Two Deities

Two Deities

I did these for the weekly challenge at the 2012 forum. 

These are a bit of a change for me, but I like how they turned out. Trying to incorporate some of the stuff I'm doing at work into my illustration stuff. I really enjoy my job at Reel FX, I feel like I'm learning a lot and trying some different methods, and they seem to treat the artists pretty well. I won't be able to show any of the work I'm doing for a while though, which is probably a good thing, I can brush up my designistrator concept art chops in the mean time.

butternut

This is actually Caran d'ache pastels on gessoed board. They're water soluble pastels and have some neat effects wet or dry. Pratt introduced us to them, I think. They were the only supplies I didn't leave at work over the weekend, and I felt like doing something to unwind.

I really like my job, and I'm slowly adjusting to the 9-6 routine. I am glad to have some good company as I adjust to Texas life. It's a state of mind, I've heard, but I'm still not sure what that state is. I thought that an entire life lived in Florida would make me heat resistant, but it was 105 today, and unlike Florida, there is no afternoon shower daily to cool things off. There isn't the sauna-like humidity as much here, but just a sense that you are slowly dying with every additional second you spend outside. I look forward to seasons.

As soon as I can afford it, I'm going to get a pet, I need a lil buddy in this echoey apartment.

dallas blues

Well, I'm moving to Dallas in a few days. I've accepted a position at Reel FX in Dallas, as a graphic design apprentice, so I am packing up and getting ready for the real life stuff. I'm pretty excited, after living in Florida for 18 years, I'm ready for a change.

Wish me luck y'all.

sprouts

Today is my mom's birthday, this is a card I made for her.


Quick gouache sketch, I'd like to add some design elements and make it more into a book cover or something.


Ha, another country living sketchbook page. There were cool clocks, I had to. I want to add some stuff to this too, the bottom feels empty.

The one redeeming quality of summer in Florida, is that there is always incentive to stay inside in the AC and catch up on reading. Sometimes it is as rewarding and interesting to read young adult books instead of the usual fiction, usually I can finish them in a day, so it's refreshing, and gives me more of an idea of what kids are into these days. Per my mom's suggestion, I just finished reading City of Ember (and the sequel, People of Sparks) which she says her 6th grade students loved. If I had read them sooner I would have included them in my thesis, since they're both a bit dystopian. The first one is being made into a movie, coming out around Christmas (with Bill Murray, yay), and I wish we'd all graduated earlier, just to have had the chance to do the concept art for this movie. Post apocalyptic underground city that's all decked out with steampunk stuff, and pipeworks and funny light fixtures for all.

Also reading Adrian Shaughnessy's How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul, which you can pretty much replace "graphic designer" with "illustrator" and the advice rings true across disciplines. I think the book should have been required reading for our portfolio class, it's a much better overview of the industry than we ever got. It's a bit of an affirmation that all young designers struggle during that first 6 months after graduation, and goes into the mindset needed to be okay in this world.

So, I hope everyone is well. Make yourself a cucumber sandwich, cool off and take care.

something under my bed just sneezed

Good Golly, emcguire.net has been updated?

Yes, finally. Still needs some tweaking, but I am pretty happy with how this version came out. Let me know if there are any problems I've overlooked.

Other excitement, my sister brought home a three month old kitten that is only slightly bigger than a grapefruit and named him Dexter. Which is better than kitler, which is what his original owners were calling him because of his little white mustache. He is darling.

til next time, adieu.

minty

This is the next in the sequence of sunrise images. I wanted to do something that would force me to deal with colored light, though this is still pretty subtle.

I'm currently reading this year's Pulitzer prize winner, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and it's kind of written in Spanglish, so I'm trying to conjure up whatever 10th grade spanish I can remember to make sense of the thing. Next on my to-read list is David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which I had planned to include in my thesis, and will probably want to do a cover for if I end up liking it. The book has a pretty cool cover as it is though. For now, adieu.

belfry

I got a thing for cozy old buildings. One of the things I miss most about New England is the architecture, nothing in Florida feels like it has quite the same history or charm. If I make it to The Homeland this summer, priority #1 is taking pictures of interesting houses. 

Funny how things can end up being major influences on you, not just other artists but really your environment growing up. My mom has subscribed to Country Living for as long as I remember, and though I'm in no position to revamp a seaside cottage, that aesthetic seems to be ingrained in me (teapots!). I've been going through the old issues and drawing whatever buildings catch my eye, so expect more soonish.

NEW?!

New Layout, hope you like it. :]

heirloom

Not sure if this one is done yet, though it is fitting mayhaps that my first post-graduation piece should be a sunrise (or sunset, I suppose.) This is part one of a longer series I want to work on, this way of working is relaxing to me. 

I went to Oklahoma for a week to visit Drew's family, and on our way back to Florida, our flight out of Oklahoma city took off at about 6 in the morning, so we go to see the sun rise from thousands of feet up in the air, it was pretty crazy, the light was pure pink and the horizon had this odd mist to it. I guess normally I'm not awake in the morning to enjoy these things, but sunrise from an airplane was surprisingly beautiful.

Here's an obligatory airport drawing. :)

Now that I'm done with school, I have a lot I've been meaning to do but got pushed to the back burner during the whirlwind that is senior year/thesis/job hunt/meltdown. Now, it's nice to have the time to make some new work, redesign my website, all while going through the piles of boxes in my storage closet of a room. Not moving out over last summer meant I had a accumulated a lot of stuff, and every time I have to move out, a minimalist lifestyle always seems so appealing, especially right now. If all else doesn't work out, I'll buy a Tumbleweed House and try my luck in the mountains. 

THESIS ENDS

1984 by George Orwell
Ink on toned paper, Digital


Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Pencil drawing and Digital


Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley
Pencil drawing and Digital
This book was a short, nonfiction reflection back on the predictions from Brave New World that came to fruition more quickly than expected. I used the two novels as an opportunity to do a sister cover to the first piece


The Giver by Lois Lowry
Watercolor and digital


The Children of Men by P.D. James
Ink drawings and Digital
a note- the book is absolutely nothing like the movie. Both were very well done, and took place in the same world, but the plots were very different. The book was much more of a character study of what the effects of the inability to have children had on the whole human race, instead of the action being driven by one event. I wanted to kind of show that the world was messed up, and so Trish suggested I have the kids upside down, as nothing in their world quite worked anymore.


Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
Ink drawing and digital


The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Digital
Ended up never putting type on this one, I didn't feel like it needed it.

A few people have asked me about prints. All of these are available as 13"x19" prints for $20 each, just email me or leave a message on here.

To explain, here is a summary of my artist statement-

Dystopian Literature - Negative or undesirable societies, visions of "dangerous and alienating future societies," often criticizing current trends in culture. These books describe the state in which the conditions of life are extremely bad, characterized by oppression, the effects of pollution on the environment, or any suppression of humanity
Why I picked this topic- I loved these books in high school, and wanted to create interesting covers that would reach a wider audience. The novels remain very relevant in warning against current issues in our society (for example, wire-tapping, genocide, global warming) and possible futures if we aren't mindful of ways to prevent these outcomes.

About a month into the semester I was starting to really worry about my topic, I was scared that it was too negative (for applying to Hallmark and Children's book publishers), that the books were too overwhelming, but all in all, I'm really glad I picked something I cared about, and the work didn't turn out to be too negative at all. I wanted to use this semester to create a body of work that really reflects on what kind of person I am and where my interests really lie. After doing the covers for Black Swan Green and Double Bind I felt like it was an affirmation that books are, and have been, a very important part of my life (sup librarians). I have always loved reading, as much as I love art even, and wanted to do a body of work that scratched the surface of that, and wasn't just work I knew would get me hired somewhere.

After long projects like these you always feel like there was more you could have done, but I'm pretty happy with the books I chose, and was happy to hear from some people that they'd read them and liked them as much as I had. 

To everyone who came to the show, thank you, hope you grabbed a postcard :) To the other illustration seniors, I think we had a pretty rockin show. I am really proud of our class.

Perspectives

My first tearsheet! My Hallmark piece got on the cover of Ringling's magazine, and there's a nice profile of me on the inside. I listed Paul Pope as an influence, and my mom thought I meant The Pope.

Real nice big post Friday once thesis is up, you will see what I've been doing all semester.

Longest. week. ever.

peripheral

The final design I ended up printing for my business card. The drawing is mine, I liked having an icon of sorts, it takes less explaining and it's easy to identify.


Getting some stuff together to send out to children's book folks, I plan on finishing this one. 

One of the most precise and helpful critiques I've gotten was from (I think) Sarah Caterisano, who told me that sometimes the ages of my subjects are too ambiguous. Sometimes this can be to my advantage, this girl could be anywhere from 8-11, covering a range of children's book projects, but when a girl could be 13-23, that starts becoming a problem.
I've never owned a dog, and am decidedly more of a cat person, but man, something about Scotties gets me, I bet they have a lot of integrity.

Recently, Ryan Hammond asked a bunch of us to contribute drawings for a project being done at the Design Center. He liked mine and asked for a few more, so I finished these up last week. He specifically wanted them to look like "raw hand-drawn maps" as the poster was centered around maps, and the career responsibilities of some of our alumni. I had a lot of fun doing more loose, sketchbook kind of stuff.

(I don't know if the L train goes to the east village I just do what they tell me people!)

the title is "digital film director" I left it off because I kinda blanked on what would be a good type solution, and figured the real designers would know better.

My favorite one because I got to draw knobbly hands


I picked up my cap and gown for graduation the other day. That was pretty surreal, but we're all so much on auto-pilot now that every surreal experience has started to just melt into the fog that is senior year. I don't regret anything about my time here. That's a good way to feel.

penelope

Penelope

Next Monday starts National Library Week, so I felt like paying homage to my place of employment, and drawing some library themed love. I've worked at the library for 4 years now, and being as I'll be uprootin myself en route to another endeavor, I think I will miss it, as much as you can miss a job. If nothing else, the library exposed me to a lot of different artists and random information, just by flipping through the books as I put them away. Though I got sick of putting away DVDs, because you can't flip through those.

catacombs

Changing gears a bit, I wanted to do some work that wasn't a dystopian book cover. Book covers come with a certain expectation; they sum up the story in a singular, graphic image. Doing these little environments has been really fun, and feels way more open ended. I've come to realize that no one has just one set of skills, it's a bit more like a venn diagram, where you can have commonalities but go pretty far in opposite directions. I'd be equally happy as a graphic designistrator (real technical term) or doing more painterly stuff for visual development avenues.

Really though, these are for comics class. In my story, lonely lighthouse boy wishes his scientist girlfriend didn't always have so much homework, she feels bad and builds him a flying machine to bring him something nice. It's based on a true story.no it's not


I've always thought that I kind of suck at drawing guys, but if I can give them big ol Freddie Highmore ears, I seem to have more fun. I just can't seem to pull off a drawing of a really manly man.

I'm volunteering this weekend for "Accepted Student Day" at Ringling, meeting the next crop of new art students and telling them fun horror stories about the work load (which are always grossly over-exaggerated). I remember when I could not wait to get here. Now I'm waiting for the next big chapter of my life, and the uncertainty is taking it's toll. We'll all land on our feet, I just wonder where.

in the mean time

The Giver

I've been trying to keep most of my thesis stuff under wraps, since I don't want the senior show to be super anticlimactic when everyone's already seen all my stuff on my blog, but I figured this was unfinished (still needs type) so it's alright to show.

I never read The Giver in middle school, it seems like the people who did all had a really strong response to it. Luckily, the cover is pretty ugly, so that gave me a lot to improve upon. I decided not to do A Clockwork Orange as a cover for a similar reason, I don't feel like any solution I can come up with (that is still an illustration) can compete with the image and the style of Kubrick's movie. The Giver was a really awesome book, it was fun to read it for the first time in the context of all this other "adult" dystopian literature. A Kid's dystopian novel is still pretty scary, and the old cover shows none of that.

Lately I've been doing what I refer to as "everything other than art" which seems to be the harder, stressful part of being a senior. The work, we can do, we just don't have much time to do the work when we have to cut mats, frame stuff, get something ready for a company, etc. When I was an underclassmen I had the impression that the seniors must just be in their rooms all the time working on their thesis, when really, working on thesis is a treat compared to this other stuff. I have 2 covers left to go, and then I'm done with my thesis, which is a weird feeling.

In the mean time, trying to not lose my voice!

sesquipedalian

Cat in a Box

you heard me.

This past weekend I participated in an on campus Hallmark workshop with some Ringling grads and a bunch of other students. I did the same workshop last year, and both times I had a lot of fun. 

This year, we changed things a bit and spent the whole time concepting ideas for celebrating something for someone specific in your life. I ended up coming up with a cat-suitcase-bed for my sister, since she has a new pet and travels with it a lot. The cat wouldn't actually be closed inside the box but would be a bed when it was open, and closed, would hold all the pet necessities. I had a fun time doing something different, and it was nice doing something other than thesis.

Here are my original concept drawings-

The one on the left was the other idea I liked, and would have been an entertainment chest for Drew and would have included a cool dresser, with a top that folds out into a ping pong table, a refrigerated top drawer for beer and wine, and a bottom drawer with party games and a bar set.

All in all, a fun time.

like a little astronaut

Sometimes thesis gets me thinkin too serious like, and I feel like drawing cute awkward girls. Can't decide which jacket I like better. I think the red is nice but olive green holds a weird soft spot in my heart. Funny how in art school, you stop having a favorite color, and you develop a favorite palette. I tend to favor warm colors, and I think the palette in Amelie always lurks in the back of my mind.


Being as it's my last semester, I wanted to take another figure class to round out my time here, and I'm really happy I did. Having figure with Hodges Soileau is really awesome, and it's nice to be painterly without the mess of paint, and to be in the studio some more. I've been drawing almost entirely in conte and chalk, and I do not miss oil paint at all. Haven't painted with oil since last April.
Funny how linear all of my stuff is, but when I draw the figure (or anything from life) I want to be tonal and painterly.


Sketchbook drawing I did during comics class. Sketchbooks to me, always kind of feel like long term relationships, being as this book is in your life for sometimes months at a time, and you invest a lot of care and time into it. So naturally, there are times when we don't get along or things feel kind of uninspired, and sometimes all is well. I miss sketching as much as I did last year, focusing entirely on finishing work doesn't leave time to sketch and wander and experiment.
So, my sketchbook has been a bit neglected this year, and only gets attention when I'm bored, or as a place for process work. This will change after graduation, I hope.

Tomorrow, my whole apartment, plus a big group of Ringling folk, are going to Megacon to represent the school. It was quite an experience last year, and this year, I feel way more prepared. I'll be selling some prints and stuff too, Hope to see you there :)

indubitably

Guess what book this is for?

Back cover for another thesis piece. Sometimes drawings look better upside down? Funny thing is, I showed this to Thiel right side up and he hated it, turned it upside down and jazzed it up (thanks Trish) and suddenly he thought it was awesome.

And that same drawing before I went to work on it, which I do like right side up, and so that you can see his cool hair

Also, lately I've had a bit of a thing for scottie dogs and sloths. I figure once we all get sick of drawing owls and birds on tree branches, sloths will have their day.

Classes and all have been going pretty well. I'm halfway done with thesis, and it's midterm, so I think I'm in a good situation. I have a lot of reading left to do, since I've done covers now for all the books I've read already. Spring break will be a time to read and sleep, and eat homecooked food.

bloom

The Bloom Tree

I hope everyone enjoyed their respective Valentine's Days. I made chocolate chip scones and tried to shape them like hearts, some of them ended up as less romantic organs, kidney shaped perhaps. 

Also, recently I went and saw Persepolis with my comics class. I liked the comic and the movie, and it was a refreshing animation style, almost a moving comic. It's nice to see the expansion of possibilities of the medium. I feel like the animation industry in America will soon need to reinvent itself to keep up with the foreign advancements in technique and style. Tekkon Kinkreet is another notable movie I've seen recently, I wish there were more stills available online, the style is pretty breathtaking.

It's Oscars weekend and for the first time in a long time, I haven't seen many of the movies. I guess there's bigger things on our plates right now. :)

get out your measuring cups

Randolph

A fellow of kindness and sophistication, he and his loyal cat Kingsley review recipes for the Oxforshire News.

1984 Back cover, in progress

I don't want to give away all of my thesis pieces before the show, so for the next two months, I'll post only secret snippets of thesis stuff, and then the rest of my sketch work and other illustrations. 

I just finished reading 1984 for the first time, and I can see why it is such a benchmark in dystopian literature. I'm currently rereading V for Vendetta, but it may be difficult to compete with all of the existing imagery from the movie and comic to make an original illustration. Wasn't really crazy about the art in the comic, but it still set the standard nonetheless. Probably next up is to finish the cover for WE, get cracking on A Clockwork Orange, and retune Children of Men. All of these books are pretty awesome, and I hope I do them justice.