The Book of Self Portraits

My Concepts sketchbook drawing for this week. I made another mix CD. I'll edit this entry with the tracklist at a later date (I don't have it on me at the moment)




Oh wow! I just noticed that I forgot to cross the second "T" in "portraits. You can really tell I had been up all night, can't you?

Fashion Illustration

Hi guys! I'm back with my most recent Concepts work. The assignment was a sort of Secret Santa thing that included Rebecca giving us all a sheet with all our classmates' names on it and us having to come up with an especially tailored assignment for each person. Then Rebecca put them all in seperate bags for each of us and we got to pick two from the bag, then decide on one of them to work on. I chose "fashion illustrations for a teen girls magazine for 3 current trends," an option which was written by my friend Julianna. She had noticed my Polyvore blog post from over the summer and thought it would be good for me. I'm happy she did because I've been wanting to try fashion illustration for a long time. When I was in middle school I used to keep these books of drawings of girls in various outfits. Some of the clothes were based on real items, others I made up. Looking back they're pretty stiff and naive looking but I was really passionate about them at the time. That all stopped when I went to high school, though, and I haven't thought much about them in some time, until now.

I opted not to make the trends for each piece really obvious but I did try to make each girl have her own personality and style. Most of the clothing and accessories are based on real items though I have made some alterations, most notably changing the owl bag in the second piece into a top. I used Polyvore to find the clothing (most of which was already in my Polyvore closet) and figure out which pieces I would put together. Below I've embedded Polyvore sets I've made with my finished illustrations so that you can see the original items and possibly even buy them if you wish!

Hamburgerlar by greenwhimsy featuring KG by Kurt Geiger shoes

Items in this set:
Milanoo.com dress, $90
Elle.com dress
Debenhams.com top, 5.60 GBP
Lovebugclothing.com skirt
KG by Kurt Geiger shoes, 3.95 GBP

Darkly Decadent by greenwhimsy featuring kate spade

Asian Island Punky Schoolgirl by greenwhimsy featuring Michael Kors

Items in this set:
Michael Kors sweater, $695
Lola and James blouse, $120
Chaoticclothing.co.uk skirt, 18 GBP
Sourpussclothing.com clothing, $12
Edgeofurge.com tights, $28


And here's just one more Polyvore set. It doesn't include any of my illustrations but it's certainly seasonally appropriate:

Thanksgiving by greenwhimsy featuring Pade Vavra jewelry

Items in this set:
Clockworkcouture.com top, $23
Wetseal.com hoodie
Itsthenewblack.com.au outerwear, 279 AUD
Journelle.com intimates, $58
Graziamagazine.ru intimates

Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!

The Spirit World

This week's sketchbook drawing, this time for "The Spirit World" book. I made another mix CD. You can read the tracklist if you click on the image. I made it hard to read on purpose because I think knowing what songs are on a mix before hearing it kind of ruins the fun but I do want people to have a chance of figuring out what they heard later if they're interested.



The dominant colors are black and gold to match the end papers John put in when he made the book's covers.

It's All Connected

Yes! I am finally done with this monster project!
For the past three weeks or so all of the Illustration Concepts classes have been working on posters or TV spots for the an outside client, the Baltimore Office of Sustainability. The top five pieces will be printed huge and go up in Batltimore metro stations. I kept the size in mind while I worked on mine so I made it very detailed. The piece was created by making lots of little acrylic paintings and then scanning them into Photoshop and collaging them digitally. This probably wasn't the best technique considering how many layers I had to make and how big the file had to be (it was 4 gigabites before I flattened it!) but I think it all worked out in the end.


I mainly like the final product but it's kind of hard to tell, I've been working it for so long.

Here are some of the contributing paintings that I like well enough to show on their own:
I'm particularly fond of the Oriole. I actually think I saw one today while I was walking around campus. I tried to get closer but of course he flew away.