Category: Surface Design
Topic: Basics
Start Date: 5/5/12
Deadline: 5/9/12
I tend to create lots of pretty detailed patterns, but this time I want to create more basic pieces.
Hello! I'm Melanie, a freelance illustrator living in Denver with my dog, Violet, who often has things named after her without realizing it.
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Read how The Illustration Deadline works here.
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portfolio
flickr
-------- questions/comments:
contact me
-------- browse by category:
deadline details
finished work
process
friday finds
inspiration
other work
browse by type of illo:
portrait
editorial
book cover
surface design
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Photo
No excuses! I get annoyed on other blogs when people apologize for not updating more often. I’ve been busy. I think I have to drop the 4-day-deadline thing while this pikaland class is going on…I just finished this assignment for class, only it’s just 1/3 of one assignment, and I have literally SIX MORE illustrations to get create. And then next week I’ll probably get 1 or more in addition to that. So I need to focus on those!
(This is 1/3 of an assignment that’s past/present/future. The story is, it was my 7th or 8th birthday, and I got this fantastic barbie dollhouse with a string-operated elevator that was unbearably cool. I was putting my barbie in her bed, and pulled up the covers, when my grandmother told me to be careful - I didn’t want her to suffocate. Since then, I have always been nervous about falling asleep with the covers over my head, convinced I’ll suffocate. People tell me it won’t happen but I can’t shake my fear!)
Meanwhile, I bought a new computer (my old one is dying, plus I need to update some programs that may or may not even work on the dying computer), and have been happy to have had a few other professional illo gigs in the past few weeks. I’m going to learn After Effects so future illustrations will be animated! Which sounds so exciting!!! We’ll see what happens!
Photo
Went hiking near red rocks this morning. I have been illustrating my ears off this week (this is a new expression I just made up this second and I am pretty sure it is gonna go viral) and haven’t finished Elvis! But I think with other projects going on, I need to go easy on myself. Then again, I can’t WAIT to finish Elvis because I have a GREAT idea for my replacement-to-book-covers category that I can’t wait to talk about here!
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Elvis portrait - progress
This deadline was a great opportunity to work on my 3rd assignment for my pikaland course. We had to use a piece from a museum as inspiration. I chose this, from the Denver Art Museum:
I am in love with the colors, and how something about it is so modern even though it was made in the late 1800’s. So I decided to take the color scheme and use it for Elvis.
Step 1 was to draw a basic sketch, using various pictures of The King I found through google image search.
Here is where I am so far. I’m pretty happy with it…I think the face is coming along pretty well, and the hair is sufficiently shiny. Tomorrow I’ll work on his shirt, which will have similar colors to the guy above. And I might add some of that awesome graphic detail into the background, like that black triangle. What do you think?
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deadline #37 - portrait - Elvis
Category: Portrait
Topic: Elvis Presley
Start Date: 5/14/12
Deadline: 5/18/12
I’m all shook up.
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deadline #36 - editorial - maurice sendak - finished!
(I finished this yesterday. I’ve had lots of drawing to do for a real-life assignment, that’s taken priority and kind of pushed my blog to the back-burner. But I won’t give this up! It’s been too good for me!!!)
This is sort of a combo deadline finisher - it works for my pikaland assignment #2 (combining what I know with what I love) and my maurice sendak illustration. I wanted to depict someone reading Where the Wild Things Are, and being cozy and happy and content. (Well, really my first idea was a girl crying and reading and eating the book, but I thought that is only borderline appropriate.) I also wanted lots of detail, as that’s been my goal for a while, and added patterns as much as I could. I’m fairly happy with the outcome - good not great. Some texture would be nice. As would a few shadows. Ooh, and a pattern on the chair. Whoo!
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deadline #36 - editorial - maurice sendak
Category: Editorial
Topic: Maurice Sendak and childhood - we ate it up, and we loved it
Start Date: 5/9/12
Deadline: 5/13/12
A quote from Maurice Sendak, as seen in many news articles and facebook feeds since Sendak passed away yesterday:
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”
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deadline #35 - surface design - basics - sort of finished-ish
I didn’t finish this deadline as much as I finished two other patterns this week that I wanted to share…
This is my finished illustration for my first assignment for my class on Pikaland. I’m so happy with it…when I drew the leaves and colored them in, the pattern looked so dull, but once I added the shadows to make the pattern more three-dimensional, it was an instant change. Plus that pink/purple color….love!
And this is my finished pyrex design for the upcoming Spoonflower contest (‘retro kitchen’ themed, with a restricted color palette). I feel like my ‘basic’ surface design pattern is the background of this guy - the little dashed stripes. So that kind of works, right?
Anyways, I have a great excuse for not having a really appropriate finished product this week! Besides the fact that I’ve been working on projects for my pikaland class, I’m also working on my very first professional illustration job! It’s extremely exciting. I had 11 or so drawings to do, mostly just linework, with just a tiny bit of color, and not a ton of time to get them done. I finished them up last night (unless there are other edits that have to happen in the next few days, which is very possible) and am hoping to have another related assignment to start for the same client in the next few days. Yay!!!
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deadline #35 - surface design - basics
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