Illustration Friday: PEACE

I never thought of myself as having a pronounced dark side, but between this and Smitten I'd say it's coming out... in force. I don't know WHY these things are popping into my head. But that's just what happened this morning, when I was just in that place between sleeping and awake, this image popped into my head, and I didn't forget it - during the course of the whole day. I finally sat down to sketch in the late afternoon... and I didn't stop. I kept it going. So now it's done. I believe this is my FIRST OFFICIAL NEW AND COMPLETE PIECE for Illustration Friday! Hey, it only took a year. And since my friend, Jonsie, totally called me out last week, I thought it was about time I followed through. So there Jonsie! What do you think of that?! ;P

And, as a special christmas bonus, here's a sample of the work in progress:

Illustration Friday: MASK

UPDATE:





I've been working on a series of pieces based on the IF themes (actually thinking about and preparing for, but NOT actually drawing.... yet). But, I see them taking a little longer than 1 week... or at least longer than I have to give them in a week. So for now, I still have to resort to an old, sub-par piece I did years ago. This is from a sticker sheet of Marti Gras Masks. Sorry for the bad scan - I will try to replace with the clean vector art later.

Illustration Friday: MIGHT

Wow, guess I missed four weeks in there somewhere. I am so exhausted with work... only a small portion of which I actually enjoy, but c'est la vie. Once again, I ran out of time - so here's something old... many years onld in fact. But I always kinda liked him, he's a "mighty" lookin' cat after all.

Illustration Friday: SMOKE

WHY are the weeks so short?! I can't believe how fast they go by... and I can never, NEVER catch up!

Oh well. This is a sketch I had done during the week, but didn't get a chance to develop. I was hoping to give it, ah... I don't know - a POINT! there is no reason for it. I can't explain it. It's a mystery to me. How frustrating. I tried to play around with coloring in photoshop - but it SUCKS >:| I figured I had post it anyway so the last hour I spent on it wasn't a complete waste.

Having a bit of bad week if you couldn't tell. Queen of Optimism I am NOT. :(

But I do have to new IF topic to look forward to tomorrow!

-m.

Illustration Friday: WIND

Ran out of time AGAIN! I really need to learn to manage my time better. Was upset to miss the the Orange&Black competition too, but I was happy to see SO many participants! Kudos guys, excellent!

Anyway, this is another very old piece, my first official/complete unicorn illustration - the one that started it all (pretty much). I figure it had to be a pretty strong wind to kick up that amount of hair. ;)

new piece next week - FOR SURE!

Illustration Friday: GHOST

4x5" polaroid transfer, mixed media
Late again. Keeping up, but barely.
This is really, really, old. It always seemed ghostly to me. I was doing as many transfers as I could afford at one point, but this was one of the few that I framed and kept.
I had another idea, a drawing - I'm working on it, but I just ran out of time.

Illustration Friday: SMITTEN

I'm a little behind on this... but it's getting in just under the wire. And it's not quite complete. This is the underpainting stage. I am excited to finish, so I'll be sure to post it again as soon as it's done.

It's the closest I've ever gotten to a finished Illustration Friday themed piece it was conceived and executed solely for Illustration Friday. I know this shouldn't be such a big deal, but it is for me - any pieces I've created solely for IF before were either sketches or quick digital renderings. It'll be tough to finish this and start the new theme tomorrow, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Illustration Friday: TROUBLE

Jackal Jack: Trouble-maker.
At least, that's always the way I imagined him; Conniving and mischievous.
After my posting for QUIET last week, several IF followers expressed an interest in seeing more of the animal playing card series I did. Luckily this week's theme fit the bill. :)

Illustration Friday: QUIET

Okay, sleeping beings aren't ALWAYS quiet, but sleeping aardvarks that float in the night sky? That says quiet to me. ;)
This is something I did it as part of a four piece series of (African) animal playing cards. Ace Aardvark, Queen Quagga (a zebra), King Kudu (antelope), and Jackal Jack. I did them as self-promotional pieces.

Illustration Friday: PHOBIA

This is Arius. He's a flying giraffe... with acrophobia, that's fear of heights. Sucks to be him! ;)

Anyway, looks like I unintentionally took the summer off from IF! But I have been busy. I've updated my website: www.melindabeavers.com. Gone on several trips: New Mexico, Las Vegas, Paris, Tunisia. I even got through reading "Gone with the Wind", so you can't say I've been idle.

Been itching to get back to IF though, and even though this is an old illo, I’m looking forward to getting some new stuff up soon!

Illustration Friday: SKYLINE

variations on a theme...

so I've been reviewing the current submissions and I noticed that most are city skylines - is it that trees and nature are considered more landscape than skyline? I guess that's why I went for silhouetted skylines. the image above is a digitally edited photo I took in Hong Kong - I loved how you could look through the jungle to the city... it was a bizarre juxtaposition that I think works particularly well for this theme.


can anyone recognize the figure in this one? this was created using several photographs from japan and colored pencil sky from another piece I did.


people in the sky... don't know what I was going for here - but it came out so here you go.

ugh - I wish I had more time, enough to actually DRAW something! :(

Illustration Friday: PORTRAIT

KIRIN
the japanese unicorn

Colored Pencil
approx. 16" x 16"

So I've been extremely lax in keeping up with my posts, but I'm renewing my efforts! So here, on the last day of this theme, I post a PORTRAIT. I consider all the unicorns I've done portraits, so I thought it fit nicely here. Hope y'all like it! :)

Oh! And, I created a Cafepress.com. store this weekend! You can now pruchase most of my unicorns on a variety of merchandise! Check it out at Unicorn Kindom.

Illustration Friday: CAKE

*UPDATE - 05.29.06
Finished the promotional sign for the inside the shop. I feel like it's a little more complete this way.





completed illustration.


in context - postcard.


Irony saves the day...

It's been weeks since I've been able to get my act together enough to post something, let only a new something, especially a new something more complete than a rough sketch! Now at last I can post a finished illustration - thanks to the luck of the draw - no pun intended.

I do design work for a friend of mine with a coffee shop on a regular basis. This coming month is the shop's first anniversary, so the two of us came up with a birthday cake theme. The illustration will be used in several ways (Signs, Ads, promotional flyers, etc.) but the first thing she needed was a postcard to promote the celebration itself. Do you like?

What gets me is that I spent a good part of Friday evening completing this design - before I even looked at the IF theme this week. Too funny!!

I'll post the rest as I finish it. And if you like in the northern New Jersey area - don't forget to stop by!!

Illustration Friday: ROBOT

This is another sticker sheet I designed a few years ago. Took a bit to find it, buried in old files.
Not one of my favorites, but appropriate to the subject... and I'm caught up at last!!! YES!
But, there's always a hitch. This time it's a good hitch - I'm going to Hong Kong and Tokyo! It's only a week, but I'm probably going to fall behind again. Oh well.

Illustration Friday: SPOTTED

Work in progress.
This sketch is based on a cartoon charater I created when I was in the 5th grade, a horse by the name of Blueberry Muffin. I can almost remember exactly how I drew him originally, this sketch is much modified of course. Will be working up a finished piece when I can.

Illustration Friday: SPEED

I'm still working this one out, but a short poem came to me the other night that I'm going to incorporate into the illustration when I get to it. Update to follow soon!

Illustration Friday: SPRING

It's slow going, catching up is hard to do! Didn't spend too much time on this one. The word is actually hand lettered and converted into vector art. The leaf and flower were created in Illustrator.

Illustration Friday: MONSTER

next to 'horse' or 'unicorn' this is potentially my favorite theme there could ever be - yet, I had a hard time with it. i don't dislike the results, but i can't say i love it either. still, i'm trying catch up with four weeks of IF here!!
if only i could get back to color! your missing it, i can tell!

Illustration Friday: FEET

my feet... four weeks late.

Illustration Friday: TATTOO

Booooooring.
Once again I find myself unsatisfied. This isn't what I wanted it to be, but I did something and I have to show it because I can't bare to miss a week. The more I look at it, the more I dislike it, oh well... hopefully, after a while, the more I look at it, the more it'll inspire me to do something better. :)
Next week I have to FINISH something!! Sketches only go so far. ;)

Illustration Friday: INSECT

Yay! I can get one in early this week...

This is a sampling of the work I do at my day job. I design stickers for a craft/scrapbooking company. Well, used to really. I've been there 5 years and now I do a lot of non-sticker related design work and more project management - don't get to illustrate as often. Both designs are several years old.

These are photos of the actual stickers, I plan to update this post later with the digital artwork.

I'll still be thinking about doing a new piece for this week's topic... but that'll come later in the week, as usual!

Illustration Friday: TEA

Like you didn't see this one coming...

Over on my design blog I have a million illustrations of COFFEE. Why, oh, why wasn't the theme this week coffee?! Anyway, I was at a complete loss this week, and then this teacup unicorn idea popped into my head, I thought it was kinda funny. The original sketch is below. I like them both; I consider it a great asset that I can amuse myself so easily. ;)

Obviously the expression of the teacup unicorn is the most dramatic difference between these two sketches. The top guy is proud to steeped in your tea, but it appears the guy down below, mmmm... not so much.

Illustration Friday: SONG

Swan song.
This is actually based on Hans Christian Anderson's tale called 'Eleven Wild Swans', done for a college assignment... eight years ago. Wow, time flies!

I'm sorry I had to recycle this week. It's been a stressful one, but I was thinking about 'SONG' all week - I got really inspired by this song from a 1973 Vangelis album called Earth:
------------
I would like to write a song
That is so vibrant and so intimate
That the earth would adopt it
As if it had sprung like the stream
From the land's memory
As if no one had written it but life itself
And my song would travel along
From bird to wing, to tree
To breeze to heart to breath to song
Because a song belongs to everyone
Like the spring
------------
But, I've never heard the song, and I feel like I need to in order to interpret it fully... and it's been a little hard to find, so I'll keep it in mind and hopefully down the road I'll come back to it. Enjoy!!

Illustration Friday: SIMPLE

This is so lame... no time this week to even think, so I threw this together. my apologies.

Illustration Friday: CHAIR pt.2

I just got a flash of on image in my head – this little girl sitting in, not a “highchair”, but a chair with long tall legs. So I started drawing her, and the chair around her and as I drew, the chair just... became, a bird. Then it got fun. It’s just a sketch now – but I’m really looking forward to finishing it!

I’ve shown it to a few friends and what I really love is that they don’t know if it’s supposed to be real or if she’s imagining it, or what. I really hate how the first question they ask is: Is it an ostrich?

No, no no nononononooooo.



I don’t know what it is, but I like it!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do! :)

Illustration Friday: CHAIR pt.1

To be honest, I’ve always been a little taken aback when I notice that people participating in Illustration Friday say things like “I wasn’t inspired by this week’s theme”. I usually think to myself, well... that’s life isn’t it? As an illustrator or aspiring illustrator you often take jobs that don’t inspire you, but that doesn’t mean you don’t do the best you can, right?! I know I’ve come to Illustration because I wanted the weekly challenge, and my fellow participants become my inspiration!

Having said that, I must admit – I was completely uninspired by this week’s topic. Hello! Hypocrite! But, even being uninspired and having no idea what direction to go, I just started doodling. The best things come out of doodling, in my opinion. And while I don’t particularly like any of these, it was definitely a beneficial experience, just sitting and drawing for a couple hours. Along with keeping up with the IF posts, it seemed to clear out whatever creative blockage that was clogging up my mind because I became mysteriously inspired a day after completing these – which led me to an idea and new drawing I’ve very excited about... see Illustration Friday: CHAIR pt.2

Illustration Friday: GLAMOUR

I can't believe I made it! With one full day left, YAY!!



This is totally up for interpretation, and I suppose it could be some kind of comment on celebrity image... but it's actually a drawing two years in the making, for a children's book I'm working on (written by an author friend of mine). Okay, I know she's scantily clad, but it's a actress glamour shot and it's supposed to be a glamour shot (an actual photo in the book), so I hope no one is offended, just wait until you see it in it's proper context! I’ll be working on the rest of the sketches for this spread soon - now that I’m started I want to keep cranking them out!

So thank you illustration friday for finally motivating me to commit to paper what's been in my head for over two years! Thank you, thank, thank you... and my new goal is to try and get more of these themes to apply to images from the book so I can get even more of these crazy ideas on paper and out of my head!

Illustration Friday: CATS Pt.1

UN CHIFRE
the amazonian unicorn

colored pencil (berol prismacolor)
approx. 16" x 16"
on 180lb. Arches hot press watercolor paper

I am planning to do an original illo for this week's topic, but I couldn't resist a chance to get this guy posted... because he's one of my favorites and I love him. He lives in the trees of the Amazonian rain forest and has many cat-like traits, big cat traits that is. He's about the size of lion, but a bit larger. Omnivorous; he can and will eat anything.

Illustration Friday: E IS FOR...

my favorite thing in the world - the elegant Equine; Equus caballus.

I've only gotten through the first 350 posts or so, but I still can't believe my fellow horse lovers have not gotten this one...
but since I have about a million illustrations of horses and I wanted to something a little more special I dug a little deeper, which in turn led me to ECLIPSE: the famous EIGHTEENTH century racehorse in ENGLAND, winning his first face, of 21 undefeated starts, at EPSOM.


This is only a first draft sketch of the original idea. I'd like to fill it out and finish it in color. But I'm pretty happy with the results so far - happy that I got this far! Didn't think I was going to make it!!


So, if by chance you have any interest at all, here's a little back ground on Eclipse:

One of the greatest racehorses in history, Eigthy percent of modern thoroughbred racehorses have Eclipse in their pedigrees. He had an almost freakish speed and ability, was unbeaten in his Entire racing career.

He was born on April 5th 1764, a day in which England experienced a total eclipse of the sun. Eclipse's history is surrounded by rumour, he is remembered as being boisterous and highly-strung. His best friend was a parrot who would squawk psalms and popular songs. Some stories relate that he was broken by a rough-rider and others that the only jockey able to ride him was John Oakley due to his habit of running with his nose to the floor. What is certain is that during his first race, the Epsom Derby in 1769, he easily outstripped his rivals despite Oakley fighting to keep him under control. Eclipse literally ran away with the £50 purse, causing his owner, Col. Dennis O'Kelly, to utter the famous remark 'Eclipse first, the rest nowhere'.

Eclipse ran in 21 races and won every single one without his jockey needing to resort to whips or spurs.

Success on the racecourse was followed by success at stud. Though never a leading sire himself, Eclipse came second every year between 1778 - 1788, the only time he was ever bested. Perhaps his most famous descendant was not a racehorse at all but his grandson, a charger by the name of Copenhagen who was the mount of the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo.

Eclipse died of colic in 1789, having sired 344 winners in his lifetime. He was important enough as a racehorse and a sire to warrant finding out as much about his body as possible. The most significant fact revealed, apart from the strength and harness of his bones, was the weight of his heart: 14.3 lb. The average Equine heart weighs 9 lb.

Eclipse's skeleton is owned by the Royal Veterinary College and can be seen at the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket. He is also remembered in the name of the Eclipse Stakes, which has been run since 1886 and the Eclipse Awards, the equivalent of the Oscars for the North American racing industry.

Illustration Friday: SEA

Day or Night... Day or Night... mmmm, Day.


LICORNE DES CARAIBES
the caribbean unicorn

colored pencil (berol prismacolor)
approx. 12" x 18"
on 180lb. Arches hot press watercolor paper

Back to basics. Another oldie. This was officially the first unicorn of my small series. I was working on turning them into a book, but I can't write... so, yeah... it went no where. I did come up with plenty of theories though:

This guy is amphibian, he never actually leaves the water (unless absolutely necessary - life threatened - blah, blah, blah), but spends most of his lifetime wading through it. Unicorns are usual solitary animals, but the Caribbean variety are very social. They have strong family bonds and mate for life. Babies are born looking like sea horses (usually in twins or triplets) and spend the first several years clinging to the long tail hairs of the parents (both parents raise the fawnlings).

I'm sure I have more, but this is all I could remember at the moment. I had favorite foods, life spans, and personality traits all worked out at one time.

It was tough selecting this illo. I actually had several I could use for this theme - and I couldn't decide. But I hadn't presented a unicorn in quite a while, so in the end I had to go back... enjoy!!

Illustration Friday: FLAVOR .Pt2

still not new, but i can make the theme connection in my own warped way. i could tell you how, but then i'd have to kill you.

anyway, i did these conceptual drawings as self / promotional pieces for my friend's website Tangerine Café. tangerine is a fruit... AND a flavor! ha!

is it friday again yet? i need this week to be OVER!! :)

Illustration Friday: FLAVOR .Pt1

so, i waited all week and i still couldn't come up with something new! sheesh!! i'm completely disguested with myself, well... okay, not really... but partially. ;)

these illos are a couple years old - they're label illustrations for scented body lotions or bath washes or something. since you can't have flavor without scent, i say it works.

i know they're pretty boring, my apologies... i ran out of time!