Brandy Fan Art

I never really followed Brandy's music career, but as a kid, I watched her star in Moesha and Disney's TV movie Cinderella. (I remember eating macaroni & cheese out of a blue bowl, my eyes glued to the TV, as Brandy and Whitney Huston's duet gave me goosebumps. My parents recorded it on video cassette too, so I was kind of obsessed with that movie for awhile.)

A friend of mine recently saw Brandy in concert and the pictures he posted showed Brandy was rocking those long braids again. It made me SO HAPPY to see them! I got inspired:

Any other fan's on Brandy's braids out there? What do you think?

1960's Clue

I recently joined the Butts Collective. It's a group of some my illustrator friends from SCAD that draw things on a theme every month for fun. This month's theme was re-imagining three characters from a favorite childhood game. I took on the board game Clue and set it in the late 1960s, but I just had to do all six characters. I really enjoyed designing them and figuring out how to incorporate a weapon for each suspect.

My Psoriasis Blossoms

I have been itching to do a piece about my psoriasis for a long time. Actually, I never refer to these red, scaly patches as "blossoms" but I think I will now. I like how it points out the floral patterns they tend to make on my elbows and legs; They're like my fluctuating flower tattoos.

Mostly, I just ignore them. All the creams I tried in the past were super greasy, annoying to remember, and didn't really do much. And the shot/pill treatments I've heard of can mess up your immune system. All my life I've enjoyed good health and I would honestly prefer a good immune system over clear skin. Sunlight helps, but I really just let them be. Sometimes I really hate having psoriasis, but I realized a long time ago that it doesn't really bother anybody so why would I let it bother me?

Here are my thumbnail and finished lines for the piece:

STAY TUNED:
Next week's piece will compare embarrassing body hair to pleasant fields of grass!
Just kidding; that's never going to happen.

ICON 7!

From June 13th to June 16th, I was in Providence, RI for the 7th annual Illustration Conference. It's taken me awhile to write about it because it's hard to sum up something so jam packed with awesome! Rather than outline everything that happened at ICON7, I decided to just share some of my favorite notes and drawings from the weekend (Besides, I accidentally left my camera battery at home so my sketchbook is the only record I have).

Here's the ICON7 program and the sketchbook I used for my notes, which was made by the lovely Rachel Self.

ICON's main stage in the VET Theater at the Renaissance Hotel: 

The Thursday night Opening Ceremony was FANTASTIC! Huge, wacky puppets from Big Nazo danced on stage while the  "What Cheer?" Brigade blasted their energetic music. You can watch a bit of the performance here. 

A hard act to follow, ICON7 President--John Hendrix--easily met the challenge with an inspiring speech about illustrators as "tangible contributors" to our culture.

Big Nazo's four largest creatures sat on sides of the stage for the rest of the conference, so I HAD to sketch them:

Jessica Hische said a lot of witty, honest, and compelling things with much better lettering than I could ever do in my little notes.

I really enjoyed Kiel Johnson's presentation and his hilarious Cypress Valley High short film.

The XPLANE company and what they do (Business Design Thinking) really appealed to me.

Lynda Berry was Friday night's Keynote speaker. She was so wonderfully warm, open, perceptive and gut-busting HILARIOUS, I had to go and buy one of her books afterwards. Lynda and her long time friend Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons, shared their comics and stories with the audience like we were all just comfortably hanging out in her living room.

I loved the "Seen Through the Sketchbook" talk with Marcellus Hall, Jillian Tamaki, and John Cuneo.

Out of all the incredible presentations at the conference, I have to say the talk from Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson, of Idiots' Books (Oops! spelled it wrong in my notes), was my absolute favorite! They had great stage presence, content, pacing, collaboration, visuals, writing, and both visual and written jokes! They make such a perfect team and I will confidently label them the...

Basically, ICON7 was so worth it! Even though I knew very few people in attendance, everyone I talked with was friendly and welcoming. (I came home with so many business cards and postcards!) I felt a part of this illustration community and I couldn't be happier with my career choice! 

If you want a little more on the conference, here's Mark Kaufman's clever summary of the event and a link to the hilarious AD email videos that played in between presentations.

This past Saturday I graduated from SCAD with my BFA in Illustration. The Friday night before the ceremony the Scad Illustration Club had their Senior Show.

There was such a great turn out and both of my pieces sold! It was such a wonderful surprise--I was not expecting that at all!

And here's a picture from earlier in the night of me and two friends, Nicole and Liz (Liz's face is peeping in between us). If you look behind us, you can see it was quite a crowded opening. All the work was incredible! I'm so proud of all my Illustration classmates!

Postcard Artwork

Here's the piece I did for my postcard. Look out Art Directors-- Here I come!

 

Travel Sketchbook

I am going to be posting my work from my Travel Portfolio class here. Here's a sketch I did at the top of the hill behind the SCAD HK building; I finished it more at home. (That white plane at the bottom right is SCAD's roof.)