Academic achievements

These were some leftovers from when i was trying to typograph-y my resume, and i had to choose some nice typefaces so it would look neat and slightly designed.
I thought you could read all sorts of 'artistic intention' into it... maybe if i write an essay about it I will be able to sell prints for lots of money. But really it's just scrap paper.

Rehash

I revisited one of my earlier 'paintings' today, and after redrawing the lines, decided that it would be better as a more abstract thing so i cropped and rotated it, then repainted using a color palette from one of my other old things.

I kinda like this one. The smudgy digital paint look is ok with me, some artists can use it to such good effect (i.e knowing when to leave edges/overlaps rather than smoothing everything out) but i haven't practiced nearly enough to be good at it.

Cavernicles

Painting.
Glowy green things.

Colorstrips

I often enjoy cropping images or designs to get new interesting shapes and compositions.
Tonight I accidentally made my canvas 800x80 px instead of 800x800 and I liked the shape, so I decided to create the larger square canvas but divide it into a series of strips.

The design I came up with is based upon a photograph (bet you can't guess what) which I cropped and then painted over with colors I chose on a whim. it's actually really hard to get good color combinations! In the end I put a gradient over the whole thing and put it on Color mode to unify the palette... I think doing a subtle grading is often helpful to bring together a design, but I went fairly intensely in this case because I liked the orange and yellow tones.

I am also including the un-gradiented version so you can see what a difference it makes. Might be a bit easier to work out the subject matter from this one (but I'd still be surprised).

As an aside, I just put in an order for some business cards, which is fun. They will be here in a few weeks and I will take a photo of them so you (whoever you are that actually reads this) can see them. I like the design though it is quite simple and not anything mindblowing.

Pink

This is based off a photo from a david jones or myer catalogue or something, hence the fashion look and generic-ness of it all. I really liked the striking colors in some of the photos so wanted to work with that a bit.

I added the gradient color because it was looking a bit scraggly... I didn't want to incorporate more levels of shading so thought it might help bring it together a bit. The actual dress is satin or something very shiny so the highlights and transitions were quite strong, and i think i captured some of that.

The hair looks a bit like snakes or worms, i think. But i didn't want to play too much and get it overworked. I quite like the overall palette (which, though inspired by the photo, is different because I used my eyes, didn't scan or anything or stay strictly to it).

Something

Just a quick photoshop thing. I decided to use a calligraphic brush and this came out. I have always liked low-contrast darks together... something cool about it when it works.
In 'real' life, the effects you get particularly at night are so beautiful, like driving home and seeing silhouettes against a dark, slightly blue sky.

This isn't meant to capture that, though it is a scape of some kind i guess.
I actually thought I was going to do an illustrative treatment of some fruit today.

Dime

I liked this when I was part way through it, but i must have overworked it or taken a wrong turn or something, because i'm just not very keen on the final. Of course when i say final, that's just when i stopped working, it's not what i would consider a finished piece.
I tried hiding a lot of the layers and looking at different compositions to see if i could work out which bit i don't like, but i think it's a combination of things and i'm not going to do anything more on it.
A dangerous step is always once i start incorporating photo/texture bits into a drawing-based illustration, so for example the coins in this one don't work, i think.

In any case, I learnt a few little things doing it, and had some fun with light sources (though i can't really self-critique to see which bits are wrong).