new idear

Loose character studies for a new project. I'm working on illustrations for a story I'm making up about a greyhound. Not sure if I want her more realistic or heavily stylized - these are just a few thoughts, I'm still working on some stylizations. I just really need to build my portfolio... That's why I'm doing this... And it's fun.

island

Entry for IF's prompt of "island." I was looking at pictures of gaur from India and water buffalo and thought that they could look like an island when in the water, and the little birds are the island's inhabitants. I used watercolor for the gaur and the water, the birds are digital. I don't think I like them orange but that's easily fixable.

greyhound waiting for a greyhound

Well, the writing at the bottom is barely visible so I should probably fix that... It says:

"Sandy was tired of living life in the fast lane, bored of running in circles chasing white rabbits, so she got on a bus out of town and headed for Egypt."

sketchies

Another productive Sunday evening spent at Jackie and Brent's. Just some critters - Gordon the triceratops, and some mammoths.

obscure holidays

These are for a project Jackie and I were working on for some obscure holidays in September. I only finished 2 out of my 4.... whoopsies. And looking at it now, it seems I have forgotten the teeth on my crocodile babies....

THESIS FINALLY POSTED!!!

Phenacodus matthewi
Thylacosmilus atrox

Arctodus simus

Synthetoceras tricornatus

Deinotherium giganteum

Hyaenodon horridus

It took me a while to actually get pictures of my thesis since my camera ist kaputt. So I had another doodle session at the lovely home of Lovesick Robot creators Jackie Steffen and Brent Bublitz, and Brent was kind enough to take some wonderful pictures of my work. It took months of work to create all of these and hours of painstaking work in the printing lab. All the animals are extinct mammals - their names are above each image.

These pieces were all created using intaglio printmaking techniques. The patterns were all hand-carved onto Sintra plates and then printed onto 140 lb (if I remember correctly) Arches cold press watercolor paper. For the backgrounds, the patterned papers were then cut into various shapes and each mounted to a heavy backing board (kind of like illustration board but more rigid). Then the individual background pieces are layered to create some depth.

For the animals, I cut the body part shapes out of 300 lb cold press watercolor paper before printing them with more Sintra-carved patterns. They were then touched up with acrylic paint and assembled with brads to make their bodies movable - similar to shadow puppets. They are all articulated and fully posable and attached to the backgrounds with velcro making them removable as well.