Journal Cover.

So the semester of Fall 2010 has come and gone.. This is my final from my Illustration Concepts I class with Rebecca Bradley- we had a "secret Santa" where we picked concepts for our final that our classmates had written up for us. I ended up getting my own secret Santa idea, which was to do a an illustration for a product. I ended up doing a journal (not so happy with how my page designs ended up, though).  I went for a lighthearted version of foxhunting. At first I wanted to do it digitally, but after doing a purely digital version I decided to try liquid acrylics. One thing lead to another (namely with saving time) and the finished product was liquid acrylic on matte medium covered vellum. It was interesting to say the least. Not super happy with the very heavy handed way I had to put it down, but I learned new stuff and I believe I'm going to stick with doing it on standard bristol/watercolor paper from now on. I was really into doing the little tree and bush leaf patterns- I will probably continue to use them in the future.

As a side note, I apologize for the scan quality. I realize that there are parts where it has a glare to it. That's unfortunately what gloss medium does to scanned images. I need to figure out a good way to fix that in the future or else I'm going to be having some trouble. Luckily I figured out a pretty good way to get rid of the glare- plus, now the colors are now more true to life!

Art Market.

So after slaving away (and pulling two all nighters) to get everything done for it, Art Market is finally here at last. The stickers that are for sale of my dog drawings I did over the summer (seen here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Hopefully I will sell a a majority/all of them- my final total was 588 individual stickers, all cut out by hand by yours truly.

Life Map.

An update?! I know, shocking. I've been quite overwhelmed this semester- health issues on top of an extremely heavy workload make it hard to keep this blog up to date.

Anyway, this is a piece I just finished up yesterday for Illustration Concepts. We needed to make a map of some sort, so I made a map representation of my childhood/growing up, mainly featuring the people who influenced me the most during specific time periods of my life represented by animals who share personality traits with the aforementioned people.

It was a lot more fun then I thought it would be, and I'm pretty happy with the results.

American Hot.

So summer has ended, my classes at MICA have begun, and I'm completely stressed out. This is definitely going to be a tough year, but I'm sure I will learn and grow a lot throughout the experience.
This summer was interesting- I worked part time and met my goal of posting a drawing each week on this blog, so all in all I consider it a success.

Of course I have to add some artwork, so here's my first assignment from Illustration Concepts 1, a menu cover design that had to be based on a food product listed in a menu given to us. I chose the "American Hot", a pepperoni and spicy pepper medley pizza, and tried to go for a wild horse being ridden by an adventurous cowgirl as a visual representation of the "kick" that the hot peppers provide to the meal.

English Bull Terrier.

The English Bull Terrier is the next addition for the Art Market stickers. Counting down the days till classes start back up- only 9 to go!

Boxer.

Another dog finished for Art Market- the Boxer. Been really busy this week... work is starting to get intense (it ends in a little over 2 weeks) so most of my time and focus has been on that. School's starting soon as well, and I'm really looking forward to my Junior year.

Golden Retriever.

A Golden Retriever to add to the Art Market pile.

Chihuahua.

Another sticker piece... this time it's a Chihuahua. They're adorable little dogs.

Welsh Terrier.

Welsh Terrier time! I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what way I want to package these.... in a small sticker book perhaps?

Dalmation.

I've been on a roll while on vacation with pumping out work- this is the newest addition to my dog drawings, the Dalmation.

Pug.

So got the next part of the Art Market dog series finished- this time it's a Pug. I love their little wrinkled faces and big eyes- so cute!

Great Dane.

So I finally picked what I'm going to do for Art Market- sell these dog pieces, probably in sticker and/or booklet form, haven't decided exactly where I'm going with the whole thing but that's the fun of it, right?

Here's another awesome dog breed, the Great Dane. Gotta love gentle giants.

Twitter!

I finally succumbed to peer pressure and joined Twitter tonight- follow me at https://twitter.com/KristenAcampora.

Pembroke Welsh Corgi.

So I wanted to draw some different breeds of dogs, since they are so varied and have such great personalities. My first is the Pembroke Welsh Corgi, one of my favorite dog breeds. I did a total of four sketches, but only had enough time to finish one- I will probably upload the others later. Technique wise I just fooled around with texture and brushes.

I think I may feature these in Art Market.

Giraffe.

So more texture experimentation this week... my subject this time being a giraffe. I really enjoyed the color scheme I got to fool around in for this.

Bringing Home the Blue.

Summer equals horse show season! Was inspired to do another horse-related piece from the urging of some friends- just something I've been working with bit by bit this week. Been keeping up with style experimentation.

Featured on a blog!

Taking a little time out of the day to post this- many of my fellow MICA students (and myself) were featured in a blog post today! You can see the post right here!

Backs for Business Cards/Postcards.

Did a blog revamp (new color scheme and header) as part of this week's work in addition to just finishing up edits with the postcard back design- I will be getting them printed later in the summer- and throwing up the back of my business cards since I never actually posted it as an individual file.

In other news, I'm fairly sure I want to take part in Art Market this year. What will I be creating? I have no idea- haven't solidified what I'm planning yet.

Business Cards!

Just got these lovelies in the mail today. So excited about them- they printed beautifully! Many thanks to Overnight Prints for doing a fantastic job with them.

Alien Babe and Summer Plans.

So, summer's finally here!
Doodled an alien space babe while watching Law and Order. Based on this palette via Colour Lovers.

Artistic goals over the summer:
-At least one drawing per week
-Dabble in different styles
-Draw more dudes

Deer Business Card/Postcard Designs.

Part of Illustration II's final- we were asked to do something self promotional, so I decided to create a business card and postcard design for myself since I had been meaning to do so anyway.
For some reason all I could think about was deer. Here's the finished versions of the two card designs I have been working on, and the setup of my information for the backside.

Cobra Starship Poster.

Finally got a little time to work on my Cobra Starship piece, since the final review is tomorrow and I wanted to have a finished product that had been edited from the original to show. So here they are, in all their glory- ended up doing two different versions with the main factor changed being the text placement. I think I prefer the first- more readable. Very pleased with the color scheme- it's way better then the one I had originally turned in.

Date used is an actual concert date- I recommend going to see them if you're interested in doing something in mid-May (if the tickets haven't sold out already..) and like alternative dance/punk pop.

In-Class Gestures.

Looks like this will probably be my last set of 30-second gestures from Drawing From the Tablet. I can't believe how different and loose/relaxed they've become in comparison to my first posted ones here.

Mermaid.

Our final assignment for Drawing From the Tablet with Jose Villarrubia was to do, well, anything. I chose to do a mermaid (surprisingly, it was not influenced at all by my Illustration II assignment in any way shape or form. It still has issues, some of which I'll be working out when I have more time, but I'm happy to see that there is marked improvement in my work when compared to the first Drawing From The Tablet homework I did. I still have another mid-semester piece I will upload later once I give it it's much needed tweaks.

Cobra Starship Poster Linework.

Linework for my band poster design assignment. I ended up unhappy in how it ended up being colored- it really downplayed the linework- so I will be re-doing it at a later date.
We were asked to reference (but not strictly copy, of course) any bizzare older photo we could find online. I discovered this photographic treasure.

....On a side note, the scales took me an eternity.

In-Class Gestures.

Some more 30 second in-class gestures from this past Drawing from the Tablet class. Loved our male model- he kept doing handstands for us.

In-Class Gestures.

These are a selection of gestures from today's Drawing From The Tablet class. We were given 30 seconds to describe each pose. Still working on varying my line quality and remaining loose- I think I remained nice and relaxed for this round but was pretty heavy-handed, so the line quality isn't as good as this post's.

In other news, the blog will be getting a much-needed revamp as soon as I can squeeze in the time.

CD Single Update.

My piece, "Hotel Song", was chosen to be put into the current Narrative Illustration show on the 3rd floor of the Fox Building. It's quite exciting!

Info on the show.

Sobe Energy Label.

For Illustration II we were asked to create a drink label in acrylics. Been a long time since I painted with them so it didn't exactly end up how I had planned... I'm not a fan of how the flames turned out.... Anyway, I ended up choosing Sobe's "Energy" drink, and went with a phoenix motif since they tend to go for a mythological-Aztec vibe with their bottles. We were allowed to tinker with it digitally, so I fooled around with hue/saturation. Not sure which I prefer- currently leaning towards the one in the middle. First image is the original, second and third are the digitally edited version. Finally made a decision. Going to place the Sobe name in there eventually, just need to decide where is the best area for it.

CD Single.

For Narrative Illustration, I had to design a wraparound CD single cover for the artist/song of my choice. I ended up choosing Regina Spektor's "Hotel Song". The beginning of the refrain is " I have dreams of orca whales and owls", which inspired the piece. Was really an experiment in line weight and value, was initially going to do the linework in pen but ended up going digital. There's some hiccups but I'm think I'm content with it.... for now at least!

In-Class Quick Study

Another Drawing From The Tablet piece... this was just a fairly quick study of our female model working from a grey background.

In-Class Gestures.

Some more gestures from this week's Drawing From The Tablet... my aim in the game was to try and loosen up for once and vary my line quality. I'm far too tight in the wrist when gesturing (and drawing in general, actually...) but I think I made a huge jump when compared to this post.

In-Class Gestures.

For Drawing From The Tablet we did multiple nude model gesture drawings.... here's my highlights. Each figure was done in 2 minutes.