new new new black&white

hello again

here's an illustration for an op-ed article in a local publication. the article was essentially about how Obama has lacked the authority in handling the oil spill situation.

this task was a challenge for me, to be transparent i didn't think i was going to go through with it because of the content of the article wasn't something I agreed on completely (i dont like to point fingers). however after looking at it objectively i wanted to test my ability to create an image that would A) please the client and B) give a clear message without showering anyone in a negative light

i feel pretty happy with it! i really wanted to add a goopey pelican in there somewhere but in the end we decided it would defer from the message. maybe one day i'll be able to draw a goopey pelican though.

so im going to include some process and give a little impromptu step by step for anyone that cares

this was a very very short deadline, my hand was working faster than my mind at some points -

after fooling around with ideas, we decided on a general direction. i then started figuring out the design/composition, here are a couple thumbnails



the final approved thumbnail



i was happy with the direction, originally my idea was to include some wildlife from the gulf within the oil, but in the end i thought it complicated things too much and wanted the message to be as clear as possible to the clients liking



here's an in progress shot of it coming along. at this stage i was using ink and charcoal, doing my initial drawing in red pencil so when i scan it in i can just dilute all of the red from the file and continue working.



this was as far as i took it traditionally. drawing reflections of the capital building was a challenge though, i hope people can tell what it is hah - the few ive shown it to have gotten it though, so that makes me happy

i intended this piece to be finished digitally, and whenever i do something digitally i usually take about 10-15 minutes fooling around with whatever leftover supplies i have laying around and make some brushes for photoshop. here's what i created, theyre white for clarity purposes.



brushed around crushed charcoal and dripped ink down newsprint and smudged around black acrylic - just simple fun things without any clear intention, usually you'll get some nice results after you scan them in and tweak the levels

a traditional monotype probably would have sufficed to get a similar look, but time was thin.

i woke up from a power nap and took a quick look at it and thought his legs could really use some hair on it though


so i made some stubbly hair for the legs and scanned it in

'im a man of my word'

after using the brushes i created to give the piece more personality, i got to a point where i felt happy with it, im sure if you look closely you can see some of the imprints of those brush shapes, but for the most part all i did was select certain aspects of the drawing and lay the textured brush ontop of it

the final result;



- 'oil wake' mixed media

hope you enjoyed the impromptu step by step, as always if theres any questions feel free to ask!




some words of encouragement from a friend in my sketchbook before i send this post off





cheers,
tyler