A New Home.

On the Web, anyway.

I am in the process of moving my portfolio over to Cargo (well, I've already done that but now I need to make everything look attractive and work well.)

It isn't very interesting yet, (see fig. 1) but you can visit it if you like.

(fig.1)

Take a quick look around, if you will. It certainly won't take you too long, haha!

As for the rest of my time, I've been trying to balance between finding some steady source of income and working on a project with a friend of mine, known almost universally on the Internet as Spazzlings, or Spazzy, or some other variation of this, haha. She writes and I draw, so I proposed that we work on a comic together. We're still in the early stages, but we're both very excited!

The job search has eaten up most of my time and has been less successful but, there it is. The situation is not dire quite yet. So we're good.

Actually, a week ago I was in Alaska and took way too many photos (meaning: just the right amount) so I'll probably make a separate post about that. Photos on the way!

New Promo Stuff!

I used one of my paintings from my thesis project for a new business card and promotional postcard. I like making them functional postcards for some reason, haha. It's fun to design them!

Hello Again!

Well, here we are. Safe and sound on the other side of the Commencement Show and Graduation! Here in the Real World! Or that's what I hear, anyway.

Here is a photo of my wall at the Commencement show, taken by my stepfather, Steve.

I was really lucky, and received a great spot in the main illustration gallery, sharing a little alcove with the wonderful Kelly Miller, and Qing Zhuang.

You'll probably recognize the black and white pieces from my Sherlock Holmes series from a year ago, but the other three paintings are all from the spring of this year. On the shelf below the paintings are the mock ups for three books covers I illustrated and designed.

(You can see them larger in my portfolio.)

I was so pleased with how everything turned out! Then I was walking in Commencement, and suddenly it was all over. With everything taken down and packed away, I am back at home and trying to jumpstart some kind of freelance career. This will be an interesting first few years, haha.

Henry of Sound and Blood

A book cover assignment for fantasy art class; there is also hand lettering, but it's still on its way....

Business and Promo Cards

So here's my business card design. I think it turned out pretty well!

And here's my promo card design.

I know it doesn't actually have to be a postcard postcard, but I got... carried away?

(front)

(and back)

Thanks for the suggestions on where to print! I ordered them last week and it seems they're on their way.

Travel Far

Travel Far, a photo by erinraewatson on Flickr.

It's so nice to do something in color again (and not want to tear my hair out in frustration!)

I took a break from thesis over spring break, working on some other homework in between errands and attempting to get things custom framed.

I then came back to school, wrote a paper about micrometeorites and painted this, haha.

I want to use this for my promotional piece (and possibly a cropped version for my business card?). I hope I can get the orders in sometime this weekend so I can move on to the next thing on my list.

Thanks for looking!
Erin Rae

Almost ready for Midterms!

Well I'm halfway done, at least. This is what I just recently finished:

A spot illustration of Loki running off with Lida's voice (in the tiny - maybe too tiny - acorn.)

A full page illustration of the witch Iwona in the entrance to her home (and with her little gremlin children. I'm not quite sure what they're about yet, but I know that she actually gave birth to them... ew?)

Anyway, I've got one more black and white image on my list for midterms, where the wolf Fenrir attacks Iwona and Gerda and Lida. Fun. :3 And I want to at least start the first of my three color illustrations I have planned.

I think I'll go back into the first piece up there, to maybe give it some of the softness I got in the second piece? I don't know.

We'll see what they look like in the morning. Afternoon. Whenever I wake up. D:

YOUNG JUSTICE.

Ohoho.

I think I doodled this a week ago for Illustration Friday... the theme was... "sweater," I guess. I can't be bothered to check this late.

That day also happened to be the first day I started watching the new Young Justice cartoon. And so this was born. Ahahaaaawhat.

Also please excuse Miss Martian's vacant eyes. They didn't start out that way - I don't know what happened. D: And that's technically not Barry's costume I referenced for Wally's sweater. It's (mostly) Wally's future costume. I like it better.

And Superboy's hair is stupid and doesn't like being drawn. (Yeah, that's it.)

Anyway, I'm going to get some sleep 'cause I'm beat. Really happy that I got to finish this piece though!

Thanks for looking!

First piece for Thesis 2

Is that the absolute least creative title I could think of or something? Geez.

Well, now I've officially started my new thesis series, focusing on the story of my troll characters, Gerda and Lida (as seen in this post, and this one too.) I am approaching this semester with a little bit more focus than the last, I think, since I'm dropping the broad series of book covers for illustrating a single story from beginning to end (I'm also going to illustrate and design the cover! D": ). It's also significantly more personal this time around, this being a story of my own creation.

Anyway, on to the actual drawing!

This was meant to be the moments after Lida's birth, when she first popped out and started wailing like all newborn babies. That's all well and good for most babies, but most babies' screams don't turn their mothers into trees.

Lida's cries have the ability to call up offshoots of the great ash tree Yggdrasil. It's pretty harmless for the tree, but not necessarily any hapless bystander who got in the way, since the shoots grow pretty indiscriminately and will swallow and absorb anything that gets caught up in branches and such. That's what happened to girls' mother, leaving Gerda alone to take care of her sister.

Honestly, everything's still pretty rough, but I'm enjoying working on it :"D

Thanks for looking!

Erin did a comic?

(my interpretation of) The Sea of Frozen Words

"...on the edge of the frozen sea of the north. In winter, all words and sounds in the area are frozen; as the milder weather approaches in spring, they begin to thaw and can be clearly heard. Travellers can pick up the frozen words, which resemble crystallized sweets of various colors."

And this seems to be from Francois Rabelais' Le quart livre de faicts et dicts du bon Pantagruel, Paris, 1552.

Haha, what? I drew my first comic since sophomore year, only my third comic ever - and boy does it show. What was I doing with that awful speech bubble in the third panel of page 2? Good question. And "BWOOOMP" is apparently what foghorns sound like in my head. I'm not really sure why.

I've learned my lesson about trying to finish 3 pages in less than a week, but man was that rewarding. :)

Loved it, will definitely go on for Round 4!

Thanks for looking!

Erin Rae

Far From Home.

Looked a little to Theodor Kittelsen for this piece.

Thought I'd try my hand at Gerda and Lida again, this time with a little more focus on Lida, the younger (but much larger) sister.

The two are forced to leave their home and their family and all they know when something of Lida's is stolen, and they must go and take it back at all costs. This story is also what I am planning to base my thesis on.

Thought I'd try something new(ish) with media as well: the drawings are all ink, and everything was colored in photoshop. Just wanted to give it a whirl - nothing's quite perfect.

Thanks for looking ;")

Make way for the Troll Princess

The first assignment for Fantasy Art this semester: to tackle a fantasy cliche with either hyperbole or a plain old fresh take. I wanted to do something with trolls, but as trolls aren't much of an overbearing presence in the greater part of the fantasy genre, I added the stereotype of the "warrior princess," which definitely brings strong images to mind - good, bad, whatever.

And so we have this pair of troll sisters, who are sort of quasi-princesses, since their parents were pretty big and bad (or something?).

The real star of this piece (the one directly dealing with the cliche) is clearly the character in front. I wanted to take the (very) general image of the "warrior princess" (statuesque, outrageously gorgeous, great hair, huge tits, bikini armor, etc.), and nix everything but the bikini.

I had a lot of fun doing this piece and really enjoy these two characters. Expect to see them again, haha.

And so begins the last three months of school, ever.

At Semester's End

Well the end of the semester finally came, and I'm sure it was a welcome arrival for all. I look forward to painting a lot over the winter break (not so looking forward to my wisdom teeth extraction on Saturday), and working out my thesis project for the spring semester. :"D

And now on to the artwork:

My final assignment for my Illustrating the Edible class is posted up at the class blog, but I'll put it here as well. It's a seed packet! Shown is the front and back.

But then there was thesis, am I right? I've been pretty tight-lipped about my senior thesis project this semester. I didn't really mean to be - I planned to share the entire process, really I did - but working through the project proved to be very nerve wracking.

I am a painter; I always have been, and always will be. But I also love to draw, and as much of my more recent work (the past year and a half or so) has become flat and graphic, I feel like I've been growing tighter and tighter and less and less comfortable. My use of the medium began to feel more like a paint-by-numbers or coloring a coloring book. All of the life had drained from painting for me, and so last semester's Concepts final was all ink wash and over the summer I buried myself in Photoshop. But I had to face painting again sometime, right?

My first couple pieces in my thesis series represent that more graphic style that I've been developing, and I while I enjoyed drawing them, I really hated painting them. The pencil lines stressed me out, and I think I part of me wanted them gone, but another part of me was afraid to paint without them.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardobe

I realized at some point afterwards that I had grown too used to working nearly the exact same way for too long; I didn't feel like I was growing, and that was a bad thing. I needed to break away from the past year or so and try something completely different.

I decided to focus on the environments and the mood of each piece as opposed to a particular scene or characters from the books. This is the first time I've ever paid so much attention to any kind of environment so these were really an interesting challenge for me.

The Magician's Nephew

The Horse and His Boy

The Last Battle

The Silver Chair

There's one last painting that I have yet to scan in, but I'll update this post in a few days with its final version.

Edible Illustration Update

Finally posted all of my recent assignments for Edible Illustration up to the class blog, which is now available to the public, I believe :"D So check it out - everybody's doing really fabulous work!

My thesis is coming along, although I haven't posted on my thesis blog in a while. But there will be a final post when I'm finished in a couple weeks, haha. Although I think I might nix the separate blog for next semester, and just post everything here instead.

Edible Illustration: Station North Restaurant Guidebook

So these are my illustrations for a restaurant guidebook that the graphic design students will be working on. We were each assigned a specific restaurant to review and illustrate, and were also required to do a cover and a map of the area, plotting all of the restaurants reviewed in the book (about 18, I think.)

Cover

On the Hill Cafe - exterior

On the Hill Cafe - interior

Map

All in all I am pleased with the results, although mostly I'm just glad to have that over and done with so I can turn my attention back to thesis again.

Illustrating the Edible

So for Illustrating the Edible, we're working on a guidebook of good, affordable restaurants in the area, which is really awesome. I'm excited for this project anyway, and I was lucky enough to receive a restaurant assignment that was nearby and to my taste. Bonus, right?

Well, I've got all of the information for On the Hill Cafe, plus some personal recommendations (both my friends and I enjoyed what we had ordered). I took reference photos while I was there, outside, inside (we sat inside, so there are more interior shots), of our food.

So, here are some of the better photos taken in the restaurant:

I really love the colors of the restaurant: there's something very warm and inviting about them, and the menu written in colored chalk is lighthearted and pleasant. The atmosphere is very easy, very casual. The staff was lovely and the service was good.

All in all it was wonderful - I really can't believe I have lived a block away from On the Hill for three years and never bothered to give it a shot.

First final of the semester:

EDIT: Except I lied. I totally forgot that the Edible Illustration blog is private. Click the link if you want, but I don't think anyone will be able to see it. Kind of a shame, really. If anyone is curious as to how my assignment turned out, I've got it up on DeviantArt.

For Illustrating the Edible. Boy, was I surprised by how much I liked painting food. Pictures of food. Not on food.

Aaanyway, check out the class's work over at the Edible Illustration Blog!

Everything over there's wicked awesome, and you'll find some pretty cool people. Not a great many things up yet, but over the next couple days activity should pick up.

Liiiike my senior thesis blog.

Ahem. Now I'm going to get back to these curiously blue potato chips. Curious.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia

Well then.

Here we are at the end of another semester -- the end of a whole year! Junior year is over and done with. That's pretty amazing right there.

And then I get to spend my summer preparing to be a senior. Ooohwhatthehell. But whatever. That's for another time; one where I have not been awake for 48 hours straight.

.......

So, right, Sherlock Holmes!

This collection of illustrations for A Scandal in Bohemia, by Sir A.C. Doyle is a major part of my final project for Concepts 2. While I feel like I failed to start early and strong, I somehow managed to pick up the slack in the time that I had left and now I am left with the foreign feeling of being... actually sort of done. I mean, there's still the printing of the book dummy pages and I have to lay those out all nice but, really that's just busy work. The hardest part's over with, really.

Although I do wonder if my book dummy should have the actual text or not. Do I really want to type pages of text? ...I can't decide...... No. You know what? I'm going to turn to the Internet and copypasta my way out of this. Yeah.

But that aside, these were really interesting to do.

I do really want to illustrate books; covers, interior illustrations, whatever. I just really love doing it, and would love to do it... kind of forever.

Well, fell asleep in the middle of this, and now that I'm awake 6 hours later, I still have some finals-related things to take care of, so I'll leave this here for now!

Much love and luck to anyone and everyone else in the finals boat right now!

Erin Rae