Girl on Fire

I'm currently planning out a large illustration of Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, but the books are really important to me and I want to make sure I really get it right. So I've been sketching up Katniss in a number of ways and this is one of the more finish sketches so I thought I might just throw it on the web to share with you guys!

Testing new techniques

So I got some advice from an illustration rep recently and she had some great suggestions as to directions to start taking my work. I took a lot of what she said into consideration as I finalize some new portfolio images for my grad school applications and decided to trie doing some acrylic work. I did this piece as a mock book or graphic novel cover. I played around with some type treatments, but I want to mull them over with some graphic design friends before I post them all over the web haha. Anyway, I would really love some feedback on this piece, as I definitely plan to continue exploring this method of working.

If anyone is curious as to the back story of the image, it is inspired by an original Hunger Games story... don't act so surprised! I also recently did a watercolor illustration for a made up children's story about a dwarf king's magic goblet. Really, I just wanted an excuse to draw someone wrinkly with a big nose haha.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful December so far!

Rue's Death

This image has been sitting around in my sketchbook for ages, so I took some time off from all my preparations for grad school apps to have some fun and bring it to a finished piece. Though I've done many Hunger Games inspired pieces, I realized this is the first illustration I've actually done based on the book. I hope you guys who are fans enjoy it! For those who haven't read the books yet, hop to it! There are just seeping with inspiration! 

Where is this year going??

Wow you guys, I can NOT believe that it is already December! What the heck happened to this year?? I was banking on a few more months, but ah well! Time wins out over me again! This past month or so has been just absolutely insane with all the children's painting lessons I've been teaching on top of getting everything ready for my graduate school applications. I'll be sending those off next week, so keep your fingers crossed for me! 

I do have a couple small projects I can share with you for now though! I was recently commissioned to do an illustration of a family friend's Christmas cards this year. And I also participated in a little art trade with the fabulous artist, M. Mosley! Her work is so bright and fun, so it was really enjoyable to do a rendition of one of her characters! More updates to come over the next week or so! Things will be winding down again once all of my grad school apps and portfolios are sent off. I'm really looking forward to working on some personal projects for a bit! 

The new ABC show Once Upon a Time has really rekindled my love of fairy tales. For a long time I kept pushing this concept aside because I really wanted to break away from the Disney era of my life. Thankfully, this show has brought me back to my roots and reminded me that what I've always truly loved is the fairy tale itself, not just Disney.

In the very first episode, one of the leading characters had a line that really stuck with me. "... the most important thing anyone can have... hope. Even the possibility of a happy ending is a very powerful thing." 

After fooling around in my sketchbook, the idea for this image came about, and I hadn't played with my watercolors in a couple of weeks so I figured I'd whip them out. I'm trying not to get too set on working solely digitally, because I love being hands on too much to just drop watercolor completely. I definitely see myself continuing to move further in the realm of digital media though. 

Only two months left!

Can you guys believe that it is already November 1st? Where the heck did this year go? Gosh! It's definitely been a good one though, and I'm still excited to see what the last two months will bring! We have some exciting changes coming up at the Square Carousel Collective soon, including some amazing new, talented artists joining us! I actually just finished up a piece for the collective today that was part of a collaboration with the illustration blog Jazz and Draw.

This has been our second collaborative project since we began in June and we are looking forward to more in the future! In other news, I've been working on another fun project on the side that is pretty close to my heart. For those who don't know, I recently competed in a large online Hunger Games competiton and came in 3rd place. Well when the Games were turned over to new management, I was so pleased when I was asked to be the artist for the new Games! I can't share all of the illustrations with you yet, because they are revealed over time to "tributes" who are competing. Since the second Games have just begun, I can only reveal the opening image of the Cornucopia at the moment.

What I'm really excited to share with you guys though are the muttations I designed! I think it will be interesting to have some creature designs added to my repertoire. I'm also working on an illustration of the "careers" from the Games that I participated in. We were basically the villains of the Games haha, but unfortunately I have to set it to the side for a week or so while I finish up some other work. I also have another watercolor piece I'll be sharing with you all before the week is out, and I'm really excited about it!

I hope everyone had a great Halloween! Now let the Christmas season begin!

Death of a Tribute (the Pretty Face)

The latest challenge at the Square Carousel Collective was to illustrate your greatest fear. Well I recently competed in a huge online version of the Hunger Games called The Tumblr Games and my death was caused by my greatest fear: SPIDERS! Technically they were thousands of spider "muttations" though for those familiar with the book, and they didn't actually kill me. But because of them, my arch nemesis in the Games, the boy from District 5, was able to stab me through with a spear! UGH! Oh well, I was still in the final three! Haha! Plus, I kind of had it coming because I was kind of the villain of the Games. My district partner was right alongside me the whole time (and she WON! =D) But she wasn't quite as evil and manipulative lol. 


The reason for the title actually, is because I was known as the "prettiest" Tribute in the Games, and I was the boy from District 1. One of the ways I made it so far was that I manipulated and tricked almost everyone in the Games. Over half of the Tributes died either by my hand or by the influence of myself with my District partner. And the first person we betrayed, as we killed her I said "Didn't your mother ever tell you? Never trust a pretty face." And after that "Never trust a pretty face" became the trademark saying for those that died by my hand lol. 


I hope you guys like this piece. It's got quite a different feel than my usual pieces, but I have to say I'm quite pleased with the dark tone I created. I'm very much considering doing a series of illustrations based on the Tumblr Games, since I'm so inspired by the The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Also, this way, the illustrations would be on a much more personal level since I was a part of these "Games". 

Some recent challenge

I'm afraid I've neglected my blog the last couple of weeks guys, so I'll have to apologize for that! Between the sites I'm a member of, commissioned work, and teaching painting lessons, I have been a bit swamped! All of the craziness seems to be dying down a bit now, which is great because I have graduate school apps to start preparing! Anywho, here are some illustrations I've been working on between Square Carousel and Glitter and Graphite!

"Ferocious"

I actually just completed this piece last night, only to find out today that this weeks Illustration Friday challenge is "ferocious"! How fitting! I don't know if I've mentioned it on my blog before, but since reading The Hunger Games trilogy this past spring, I have been absolutely obsessed with these fabulous books! If you have not read them, I suggest you head to your local book store or Amazon.com straight away! Seriously, I have not enjoyed a trilogy so much since probably His Dark Materials.

Anyway, some of you may have seen me talk about this if you follow me on tumblr or are a facebook friend, but out of hundreds of applicants, I was selected to compete in an online version of the Hunger Games called The Tumblr Games. For those who aren't familiar, 12 boys and 12 girls are sent into a huge Arena of some type of wilderness environment and fight to the death; the last tribute standing is victor. In these games, there will be a first, second and third place, and there are currently 6 tributes remaining (myself being one of them). I had the top training score of the boys and the weapon I was known for using was the whip. Though I have yet to use one in the arena, I thought it best to depict my "character" in the form he would be best recognized.

I quickly became the "villain" of these games as I'm very competitive by nature which has made my tribute ruthless and brutal in the Arena. I just love to win I suppose haha. So I chose to depict myself this way for the Glitter and Graphite character design blog "self as villain" challenge and was so pleased that it fits for Illustration Friday's theme this week as well!

I hope you all enjoy it and I really encourage you to check out the books if you haven't already!

Pinkalicious

One of the projects I've been working on lately is for a local theatre that is putting on a production of the musical Pinkalicious, based on the popular children's book. The way the set works is there are three large screens that these images will be projected on around the stage, behind the performers!

With this I tried to keep everything very flat, simple and childlike. I wanted to keep the linework more whimsical and scribbly to really give it the feel as if a children's book is coming to life before your eyes.  There are 9 sets of 3 panels that I completed total for this project. It was a lot of fun to work with, especially since this isn't a style I usually employ in my work. 

Glitter and Graphite!

One thing I have definitely been slacking on in the last year or so has been character design, which actually used to be pretty much my favorite thing! So last week I was talking with my good friend and fellow illustrator, Blythe Russo, and we came up with the idea to start our own character design blog where we give each other a couple of challenges throughout the week to help keep our creative juices flowing, pump up our portfolios and perhaps branch out into a new market! So if you are interested in following along (which I'm sure you are of course, ;) haha) then head over to Glitter and Graphite! We'd also love outside suggestions for characters you might like to see us create or existing characters you'd want to see redesigned in our style!

Poisoned Honey

So the third challenge over at Square Carousel was to illustrate the theme of "Honey". I knew going into it that I absolutely wanted to stay away from the theme of bees or bears or anything of the sort! Especially since my mind kept jumping straight to Winnie the Pooh, haha. So I though on it for a while and it hit me!

When I was 14 or 15 years old and the 5th Harry Potter was released, I can still remember reading the book jacket where the new professor was described to have the personality of “poisoned honey”. That description is one that has really stuck with me over the years because I just thought it was such an interesting way to describe someone. So for this challenge, I ended up whipping out my watercolors (which I enjoyed using again) to complete a little spot illu of how I pictured Delores Umbridge when I read those books. I hope you enjoy it =)

Also, I have a really exciting project that I'm dying to share with y'all but I can't just yet! Stay tuned though!

Taking home with you

This is my second challenge for the Square Carousel Collective. The theme was "Home away from Home". Initially, I really wanted to illustrate the opening scene from The Hunger Games when Katniss is in the woods she hunts in. However, upon my re-read of the first chapter, I realized my illustration would have been kind of forced to fit in the scene and also, that wasn't the scene from that chapter that I would really like to illustrate. For a while now I've been planning to illustrate the Hunger Games chapter by chapter and after re-reading the book, I am now in the thumbnail phase! So you can expect to see that going on over the next couple of months.

Anyway, back to this challenge. After realizing my first idea wouldn't work, I had to go back to the drawing boards. When I think of my "home away from home" there are some locations that definitely fit the bill, but I really didn't want to take the concept too literally. Then it hit me! Whenever I travel, I like to bring anything and everything with me! I'm prepared for any situation and basically like to bring my home with me wherever I go. So I took that to mind and came up with an editorial piece of a young woman traveling with a ton of luggage.

Be sure to check out the other artists work on the theme over at squarecarousel.com! There are some really fabulous artists on board.

Announcing the Square Carousel!

Hello everyone! My small hiatus is finally coming to a close as I close the show Once Upon a Mattress this weekend and I wrap up my last week of teaching summer painting lessons! I have a lot of exciting projects coming up that I can't wait to share with you guys. The one on the forefront though is the Square Carousel Illustration Collective that I started a couple of months ago with a couple of my talented illustrator friends. Though we got started on this a while back, it took some time getting everything into order and we have finally made our big "launch"! The site features the work of myself and 9 other illustrators. We compete in bi-weekly challenges selected by the artists in turn, and we post updates and news on the illustration world. For the first challenge, we thought it most appropriate to do a carousel animal of out own. I chose to do a noble lion (a unicorn was a close second though, haha).

I have a couple other projects going on, some personal, others that I can't speak of at the moment, but I'll let you know as soon as I can! One that I can speak of though, is that a local theatre has just hired me on board to do paintings to be projected as the set for an upcoming production of the Children's play Pinkilicious! The play is adapted from a popular children's book. Though I haven't read the book before, this definitely sounds right up my alley, so I can't wait to get started!

So be sure to check out www.squarecarousel.com and add us to your bookmarks! We have a lot of great content in store for you guys!

well hello from a recent college graduate!

Hey all! I promise I am still alive and well, and busy working as always! I have to apologize for the month and a half absense! What with college graduation and moving and taking on three part times jobs I had about zero time for the last couple of weeks.

So as I mentioned, I graduated from SCAD at the beginning of June. Looking back on my four years there, I have to say that they were truly the best years of my life so far, and I think it will just keep getting better! I grew so much as a person and an artist at that school and made some of the greatest friends I will ever know, so here's my thank you to SCAD for every opportunity that they have given me and the many more that await because of that!

So, since graduation, I have moved briefly back to Louisiana for three summer jobs I was offered. I teach painting lessons to children for four hours every morning then I am choreographing a musical and helping with some set and costume work for another show. In between I had a three week stint as a secretary for a local government office. That last job reminded me a lot of Parks and Recreation, for those who watch the show, so merely pretending I was April in the office got me through that haha. Luckily now, all three of those jobs are winding down. I also designed the posters for the children's productions being put on by a local theatre this summer! I can't share all of them because some copyrighted material had to be used in the posters due to contracts with the production company they are being licensed from. Here are two of them that I can share though:

I have a couple more weeks with the painting lessons and the show, but the temporary secretary job is now over and my free time is starting to open back up thank goodness so I can finally get to work on some real work! Here's what you guys can expect from me over the next few months: a huge load of work coming in! I have so many techniques and so much subject matter I am just itching to get my hands on. I'm vamping up my portfolio to get ready to apply for grad schools for next fall some time around the end of this year. You can also expect some revamping of my portfolio site as well as the blog and my other social media aspects. Importantly, on the blog, I will now be making weekly blog updates. If it comes to a point where I'm making a lot, I might end up setting up a certain two or three day a week schedule for it, so stay tuned on that. Also, for the first time EVER! Get ready all of you convention goers because i'm making the transition and I'm going to be attending cons this year! It's such a great social networking opportunity, and honestly they all just look so freaking fun, it's about time I finally made the plunge and started traveling to some!

Lastly guys! I have a VERY exciting project that I will be announcing somewhere around the middle of the month, involving some very talented illustrators along with myself. So get ready to have your socks blown off!

Thank you all for sticking with me through the small quiet period and get ready for a lot of upcoming work!

New mailer!

Well guys! The time has finally come for me to put my big boy pants on and step out into the illustration market! This was completed for my self promo class to be used as the image for my first big postcard campaign. Since this is my first image I'll be sending out to really represent my name as an illustrator, I really wanted to depict a subject that hits close to home with me, and that of course is: fairy tales. This image in particular is based on the Brother's Grimm tale of Snow White and Rose Red. This was always one of my favorites as a child, and I've never addressed it in my work before, so I was excited to use this opportunity to do so!

Also, I thought it might be nice to share with you the full process I went in creating this image. I left out the thumbnails I did however and skipped to the rough comp phase for you guys. Enjoy.

SCAD Sidewalk Arts 2011

Well it's that time of year again guys! It was the Sidewalk Arts festival this morning in Savannah, and this year it was absolutely beautiful! The weather was perfect, and I had a blast! A lot of my friends won prizes this year, which is so great! Being my last year to participate, I just wanted to do something silly, so I decided to do Hipster Princess Peach. I have to admit, it was a huge success! I'm glad so many people got the joke!

a Victorian study

Hey guys! I hope everything is going well! Things have been really busy here in Savannah what with getting ready to graduate, the career fair, sorority business, teaching fitness classes and school work too, of course! One of my courses this quarter is Survey in Illustration, which is half studio, half art history. All of the projects for the most part are just sort of for fun, and our first assignment was to do a small piece inspired in some way by Victorian illustration.


Within the next couple of weeks, you can expect some new self promotion pieces, as well as the branding and redesigning of this blog, my website and my twitter! I'm also trying to find sometime to get back to doing some small pieces for Illustration Friday! So stay tuned! =)

Princess Everything

This is a double page spread I completed for my portfolio class. I designed it to be a wrap around cover for a children's book I've entitled "The Princess Book of Princess Everything." Due to finals going on at the moment, I don't have the time to play around with the typography, but I look forward to doing that over spring break just around the corner!

strange dreams

This is my latest illustration for my portfolio class. I chose to do a spot illustration for a children's book. This image is actually based on this really odd dream I had a couple years back and wrote down. I've been meaning to put it on paper for a while, so I'm glad I finally got a chance to use it.

Pollen Nymphs

After quite a grueling weekend, I cranked out all four of the flower girls for my tissue box! When I have time, I'll have the actual box photographed, as well as the tea box I designed last quarter. I'm thinking of opening up an etsy shop to sell prints by the way, thoughts?

busy busy weekend!

Here is the completed Harpy painting from my portfolio class. There are a couple more edits I might make, like taking the canvas texture down a bit. I'll have to worry about that next week though. I have those four flower women to paint by monday evening! Yikes!

and the winter continues

I don't know about y'all but I have to say that I am just SO ready for the spring! I'm absolutely tired of the cold weather. In illustration news, I have a fair ammount of projects going on at the moment so there is a good bit of in progress stuff to share with you guys as well as a couple of finished pieces! The first thing I wanted to share is from my Portfolio class. For my first assignment I decided to do a mock book cover for an imaginary novel of my own invention.





I have a sample with type as well, but I haven't decided whether or not to include that in my portfolio yet, so as that decision is made, I may or may not upload that here.

I also wanted to share the final poster from my Fahrenheit 451 project with you guys! I think that we will be informed on Friday of who's poster will actually be used! Keep your fingers crossed! Even though it's not really my style, I think it would still be pretty cool to have my poster selected.




And I know I don't normally share process work on here, but I thought that might be a nice change so here are two projects I'm currently working on. This first is an in progress painting for my portfolio class. It's an illustration for a children's poem about a girl and a harpy sharing stories.



And lastly, these are the sketch/color comps for my next project in my advertising illustration class. We are designing tissue boxes with the theme "Issues for Tissues". So I came up with the idea for these little pollen sprites who live in the flowers and make people sneeze =).

something completely different

For my Advertising Illustration class this quarter, our first assignment was to create a poster for the theatrical adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. For those of you familiar with my work, I'm sure you are all aware that this is not a subject matter that is very suited to my usual style and painting in watercolors. So in pursuit of artistic versatility, I made the tough decision to drop my normal methods of working and work in a digital, graphic style for this assignment. I feel this was definitely an appropriate route to take, and although I still prefer my usual stuff, it was nice to step out of my comfort zone and try something more adult for once. I made two variations, hope you enjoy them.