Adventures in Freelancing -- Part I

As I have mentioned before, I have been picking up some freelancing jobs here and there. Some of my contacts are local, but they are mostly people from L.A. because Steve is awesome and throws my name out to anyone who needs design work. One of his friends wanted me to design an identity for his massage therapy business, Modern Massage; this included making a logo, business cards, a letterhead and a website.

This is my immaculately trimmed thumbnail. Oh yeah, and his business card design (these are roughs I printed out on my computer and cut out myself, so the actual cards probably look better). Jade stone massage is one of the specialties at Modern Massage, so I only thought it would be appropriate to reflect that in the business card design.

This is the home page for his website, which you can visit by clicking here. Everything was designed to be simplistic and user-friendly as well as being consistent with the color scheme of the business card and letterhead. My favorite part: on the contact page, I made a facebook link button out of the same texture as the logo. I'm really proud of that for some reason. Don't judge me.

And finally, since my website was pretty janky-looking, I made a little 'Under Contruction' page to replace it. I mean, my website looked like it was made out of construction paper and masking tape, so I didn't want people to think it was a fluke that Modern Massage's came out looking pretty decent. It's not much, but you can click here to see it full size.

I have some other freelance projects I'm working on, but my main goal is to get my full website up and functioning withing the next few weeks. I'll let you know how that goes.

a penguin, a yeti and an eskimo...

Okay, so here's the deal.  I'm opening an Etsy shop!  My launch date is set for March 8th and my life has been basically "eat, sleep, work" trying to get things up and running.  I plan on selling prints of my illustrations and fine art as well as notecards, handmade journals/sketchbooks (with my artwork on the cover or as endpapers), and needle felted characters from my illustrations.  I purchased a high quality epson printer to make my prints and have been feverishly whipping up several new sets of illustrations.  I'm working on an "animal alphabet" meant for children's rooms (a is for armadillo, b is for beluga whale, c is for cuckoo bird, d is for dormouse, e is for echidna, etc.).  I'm also working on a series of four illustrations centering around the adventures of Polo the penguin and Teddy the yeti who's 3-D needle felted wool counterparts are pictured below.  Polo wears blue and green striped socks and Teddy wears a red hat.  

Teddy the yeti has toes!

I've also been working on new pieces for my illustration portfolio.  I've decided to focus my attention on book covers and children's books and am updating my portfolio with that in mind.  I've also updated my my process.  I'm still going for the same style/"look", but am doing more digitally, which speeds things up and makes my work cleaner and easier to manipulate.  I do all my ink work by hand, then scan it in and color the image by digitally collaging watercolor fields and patterns that I have painted and scanned separately.  Below is a piece that I completed recently (though I still have to go in and tweak a few things) that I like to call "Tangled Eskimo".  

I am super excited about all these new plans and projects!  I feel more motivated than I have since we graduated and the feeling hasn't gone away yet, even after about a month of non-stop work.  Hopefully it keeps up!

As always, I appreciate your thoughts and opinions.  I also want to apologize for being out of touch and not checking Facebook or this blog regularly... I'm afraid I've been a little single-minded of late, focusing on the things mentioned above to the exclusion of most everything else.  I was completely unaware of the newer blog posts until Chad informed me that I was missing things and should get my butt in gear!

An Owl, a Hamster, a Fish, and the World's Cutest Vacuum

Yesterday when I was cleaning my room, I came across my Game Boy cartridge for Kirby's Dreamland 2. While looking at it and recalling the hours I spent playing it over the years, I couldn't help but think that the Kirby series has a very children's book-y aesthetic in terms of tone and characters. Naturally, my next thought was, "Hey, why don't I make a children's book-styled Kirby piece?!", so I made some rough sketches...

I would being doing the final in watercolor because I realized I haven't touched any medium aside from ink and markers since graduating. I don't have a particular favorite of the three, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Part of me thinks that they are each different enough that I could make them into a series...if I find the time. I am still working on some commission work, so these would just be a side-project for now.

Update on the Secret 7"/Florence + the Machine project: I am 99% sure I am not a part of the finalists. Since it is supposed to be a "secret", the winners are e-mailed individually as opposed to be announced on their website, and I haven't received an e-mail. I'm not bummed out at all; once I make the last few finishing touches, my entry will make a pretty rad portfolio piece. Oh, hey there silver lining.

Starting Somthing New

As I think I've told all of you individually, I'm embarking on a project to revitalize my portfolio and give being an illustrator and honest go. To that end I've dedicated two nights a week as no excuses art nights and put on indefinite hold all the little never finished personal projects that muddy my art time. All but one that is clearly defined and achievable through incremental goals. 6 portfolio pieces in 6 months. All based on the Bros. Grimm story Iron John PDF.  All the same dimensions and medium (medium yet to be determined).  I'm doing all the preliminary work together so hopefully all of them are finished right after the other and achieve a level of harmony. January yielded thumbnails. 

Image one is the discovery of Iron John in a dried pond in a forest. I'm leaning bottom right with the figure crouching low holding a dog skull (he kills a dog).
 

Next is the Prince protagonist confronting a captured Iron John in a cage in his father's courtyard. Theme here is imposing wildness over the naive prince. Oh, and i think i never want to show the prince's face if I can get away with it. Fave here is lower left.

Here the prince who now live with Iron John in the forest has been tasked with guarding a magic well which guilds whatever touches its waters. Left is birds eye view of prince reaching in, a la Christina's World. Right is looking up at the wavy silhouette of the prince from in the well through the surface of the water. His finger may be piercing the water. Yeah, leaning this one.

These are #4 and 5. 4, on the left, is the prince in armor and with an army, both given to him by Iron John, marching to the gallant defense of his adopted kingdom. Right is five with the prince in new iron john armor fleeing palace guards, after winning a tournament and refusing to unmask. Admittedly i liked these two and didnt do other variations, but let me know.

I have #6 thumbed, but am at present w/o a scanner so that will come with the next update. I really am looking forward to your crits and input on this friends. Motivational phone call all around!

b.

Only If For a Night

Whilst casually perusing these fair interwebs about a few weeks ago, I stumbled across a design contest. The gist of the contest is as follows:

Design artwork based on a single off the album of one of the following artists/bands: Ben Howard, Bombay Bicycle Club, DJ Shadow, The Cure, Noah and the Whale, CSS, and Florence + the Machine. The designs chosen by the band, or voted amongst the 5 highest by the general public, will be printed on an 7" album sleeve, displayed in a record shop in London, and sold...with all of the proceeds going to the Teenage Cancer Trust. There's no monetary compensation for the designers, just exposure and the feeling that you've helped an awesome cause.

The second I saw the words 'create artwork' and 'Florence + the Machine', I was sold. The fact that is was for a charity that helps teenage cancer patients only sweetened the deal. Florence's song "Only If For a Night" is the single they selected as the basis for the design.

One of the most appealing factors of Florence Welch's music is that it has such an elegant and ethereal feel to it. As lame as it sounds, one of the best representations of the visual imagery I get from her music is the design of Lady Galadriel and her city of Lothlorien from the Lord of the Rings movies. To me, the mixture of unearthly mysticism and the heavily Art Nouveau-inspired sensibilities -- in both dress and architecture -- are an apt summation of the image and sound Florence exudes. When creating my design, I knew that these were things that I definitely wanted to work into my piece.

The sketch in the upper left-hand corner was the first idea I came up with: a central image of Florence in front of delicately patterned framework -- some manner of portal between real life and the dreamy milieu of her music. The thumbnail included the phases of the moon going around the center circle, but I left those out of the final piece due to time constraints. I also changed the color scheme and pose of Florence for the finished piece in order to match the more somber and reverent tone of the song.

The head on the right is a failed attempt at my second idea: doing a straight portrait. I didn't really consult my reference image while rendering, so whatever likeness the base drawing had to Florence was lost. This influenced my decision to make it a more stylized likeness, that way I could spend less time on worrying how 100% accurate it was and spend more time on the drawing as a whole.

Anyway, this is the finished piece. I do wish I had a little more time (since I was working on it up till 20 minutes before it was due), but I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Voting on the artwork doesn't end until noon to 1ish on January 26th (this Thursday!), so if you haven't voted and want to, then click right here. As Christina discovered, if you have a Facebook and a Twitter, you can vote using both a.k.a. vote twice because you love me. :D

Of Monsters and Gingerbread Men

Being Christmas-time and all, many delectable treats were made. And of course, me being me, I had to make it weird. Thus, the gingerbread monsters Cyke + Bommy were born (and promptly eaten).

Also, my gift to you is this groovy jam that has been a part of my proverbial 'It's Workin' Time!' playlist upon my discovery of it yesterday, and is thematically appropriate for this post (and by that I mean the band's name has 'Monster' in it):

Happy Holidays! Be inspired! Make more beautiful stuff (and post it here, obviously)!

Tiny Woolly Mammoths!

So here's a sketch for a new piece that I will be starting this week.  Is it weird that I crack myself up every time I look at it?  Anyway, as always I would love your thoughts!

I also have an idea for a "companion piece" to this one with tiny dodo birds playing in shoes under someone's bed!