the sun, and it looked really funny!

The organ. It was so cool!

A quick sketch of the organ concert.

We did go to the Japanese Tea Garden, The Model Railroad museum, and the Botanical Building, but really the park in and of itself would have been fun to just go hang out in.

The Botanical Building. The Buildings were so cool!

The next day we went to the zoo. My sister loves pandas, so our first stop was the panda exhibit. They were both asleep! I love red pandas though, and they were awake. They were also super fun to watch! We decided to come back to the pandas so that Elizabeth could see them awake.

It’s a nice zoo, but a little confusing to navigate. We were trying to see the tiger, and all we could find were monkeys! However, we did eventually find the tiger, and it was asleep. It was really hot that day, so a lot of the animals were either asleep, or not in their enclosures. I did get to see a lot of koalas though! They were all asleep too, but at least they were in trees so we got to see them. When we went back to see the pandas, they were awake and moving around so that was good. My favorite was still seeing the red pandas actually awake, and seeing koalas for the first time.

It was a beautiful zoo, but again, I do still like the zoo in Washington D.C. ! (I guess you just can’t get the east coast out of me).

Some gorgeous shots by Elizabeth: (All the photos in this post were taken by my sister Elizabeth, unless they are drawings or she is in them. I will be using many of these for reference for drawings, and they are beautiful, so I figured I would share them so you could all enjoy them too!):

Elizabeth going to see the pandas! In her panda shirt, of course

I love red pandas!

My drawing of the red panda in the travel journal we kept

Pandas! Elizabeth had so many pictures of the pandas it was hard to choose one!

a cute little monkey

sleepy koala

One of the many elephants

Me and a new friend ;) 

The next day we started our road trip. Which you will hear about in another post!

It’s time for me to get back to work on some art projects that have been neglected since I’ve been away.

Look for some new posts again soon!

It's almost time for the New Year. . . Goodbye 2011

  My goal was to have my website filled with new art by the time the New Year rolled around. However, with family things and whatnot, that has not happened. I am a little disappointed about that, but I did take the time today to come up with a revised design for the website with a couple of new pieces. I want to execute a couple more ideas I have floating around in my head and then I will put the new site up. Stay tuned! (my new goal is Jan. 31. Maybe by putting that here, I will actually get it done!)

Anyway, I have been hinting at a couple of pieces I was working on as Christmas presents which I can now post here.
The first was a set of "paintings" I did for my mom. She has a flowering plum tree in her front yard that she loves. So I did a drawing of the tree as well as a close up of one of the branches.

the pencil drawing

with tissue paper

with tissue paper

the pencil drawing

She loved a recent pencil drawing I did so I decided to keep the original sketch. I scanned it into the computer and then printed it on card stock. Using matte medium, I glued tissue paper over the drawings. I was pretty happy with the result. 

Another piece I did was for my sister. Last summer, I was able to spend a weekend at the beach with her and her family. From the trip, I got a lot of amazing photos. So I decided to do a painting of her children.

The first is the pencil sketch I did from the photo reference. The second is done in watercolor and pen and ink. I was really happy with the result as it is something I can add to my children's illustration portfolio.

2011 has been a good year for me. I graduated from the BFA Illustration Program at FIT, found a part time job working with great people, started this blog, met a bunch of great illustrators, and got a website up. I am excited for what the new year will hold: a new portfolio and hopefully some illustration jobs!
Happy New Year everyone. May it be better than 2011!!!