Star Horse

Okay, I have not posted anything in over a year, so I am far overdue for an update... I returned to school last year to start working toward my art education and art therapy licenses, so between school, work, and my personal life, I have been crazy busy.  I suppose that's no excuse though...

For one of my field classes we are doing some projects that we can save as teacher examples, so for this project we watched a video on the illustrator Eric Carle and then proceeded to create our own handmade papers.  We then had to use those papers to make a collage of anything we wanted.  I immediately knew I wanted to create an animal and, of course, I chose a horse.  In the past, I've had illustration projects in which we had to create an illustration based on a set of words, so I chose another word to join my "horse" prompt and "star" came to mind.  This made me think of the Horsehead Nebula, so that was my inspiration for this whimsical piece - all made with hand painted papers.

I have a lot more projects to post from last semester - including fun things from my metalworking class!  Cast pewter, enameled copper, and welded steel, OH MY!   I'll be posting pics very soon!

calendar stuff

So two calendar images completed for Studio Sunday!! I have one more on the way but I left the file at someone's house so I haven't been working on it.... woopsies. Anyways, the bottom one isn't going to be in the calendar - it's just a joke - just for you Jackie! The top two are January (very top) and May. The May illustration was inspired by this German tradition that I read about - on the night before May 1 a guy will plant a birch tree in the yard of his beloved and adorn it with ribbons and such. I thought it sounded cute so that's that...

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.

panda poster

Poster concept for a festival that does not exist... I repeat, does not exist. Just having some fun with shapes and color and text. It started out as an illustration of a raccoon, but I went to the zoo the other day and the red panda was out for once and he was soooooo cute so I changed it.

the S.S. HEARTBREAK

Here are two illustrations I did yesterday and today - the top one being my very first submission to Illustration Friday based off the word "sail." The bottom one was the first completed, but then I decided to go back in and make it somewhat more detailed, though I think I like the simple one better for some reason.