This project was to portray a word through illustration. The word is...
...fragile! The medium is ink wash (with pen and ink).
The three stronger chicks are literally crushing the weaker, fragile one as they step over it to clamor for more food for themselves. Their necks stretch out to reach with all of their strength for the sustenance denied the dying chick. The three chicks' large body masses and more active gaping mouths are to represent their endurance in contrast to the prostrate chick's fragility.
I'm intending to work on this one a bit more to thicken the three chicks' necks for further emphasis of muscle equaling strength and vitality. The scoop at the bottom was to reference a nest, but I'm planning on possibly going in digitally to super-impose actual nesting twigs/branches for texture and clarity.
This project was to develop a cover for a tea bag. The holiday tea flavor is...
...pumpkin spice! The medium includes acrylic and watercolor (collage).
I'm planning on going in to promote more value contrast. I will also add in the text of the actual flavor name, most likely through curving the pumpkin vines into letters. The image of the pumpkin girl content in her pouffy clothes and wrapped up vines was to signify warmth against a chilly seasonal night (implying the tea to be warm and comforting), but the cold blue background seems to offset the feeling of warmth too much. I might want to clarify the pumpkin vines as well as they might be too difficult to read.
This project was to provide a feature illustration to an article. The short story title is...
... The Praying Mantis (by Deborah Corey)! The medium includes watercolor and pen and ink.
The story is about Laura the waitress to the Hinky Dinky Diner. She has been described as disgusting ugly (with a face comparative to a camel). There is one scene in the story where one customer, an older man with a fake eye, who appears to have romantic affections for Laura comes in and she takes his remarks as sarcastic and therefore mean. She ends up chopping up her prized praying mantis into his cheeseburger. He eats it all despite his apparent knowledge of his food being tampered with. When she cleans up his plate after he leaves, she finds his fake eye among the crumbs.
The illustration I made for this was to portray her decision making in sacrificing her mantis. She goes off to the dingy bathroom of the rundown diner to contemplate using her only form of companionship to ruin the possibility of having a more meaningful kind of companionship. The killing of her mantis to get back at this man is to symbolize her rejection of companionship. The backdrop of the years of slanderous graffiti on the bathroom stall walls confines her and restricts her in trusting others.
I'll most likely put darker shadows against the toilet bowl and add a messier complication of graffiti to the stall walls.
