R is for Rasputin - Preview
Sorry to keep posting partial, preview images; as soon as I get my typeface made, I’ll show the completed pages. Here’s the mad monk himself, Rasputin, who is my subject for the letter R in B is for Beard.
C is for Cookie Duster
OK, here’s another sort of sneak peek at another spread from my B is for Beard thesis project. This is the full spread, but the “is for cookie duster” is just a place holder. It will eventually be set in a handwritten typeface along with some other text which I have not finished writing.
B is for Beard Sneak Preview
I’ve been spending most of the last week gearing up to get started on all the interior illustrations for my senior thesis project, B is for Beard. In case you don’t know about it yet, I’m creating a fully-illustrated alphabet book with facial hair as the theme. It will be completed and an edition of books made by the end of April.
This is just a small section of the first completed illustration, for B, obviously. B is for “beard” but B is also for Babe the Blue Ox and Bunyan, Paul as well. I’ll be showing a few more sneak peeks as I go, but won’t start posting full pages until I get the full text written and placed.
Typo Friday #5 - How To Win Friends and Influence People
Today’s Typo Friday also happens to be my current illustration class assignment. The assignment was to re-illustrate the cover of a book on the New York Times Bestseller List. I took it in my own direction and chose to create a cover for one of my favorite books of all time, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. The problem as I see it is that the book gets categorized as a self-help book, and thus, gets boring, self-help book cover design. But this book is so much more than your average, modern self-help book.
I wanted to make a cover that would appeal to a newer, younger generation of readers that may be able to make some positive steps by reading this book. Since first reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, and applying some of its teachings in my interactions with clients and customers as a freelancer and behind the table at comic shows, I’ve noticed a marked difference in how I act, how others react to me, and how well I sell.
I went through pages of sketchbook sketches, trying out different type styles for the cover, but in the end felt confident that I had written the title enough to just sort of wing it on the final illustration. The only part I really was unsure on was “Influence,” which I drew three times before happy.
Just for fun, here’s a scan of a 1959 paperback version I recently bought.
Also, as I mentioned on Wednesday, I was asked to speak about the DIY community and my experiences with Etsy before introducing Matt Stinchcomb of Etsy.com at a PNCA-sponsored event. You can go to Flickr to see the rest of the set this photo came from, but I liked this one the best because it looks like I know what I’m talking about, when in actuality, my mind was a blank the entire time I was on stage. Apparently I didn’t say anything stupid and was kind of funny at times, so that’s rad. Matt had a lot of good things to say about both the past and future of Etsy, and I happily had the opportunity to have a one-on-one meeting with him yesterday afternoon, to get some more tips on how to better use my Etsy store.
Man’s Face Stuff Moustache Wax Ad +SPX +Etsy!!
This is the final for the first assignment in my illustration class this semester at Pacific Northwest College of Art. The assignment was to create a gender-specific image to be used for advertising. It just so happens that I already had a gender-specific product ready to be advertised, Man’s Face Stuff.
This was a fun illustration do do because I’ve been looking for more ways to integrate my character-based illustration with my hand-lettering; I feel like the two worlds are a little too separated at times. I really struggled in the early concept stages to come up with an image that made for a good illustration, and not something that would be better accomplished through photography. I finally stumbled onto this concept through the help of my instructor, and a raging sketch session after about 5 cups of coffee a few days later.
Also, one last bit of goodness about the Small Press Expo: I was sort of interviewed (or at least asked to talk about myself) while at my table there, and it’s all up on the YouTube! Watch me and marvel at how clean my fingernails are!
Lastly, for those of you in Portland, I will be speaking about my experiences with Etsy and the DIY community, and also introducing the main speaker, Etsy’s Matt Stinchcomb, at the “Digitally Building the DIY Community” talk at the Cyan Building tonight. The talk starts at 5:30pm, and is free and open to the public; you should come on by. The Cyan Building is located at 1720 SW 4th Ave in Portland.
Long Lost Paintings
I did a lot of housecleaning this weekend, and while doing so I stumbled across a tube of paintings from a painting class I took last semester. I stuffed everything into my locker as each week progressed, and I don’t think I even took any pictures as I was working on them; it’s like some strange forgotten time. Anyways, I finally snapped some photos of some of my favorites; like this elephant, from the most whimsical assignment of the class, “paint any animal from memory.”
For another assignment, the teacher gave each of us an artist she felt we had some similarity to, and hopefully one of whom we had not heard. I was given Philip Guston. I had not heard of Guston before, but had seen some of his work, with mixed feelings. I had a blast doing this self-portrait of my knuckle tattoos in his style though.
I had so much fun, in fact, that when our last assignment was to re-do a previous assignment, I decided to do another Guston-esque self portrait.
This is my favorite piece of the class; we were to paint our birth certificate, whatever that may mean to us. I chose to illustrate my rebirth: an incident with a heavily self-medicated homeless man in an alleyway many many years ago that earned me the nickname of Bigtime. I love little fetus BT floating up there.
Drink Grain Belt (friendly!)
I feel like I’m on a roll here, with two consecutive Illustration class projects in which I am incredibly happy with the results. This week’s project was to create an image that could be used within an advertisement for a product of our choice, but without designing the ad itself. I decided to do something fun for my favorite beer in the whole world, Grain Belt. It’s only available in the northern midwest, so I cannot enjoy it whenever I please, as I once could, so this is my tribute. I wanted something that spoke of the history of the beer (the old neon sign, snapped while I was on a trip back to Minnesota) but also the very specific region in which it is available.
I’ve been working on this image for almost three weeks now from the thumbnail sketch stage and it still cracks me up every time. I think I might be using this as a promo post card image soon.
Beards Required
Once every few weeks in my Illustration class, we have an in-studio assignment, to be completely finished within the span of about four hours. Usually they revolve around some concept related to illustration. Yesterday’s had to do with “street art” as an alternate means of illustrating a concept. We had the class period to come up with a “social issue” relevant to Portland and create a piece of work on a giant piece of cardboard. I chose to speak on the topic of beards, something that has been on my mind since I have recently shaved (it’s getting warm out). It’s sort of a joke on how it seems like every dude in Portland has a beard, like that’s one of the things that the city is known for now. It’s also an homage to a conversation I had with my roommate a few days ago where she said in order to work at a coffeeshop in this town, it was nearly a requirement that you have a beard, or at least a mustache.
A few words on the details: I was able to snag a cheap HELP WANTED sign from a shop down the street and I found all of those now-outdated “SUBMIT” fliers in my locker at school, so I decided to use them instead of recycling. The little stenciled face underneath “32A” is a quickie two-color stencil I made of my Illustration teacher, after which I tried to get everyone in class to spray it on their piece (5 people did). Also, you may notice the smaller beard stencil that is sitting below my signature in the lower right corner. That’s actually a stencil modeled after my own beard which I miss terribly. I make reference to it because you’ll be seeing that stencil again next week in a use that is just as awesome as it is horribly disturbing, so keep your peepers peeped for that.
Spring Cleaning In Minneapolis
My latest assignment for my Intermediate Illustration class was to create a “seasonal magazine cover” illustration, representing both a city and season of our choice. I chose to represent an early morning Spring cleaning in Minneapolis, MN, where I am originally from. For those of you who don’t know, that is the Spoonbridge and Cherry, a huge Claes Oldenburg sculpture, and one of the most iconic images of Minneapolis. Even though the internet is chock full of the exact same photo, I was in Minneapolis a few weeks ago and snapped my own reference.
Phil Bunyan! *oof*
My most recent assignment for Intermediate Illustration was to create a series of one to three cover designs or pinups of a comic book character of my creation. I decided to create a sequential front and back cover design for Phil Bunyan. My plan right now is to do one or two more short Phil Bunyan stories and then ask other artists if they’d care to submit their own Phil comic; eventually to be printed by me in some sort of Phil Bunyan anthology. Let me know if you might be interested.
