Sotto Zero

Hi all! It's been a pretty crazy week. My Dad had a minor heart attack and was in the hospital for several days. It was pretty scary but the doctors went in to check his heart and there was very little new damage. Everything went really well and I'm really, really happy that Dad's back home and seems pretty much back to normal.

Here's a pretty crappy sketch from the hospital:

He was pretty grumpy that day.

In other news, I just finished a one week assignment for Concepts. We were to illustrate a menu cover for a sort of modern Italian restaurant in London. The idea was to base our illustration around a single item on the menu without using any sort of cliche menu/Italian food imagery and without simply drawing the dish. I chose Sotto Zero, a desert item including lowfat frozen yogurt, fresh strawberries, fruit coulis, and a chocolate straw. I've been wanting an excuse to draw a cute girl in a highly patterned dress for a while so I decided that this was my chance to run with it. I really want to work on infusing more pattern into my work.

This was also my first time using gouache. I'm not sure how I feel about it, yet. It dries reeeaally fast. But I like how colors lay over each other as opaque. Acrylic can require a lot of layering, which can get really ugly really fast.

I also did a sketch for "The Book of Romance" sketchbook this week, but I didn't get a chance to scan it. I'll be sure to get it next time.

They call me Mr. Tibbs!!!

Second finishes of the new school year! I'm not sure how I feel about them. I tried a new technique using duralar and painting on both sides as well as on paper behind it. I like the layered look but I think my colors are kind of drab. I don't know why I have so much trouble choosing colors from my head - or even with reference. I guess I just over think things.

These were another playing card assignment. This time my theme was movies I watched this summer. I watched 100 movies in 113 days! Unfortunately it was my greatest summer achievement. But anyway...

The first is Sidney Poitier in In the Heat of the Night as the Ace of Spades; the second is the cast of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie as the 8 of diamonds; and the last is Hurd Hatfield in The Picture of Dorian Gray as the Ace of Hearts.

I'm pretty happy with the likenesses overall and I really like certain aspects each one but they aren't exactly the "crème de la crème." Oh well. Onward to the next adventure!

I Figured I Had Paid My Debt to Society, By Paying My Overdue Fines At the Multnomah County Library

First finished piece of the semester! All hand embroidered for Studio Remix: Stitch.

First Concepts Post!

Hi, everybody! More sketches. These first three are for my first big Illustration Concepts assignment....

...This is the cover of a little book I embellished for class (before picture coming soon!)....

...And this is totally unrelated, a sketch I did during a folk music concert I went to last night in DC. It was pretty cool but unfortunately i had to come back early.

I'd explain more about these now but I'm not feeling very well. I went to the clinic and they say I don't have the Swine but I'm sick and sniffly and icky all over and it's cold and rainy outside and I long to crawl back into my warm bed....

Back in school!

School's back in session! No more endless hours of movie watching and Polyvore set making. I just finished my first week and I've already got a lot of assignments in the works. Here's a little sketch for one of the things I'm working on.