Illustration Assignment: Coles Phillips Concept Sketches

Some of the preliminary sketches for my current Illustration Studio class. We are to do a Cole Phillips cutaway style image. The skirt, the arms, and the headband are designed to not have an outline and are defined by the negative shapes. The top image was the second, more formal sketch, and the bottom is the third drawn with references (which Katie was nice enough to pose for).

blog post #666

Friday:
Got up bright and early and stuffed my weekend things into my Trader Joe's bag and set out at 1:00am to catch a 2:50 train. Very early set out. Stopped by Plaid Pantry and got some snackums for the train ride. It was sunny and I got very warm very quick. Picked up a hotdog at the station and chilled. There was a slight freakout when I heard a train was having problems but it was only the one that was Southbound. Got into my window seat and set out on time with no problems. Hurray! Read Graveyard Book and thumbnailed my script and did lots of fun things to spend the time.

Llyw was waiting with Meiji and Pocari Sweat(a drink, it is good and not sweaty at all) and all was good. It was a bright, beautiful day and the weekend kept shining. We dropped our things off and lounged about. Dinner was tacos handmade from stuff bought from the nearby Safeway. College kids, not art school kids, are so different looking. And they buy a lot of cheap beer. We nibbled on food and watched The Illusionist and eventually went to sleep.

Saturday:
Another beautiful day. Breakfast was quesedilla and eggs scrambled with last nights leftover taco meat. We had a later snack of Bubble Tea. I shook mine up and the plastic cracked and spilled green stuff all over my lap and shirt. Hoping to find a replacement shirt, we went to Buffalo Exchange. I did not find a shirt but did find a great deal on a sweater (50% off because the season is ending)and suspenders. The shirt and pants dried with no stain so that was fortunate.

Big Fish Games, the company Llyw works for, was having an office party. They were going to have it during Christmas time but the weather called a halt to that. We arrived fashionably lateish. I was in my floral velvet dress and tights and the only heels I can pretend to walk in. I checked my jacket and Llyw held onto my ID. But I wasn't carded anyway. Amazing the trust that exists in Seattle. Met a wide variety of nice and cool looking coworkers. Started things with a Long Island Iced Tea to speed away the awkward-being-in-a-huge-unfamiliar-group feeling. And it zoomed away. It wasn't that well made though. Anyway. Met more people down in the concert area. Rockaroke was scheduled. It is Karaoke with a live band backing the singer. A lot of people were very good (or the music was very loud and I was a little bit tipsy). Llyw performed Tainted Love. There was Buddy Holly and Rock and Roll and a ton of other things. Some prizes were given away by the fairly inebriated CEO (who wore slacks that were way too baggy and made him look very stunted and short).

It was very fun and we stayed all the way through. Then at the end Llyw checked his pockets and oh no, my ID had gone missing! We checked all the areas he had been, checked the coat check and the bar and all around multiple times and it was nowhere to be seen. Fortunately I have my passport. Hopefully it will show up in the next couple days. If not, I'll have to make another trip to Vancouver and get another one made up. Major bummer. So that put a damper on the rest of the night.

Sunday:
Last day. Brilliant day. Insanely sunny and warm day. 77 degrees out! What the hell? No word about the ID. We had orange rolls for breakfast and walked over to Trabant and had Italian sodas and played Mancala. Then we took a lengthy walk down to the water and all about while I sweated and wanted fish and chips. None were to be had because we caught the 4:28 bus downtown and ended up in the International District at 5 and I had to board right away. The lady in front of me had a Sandman sleeve tattoo and a Hellboy sleeve on the other arm. They were really well done.

The ride was uneventful but it went quick. I took a nap and read and ate another Hot Dog. Missed one Max but only had to wait five minutes for the next. It was a warm night and very quiet with no crazy people to be had. Now I'm back. The weekend went by so fast. Now it is time to work again.

I must admit, it was nice to take a break from the writing thing, even though I know how much you all enjoy it and look forward to it (you all being my family mostly).

the weekend is here

Math class:
Just met with Liz and Karen regarding our crop circle. Liz worked on reproducing it and Karen and I practiced chalk circles. I did some running about and errands but it went generally well and quick.

The break:
Scanned in all of the comic that I had done, resized it, and put in placer text and posted it to the comic class site for other classmates to look at. It is coming along. The text didn't take that long to put in so I feel good about that. I figure I'll need a day just to get all the transparencies set up. And by that I mean, getting text printed out according to the size of the panels and getting see through (except for the black of the linework and the text) versions printed up so that I can put them on my screens and print them. It's a weird process with probably lots of photocopying. I might copy and paste the text right into the frames and photocopy it like that. I'll figure that out. Need to finish the comics first. Speaking of finishing: I got the script done! All of it! Every crummy line of dialogue and action. Uhg. I don't know how I feel about it really. I'm so close to it. Need some distance. So with that, I just need to thumbnail and away I go! I have hopes of getting it finished over the course of next week and into the weekend.

I just bought some stuff to microwave for lunch. A little lean cuisine and a little drink. Was relatively cheap though in the grand tradition of lean cuisine, not filling at all.

Digital Illustration:
We worked on text and cropping images. It was a shortened class and I took the chance to bounce before the rain came back. My mistake as no sooner was I on my bike for a minute than did the heavens spew fourth gallons of wetness. Uhg. It didn't last long but it was horrible.

First Thursday:
Changed into some snazzy tights and shorts and shoes and went to rock the First Thursday thing. Dominic and Thom have a show at Litterbox (named because a kitty named Lester lives in the gallery) so I went there first. Dom put up a drawing I gave to him in the show, but in a clearly not his work section. It was sweet. It was a nice show and lots of people were coming through, and lots of familiar faces. Chatted with Thom mostly. Shared bad jokes. Checked out Pony Club, where I ran into Farel and Zachary. Farel had put up some of the assignment he did in class in the show. Ha! We all chatted a little bit. Karen was also there but she did not talk to Farel. She had one of Adam's friends, Stu, with her. Neat Scottish guy. We all hung out a little bit but we parted at Dom and Thom's show. Janessa, Josh, Craig, Serenity, August and I all went to Upper Playground because Craig said there was a show that was awesome there. Wheeled my bike along and struggled to lock it up. The Upper Playground show was okay, it was saved by having 3D glasses which made the work really pop. It was covered with bright pop monsters and photo defacement.

You spend enough time at First Thursday and people start to look alike. It is the same types of dress and facial hair and all that stuff repeated and stuffed into a crowd. It gets a little overwhelming.

Bike Trouble:
I parted ways with the pals and rode my bike down to the Max. At some point during my struggle with locking up, my brake became dislodged and I was without them and had to skid to stop with my shoes. Thankfully it was flat and I wasn't going fast. I can't imagine not being able to stop on demand like fixed gear bikes. When I got to the max, I fixed the brake and all was well.

Seattle:
I'm going up to Seattle this weekend. It is Llyw's birthday so I'm crashing at his place and partying it up a little at one of his company's shindigs. I consider this my break. Spring Break was just a sham, stupid food poisoning! I'll try to blog but if I don't, don't worry. Taking the train up tomorrow afternoon. Getting there around 6:30. I'm coming down Sunday night. I'm pretty far ahead with the school stuff, so don't worry. And I have train time to focus.

Cardigan Edit

We had to crop and add text to our image to promote our department. Here it is.

Photoshop.

working 11 to 8:15.

The print lab was crowded yet still functional. Everyone was in different cycles and occupied different parts of the room. Still it was busy. Lots of trouble shooting. Lots of "egads, why is it not printing right" and so on. I on the other hand was almost done and not having really any issues, having had to sort them out a week ago. I drew on my screen and while that was drying I mixed up the jade green. I should have started fresh and made it opaque so that it would layer less suspiciously on top of the other layers. Oh well, my bad. It still looks good. Got the emulsion on it and exposed it with Patsy's at the same time right before lunch. Set the puppy out to dry and went to Quizno's.

Comic club had a small turnout. I introduced the pictionary telephone game. It isn't that hard to explain? I made a tiny little speech bubble flyer to canvas the school with in interesting spots (a flyer away from flyers draws more attention than one amid the rest).

Printing went quick but I got so speedy I got a little sloppy and the last layer was more crooked than it should have been. I could have had more lined up correctly but I didn't I got sloppy. Oh well. The two color edition turned out nice. Gave one to Madeline. Her litho is looking purdy. I introduced her to the curved wood used to rest your hand when drawing. She was happy about that.

Read and internetted while waiting for Yoga. I did fairly well in yoga despite being two weeks out of it. I was a little tight but the twists did me good. I scarfed the rest of my Quizno's after.

It was raining heavily all day. I had my rain pants with me and they served me well on the ride to school (which I did with Karen who was leaving at the same time. Very fun. She is a semi-fair weather biker now! Go her!). When I left the school, at 8:45pm, it was dry! Dry dry dry! Hurray.

Now I'm decompressing and assessing all that I have to do tomorrow.

Oh, also gave Dominic one of the two color prints. And Serenity. They are going fast.

too ontop of the game

Liz, Karen and I banded together and discussed our ideas for our crop circle. Liz had some ideas worked out already so that was way cool. We settled on this rather biohazardian symbol. We aim to do it in the commons with chalk and sand. It will be very very temporary. We shall start practicing Thursday.

After that I went to work on my screen. Had to buy a brush because I left mine at home but that was probably for the better as now I have one specifically for the drawing fluid. And it is longer than my watercolor brushes so that makes it easier to get some of the spots. Between class and lunch I got it all drawn and dried and the emulsion applied. Left it to dry in the exposure room and then it was student council time!

Not much went down. We got this furniture we budgeted for three semesters ago. Some guerrilla gardening was brought up. We are getting a Foosball table. Then it was back to printing!

The line work looked great. Very clean and exactly what I wanted. I mixed up a ton of my color. Like, way too much and I had to split it into two plastic containers. The printing went really fast and it registered fairly well for the most part. It is looking quite awesome. I am excited for it to be finished. I just powered right through that sucker. I had tons of ink and time left so I bought some more paper and printed 16 smaller bleed prints (when the image runs off the paper). So when I am done, I will have 20 four color prints and 16 two color. The 20 will probably end up being a nice edition 6-8, about 7-9 unique prints that are still cool on their own, and then the remainder just being stuff I screwed up on too much or tester. I feel good about it. Silk screening isn't causing the frustration that other printmaking mediums tend to. All I have to do tomorrow is apply more of the drawing fluid, apply the emulsion, expose it, mix up the final color, and then ink that sucker. I should be done early as it takes no time at all to print.

I got it all clean in time for digital illustration. We had the pop challenge thing. I watched House while working on it. Then I finished up my Coles Phillips piece. Joe came by and said that removing the background pattern was a breath of fresh air. I agree. It did look better with just the smooth blue. I reworked the knee and that part I'm still iffy on. I never collected a reference.

Went to Safeway and picked up soap and shampoo and detergent and other things that feel like they cost a lot but last a long time so in the long run it isn't so bad.

Put things away. Ate dinner. Emptied dishwasher. I can finally return to yoga tomorrow. So happy.

Lovely Cardigan

Final version of the cardigan Coles Phillips piece (sans text). Got rid of the texture, it was deemed too much.

1500x1200 pixels. Photoshop.

quick fire challenge: lady

600x900. Quick fire popquiz digital challenge. We had to recreate this fashionable figure lady.

people need to wash their hands

Okie doke! Back to it and I'm feeling fine. I wore a skirt and it was chilly. Figures. Still, I looked good.

Joe has the flu! Again! Poor fella. We went over our sketches and had time in class to refine our ideas. Mine were generally well received, it probably helped that I had a range. Kevin amazes me every time he whips out his sketches. Boys got talent. Dominic is doing some flowerflage. Like camouflage but with flowers. Gabe found some Quiznos coupons so I used one for my lunch. $2 off a large! Hooyah! Sat with Madeline and Leah and Kody in the library. Talked about au juice sauce and where it comes from.

Joe and Farel's buddy Zachary Baldus came in to show us his stuff and give us an assignment. He is being recruited as a new teacher in the illustration program so this is giving him a little test run. We have a week and a bit to do a flyer for a theme party. I have ideas. In true Illustration Major fashion, once it was clear nothing more was going down everyone took off at 4:10. Dominic and I hung around and chatted with Zachary. Never hurts to make connections.

Then that was that. Watched movies. Read book. Worked on sketches. Had to prepare my own dinner as Gabe is off at his parents. Wahh!!

Tomorrow is math and student council and digital painting (if Joe isn't too sick). Also will work on my silk screen. Get ahead! That is my goal. Whooo!

taking notes

Threw myself at my sketches and script for one last push through the dredges of Spring Break. Got a few more lines of dialogue. Just pushing through it. It isn't so bad. It really is the hardest part. I could probably get all the inking and panels done in a week if I could just get this SCRIPT FINISHED ARGGGHH!! Yeah. Doing that.

Sat for hours with movies and TV playing while I sketched out some ideas and looked at art books. I'm so over thinking this project. Just thinking and thinking. Forcing ideas. It isn't fresh anymore. But I did get a cool character out of it.

I woke up early again. Freaking whiskey sour. I wanna sleep in!! Well it will help me get to bed right tonight.

Gabe made claw chowder but I'm not a chowder type. Also Katie started feeling ill so maybe it was for the best I didn't have any. It has been fun this spring break, just the three of us lounging about. It hasn't been fun having to be cared for when I was really really really sick.

Have some nice sketches. I feel fairly confidant about it. Back to the school stuff tomorrow! Holla! I have to crank out some stuff because I'll be up in Seattle this weekend. I'm ahead in the printing which is the most labor intensive part (it also requires me to be there). So printing is school dependant, and if I can get the script finished I can print that out and do the thumbnails wherever.

little day

Slept in to counter the early morning last night. Slept way way in. Sketched out some stuff. Watched JCVD properly. Sketched more stuff. Went to Scooter's with Katie and Gabe and got a cheap whiskey sour. Then we went to Jake's and had some stuff off the happy hour menu. I had a $3 cheeseburger and fries! We sat with some former coworker's of Gabes. It was really fun. The drink was on an empty tummy so I was like woaaaah when eating my burger. Still a little now. Anyway. Watching Princess Bride with them now. It was a fun little day. Katie made cookies and Gabe helped.

Tomorrow is the last day of spring break. Have to whip out those scripts.

JCVD is Jean Claude Van Damme in a serious role. He is playing himself and it is really good.

step off my 'turf yo!

My alarm went off at 7:50am. I slept in till about 8:40 and bounded out of bed to shower and pack snacks. I got to the printing labs at 9:30. Karen and I were going to silkscreen together but she was a noshow (other work had to be done). With a better squeegee and a new mix of ink, I actually got some decent pulls! And some, uhh, not so decent ones. It is about 50/50 right now. But I won't judge till I finish it up. I'll probably have a lot of singular looking ones that are still neat on their own.

I was mostly by myself for the whole day, mostly. The print aid, whose name I can never figure out, was there and mixed up massive batches of transparency base and process and opaque inks. Nice and fresh! And clumpy. My ink had little white splotches in but they didn't effect the printing too much. I managed to get two colors of 20 prints each done! I'm half way done! In one long day's worth of work. 9:30-5. But with breaks for food and waiting for things to dry. I reread almost the first two volumes of Scott Pilgrim while waiting for things to dry. It is nice when it is vacant because you can really spread out. So yeah, 20 prints. 10 on white and 10 on creme. I think I like the creme better. They are 11x17, 15x22 with the border. Very sizeable. I'm not looking forward to trying to print when there are classmates. I might try to whip out another color tomorrow. Ain't no thang to show up to class and be all "Yeah, I only have one layer and a week to do it. BOOYAH." I don't want to gossip but the majority of the screens of my classmates look untouched.

Rainbow was in the studio for a bit. She had free AstroTurf to hand out. I totally got a little bit of it! It sits proudly as a mat on my balcony right now. It is awesome. I'm so classy.

I reread the first four volumes of Scott Pilgrim today. Now Gabe is reading them. Watched Royal Tenenbaums as well. Good but sad.

SO MUCH PRINTING!!

screen and cut

My back has been hurting me. If I turn to the left it spasms. It is really painful but not constant so I can't really take an Advil for it.

Went in to silk screen today. Got my screen emulsified, my paper bought and cut, and all that. My screen exposed alright. I'm going for the soft, jagged edges effect. Karen was around and we chatted but otherwise the studio was very vacant. I managed to get the color that I wanted but I had serious issues getting it to go through my screen. I just don't have the arm strength for that size of work. Hopefully it will get better. Just have to practice.

Didn't do much else. Gabe made pizza.

Tomorrow I will be going in with Karen and getting an early morning printing session in. Hopefully it will go better.

chocolate badness

Just when I got better I get worse. Gabe made some hot chocolate that was just too thick and had a tad too much sugar in it. Made me so nauseous.

One good work day is followed by a nonwork day. I wrote down lots of things to try and generate ideas but nothing came to mind. Just did little drawings of Luna and Gabe and Katie.

Had a weird dream about a zombie invasion. I entered a building and this wolf attacked the desk clerk. I went into the elevator and Batman came out eating coleslaw. I wanted to go to the top floor, and the elevator only had one button. For that floor. I woke up in a scared panic and sat in bed quite numb. I went back to bed and fell into another vacant dreamscape. This person I was travelling with had Lee Pace in a box and was deceiving me.

I've been reading Another Roadside Attraction. It's an awesome old school paperback. $3.50 at Powell's. Right on.

cue Eye of The Dragon

I woke up this morning with INSANE energy! I'm better! I stuffed toast in my gob and drank tea and wore not pajamas! It is so lovely not being bed and couch ridden.

The first thing I did was my math homework. Which isn't due for a week! A whole week! We had to redo one of Zef Damen's crop circle reconstructions. This guy Zef, all he does is redo crop circles in proper math constructions. Shows how the people (or Aliens) who design crop circles do it. Pretty sweet actually. I had to restart about 21 steps in because the paper was too small and I goofed early on. The restart took less time though because I had figured out how to make some of the shapes needed. I used markers to color in the final construction so that I could still leave all the many pencil marks.

Then I took a break and watched telly.

Gabe made massive chili for dinner. And made me chicken soup. Because he is awesome. I put in Hot Fuzz and wrote out ideas for a new silk screen. Then I drew and colored in the one I liked.

Banana, math, chicken soup, silk screen layout, saltines, candy. I'm in good shape!

Katie and Jade Plants Layout

Layout for the reductive silk screen project (redone to be something a tad more interesting and less Coles Phillips). Katie with jade plants growing out of her head. Need I say more? The colors are not the colors that the silk screen will be, they are just a test so I know how things will lay.

11"x17". Graphite and watercolor.

day three

Feeling much better!

Even managed to take my bike out for a quick ride to Trader Joe's and back. Got veggies and oatmeal. Now I can munch my way to good health! Sadly I got the wrong type of granola bar but they are still good.

I'm eating larger and larger portions and keeping it all down. I finished up the inking on my comics so now all I have to do is proceed on the writing. I took a lengthy nap in the middle of the day and will likely go to bed early. Lots of rest, lots of water.

Katie and Gabe made Laab. I was only able to stomach the sticky rice. I can't wait till I'm healthy and can eat all this fabulous cooking!

still sick

I'm still sick. Keeping hydrated alright but I have no appetite whatsoever.

Just sitting about, wallowing.

Katie is awesome. She is taking awesome care of me. Got me 7up and saltines!

This is still the worst feeling ever. Uhhg. Two days lost!

sickness

I got food poisoning last night (probably from Montage). 12 hours of vomit. Little breaks of rest. Trying to keep hydrated.

It really sucks.

the lovely visitor and what we did

Inked in another page and a half worth of panels. Almost got it. If I get the rest of the script done by Wednesday, I should be golden. I can get the rest drawn in no time at all. All this stress better be worth it!

Dear Auntie Dorothy is in town for a conference tonight so we met up for dinner and a lengthy Portland stroll. She said she would be out of meetings at around 5 or 6 so I caught the max to Lloyd at 5:20. At around 6:30 I got a call saying she was at her hotel, about 12 blocks away from Lloyd so I got to walking. I'm so rarely in North East. Saw a bread making plant and walked by one of the TBA venues. We met up on Burnside and hugged and made our way further South to Montage.

It was actually open this time and we got a little table at a table section of three (they put people elbow to elbow). We gabbed about school and work and all those little things. I had the buttermilk fried drumsticks and she had the beans and rice. There are many things that I would like to try on the menu, it is very diverse. My leftovers came in a snail design. Very cool!

After the walk to Montage, we trekked across the Morrison Bridge. It was a misting sort of rain. From there we walked in a series of lefts and rights towards PNCA. The school closed at 10 and we got there at 9:10. I showed off our printing studios (and some of my prints) and the art on the walls. A quick little run down. From there we strolled along 10th and grabbed some gelato to top off the night. And there we hugged and parted. It was a nice little lovely visit with tons of walking (and for once someone keeps MY pace).

Now I'm enjoying some tea and really noticing how much energy I used during the day. Whoo!