Past Projects

These are a few past projects I've done; basically, my school-related work. But, just because they're school related doesn't necessarily make them invalid. I learned a lot of stuff while creating these. ^_^ And since I'm putting them up here, I obviously still like how they turned out.

This an example of some of my colored pencil work. It was a final project in Colored Pencil Media class, actually. It was inspired by a short story I'd written in that semester's Creative Writing class.

Another colored pencil piece. I did this as an assignment to create a piece depicting a spaceship with a bumper sticker and guns. XD I suppose it was an assignment just to see where we were at skill-wise. At the time, I was a bit put off when everyone else's piece was a digital work. (Honestly, mine was the only hand-colored picture in the entire class. Awkward.)

These two were for a fake brochure to India I created. Since I obviously didn't have any of my own photos, and I didn't want to "borrow" some off the Internet, I figured I'd just draw them instead. The layout of the thing was what ended up being the hardest part. o.o It was an introduction to graphic design I'm not sure to forget.

An endangered species poster, from the same Graphic Design class. This, and the India Brochure are really the only two projects that I thought warranted a posting. XD That class was the HARDEST art class I've ever taken. I learned a lot though.

This image was from a class on Adobe Illustrator. The original photo was taken by me the previous summer at Lake Michigan. I turned it into a tone-on-tone image in Adobe Illustrator over a period of about two weeks. (It was a BIG image. I wanted to keep the original size so I could create more detail.)

These two were fun (and also for Adobe Photoshop class).  They're personifications of two of our seven cats. The one on the top is Autumn, and on the bottom is Ginger. I hope to one day do this for each of our cats and make a whole set. ^_^ Ginger was actually in an art show last winter, in the Arcus Gallery down in downtown Kalamazoo. My first piece in a real art show!

This is a faux book cover for a fantasy novel I'm currently on hiatus with...

I originally came up with the idea in my Corel Painter Class (Top) , but wasn't exactly happy with the result. So, in Photoshop class, I decided to revisit the concept as one of my three final projects. (Bottom) This time around, I'm much happier. ^_^ What a difference a year makes!

This was final project #3 in Photoshop class. I created this as a Christmas present for my grandmother. She loves frogs and roses, so I came up with a composition that combined the two.

These two were created in Electronic Artistry. The goal was to create two pieces of art- one conveying a positive emotion, one a negative, through the use of abstract shape, line quality, and color. The top represents solitude, the bottom, fear. I actually liked my thumbnails from this project so much that I did two more. I'm sure I'll post them somewhere on here at some point. ^_^

This piece was inspired by the short story "Firelight" by Tobias Wolfe. (And was also a class assignment.) I actually started this piece as a watercolor, and took it into Photoshop to add extra texture, shift the color a bit, and add lighting effects. Not sure what its practical use would be for... maybe as a piece of artwork on the cover of a Tobias Wolfe book?

Another assignment from Electronic Artistry class. My final project, actually.  It's meant to be a surrealist/cubist piece with proportions based on the golden rectangle. I'm definitely feelin' the surrealism... not so much the cubism. I attempted to break up the eyes and nose into cubist-like chunks, but I'm not sure it was so successful. Still like it though. ^_^

This was from my Corel Painter class. It's one of the only pieces I still like from that class, oddly enough. I had a lot of disturbing thumbnails to go with this... unicorns in pools of their own blood, for example. Though I guess this is still a little disturbing. We did it as an Illustration Friday assignment. I think the inspirational word of the week was "Legendary".

This was the "big project" in Digital Painting- a sequence of three images. Since I had little access to Corel Painter or Photoshop at the time, I decided to do the majority of the work over spring break in colored pencil. (Subsequently, spring break really sucked.) I finished them off by coloring the backgrounds in Corel Painter a day or two before class after we came back. I personally liked the contrast in texture between the rough colored pencil and the smooth computer-rendered paint. The class- not so much. But, at this point, my opinion trumps theirs. XD I'm sure you'll recognize the character in these if you've looked at any of my character work- yup it's Dragana again. The only qualms I have about this is the middle piece, where she's in the midst of transforming... her position seems too stiff. Though, at the time a lot of my character's poses looked stiff. I used the 'puppet people' as my sister coined it- to pose my people. Relatively effective, but they made everybody look like mannequins. XD