Bay Area based illustrator who loves to sculpt, needle felt, knit, sew, whittle, and pretty much any other art form. There’s never enough hours in the day.
Lisa thought that her calculations were correct this time. The robot was responding correctly, its movements were stable, everything was working great... Except for one, tiny, insignificant crack in the robots body. Lisa grabbed her blow torch, thinking, What's the harm in a quick fix....
The sun sank low on the horizon and the heat of the day began to ebb as the old man walked through the homes of the departed. Gulls screeched in the sky, crying out for the mans fish. He held the bucket tighter as his steps disappeared into the drifting sand.
lovely work everyone.
Mr. Herbert McGillicuddy knew something peculiar was going to happen when he sat down for his afternoon tea. He knew, because his wife was never late and was always in her chair by 4pm. He sipped his tea as his eyes watched the clock tick slowly past 3:59.
Suddenly, everything was rattling, falling apart and breaking! Mr. Herbert thought perhaps it was a good thing his wife was no where to be seen... or was she?
Monochrome Month Prompt for today was Giant in the Garden. Reminded me of some of @Braden-Hallett work. So I went with some Megafauna and thought about some of the lessons/tips from his live stream! Another big thank you, Braden!
If you didn’t get a chance to see it live I recommend watching it when he posts it 
Hey all! Long time no post haha but I wanted to see if anyone would be interested in following along with me on my build for the SVS podcast illustration.
For a recap - I won in April with my Lisa Dimensional illustration and will be building my podcast illustration in a similar way (though with much much less stuff).
Some of you expressed a lot of interest in following along with the Lisa project so I wanted to see if there was interest in following this shorter project for SVS learn.
Hope you're all well!
Here she is!!! And I loooovvveeeeee her!!! It was painful at first but once I saw her turning into the little unsuccessful inventor I was excited to "mess her up."
Super excited to finish this! I'm hoping the rest of this goes by a little faster and I finish in time 
Ok so I’m beginning the April WIP... I’m going to try to keep it pretty simple because my hope is that I can.... wait for it......
Build it.
Eep!
So after commenting on Will’s post about our dreams I thought long and hard about all the excuses I’ve been making about why I am not putting some of my dreams into action. So here we go. Baby steps. I’m hoping I can accomplish a dimensional illustration for this months prompt.
Here are my two compositions- again staying very simple because... sculpture lol but let me know what you guys think. Either of these work? Or back to the drawing board.
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🥰🥰 progress!
Working on the hands next. Sigh I am feeling doubtful I can finish this by the end of the month. But I will do my very best!!!
He may not have many repeat clients... but I've heard he gives amazing life advice.
I know the piece is done (excellent work!) but I wanted to share these because I STRUGGLE with color and this artist's demos really really helped me gain some confidence! I essentially try not to worry about the "color" as much anymore and focus more on the "values". It helped me sort of step out of my color box, and have more fun just experimenting with a variety of colors. As long as the values are correct then the colors end up looking much better together!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fbo6ZAuF914&list=PLS2oTl89g8i7C7gNl8xARB8ufGS2dX5wC&index=6&t=1s
@Gary-Wilkinson I LOVE HIM he is so cute. and cuddly - but I also feel like he could squish someone flat.
I plan on participating in Mab Graves - Drawloween! (mostly because I like her prompts a lot) and she has a "reduced" list which I appreciate and feels more digestible. So I'll be doing one of the shorter lists - and my hopes is that I'll create a couple dimensional pieces for it!
@jdubz that is an AWESOME check list!
Thank you for sharing. I'll definitely be using that. Especially the white layer on top - I have never thought about that.
I think this will definitely help as a check in to practice. I seem to avoid my value studies and it's now been multiple pieces that don't have a strong value structure. So it will be important to double check that.
@eriberart starting a project can be a terrifying experience 
@Gary-Wilkinson what! I love it!! He's so cute. And I'm so very curious as to what the story is now?? What are the mice doing? what's the little... round buddy? What's happening? haha it's so good! The disco ball is working out a lot better. The whole comp works really nicely now.
@Freya-Chakour - ya know, that isn't something I do often.... Which is so weird because my day job is essentially all photoshop experimentation and yet for my personal work I so rarely just play around and "smudge paint"... That's a good point! I should definitely try playing more.
@Gary-Wilkinson what you say is true - I probably need to study more and experiment with the look... The SVS team mentioned getting your top 10 artists and putting your work next to them to see if you fit in - currently I don't! So I think I need to go back to the drawing board for a bit.
@Jordi-Ventura Thank you for pointing out the wind! I took it out. You are so right.
@eriberart That is a really interesting way of working - that I always sort of forget you can do with photoshop haha I treat it sometimes like it's traditional medium that I can't just "cut and paste" things. But what a great way to work. I think I'll try that in my next illustration - composition, and then building up the elements separately and playing with the best elements.
@NessIllustration I agree this piece definitely lost something - unfortunately I had to turn it in. The client still loved it which is great but I feel like I kind of let myself down. It got really stiff. But on to better things, right?
@thousandwrecks I have not heard that quote but I really like it - This piece did not meet that mark for me unfortunately. but I think I'll keep that quote in mind for my next one and really dig into what I want it to say and how I want it to feel.
@carolinebautista I think you bring up a lot of good questions actually - and to be quite honest that was my mistake not figuring those things out. I didn't really understand the joke, as it's not my joke. And I think in the end I wasn't quite sure what I was illustrating haha. I had gotten this composition approved - and felt like I couldn't turn back. I suppose in the end this project was a learning experience in acceptance haha. I don't feel like this turned out to be the piece I imagined it would be. But I like your point of the process - and at this point I have to move on so, I'll move on!
@ina - I agree fully - Master studies are going to be my to-do until I get my groove back (and continue after that as well)
@Coley I totally agree with you!! 
the values have lost me again. That was the critique for some of my other pieces too - I'm thinking perhaps I need to work more in black and white and leave color alone for a while. Womp!
Woo that was a marathon reply - Thank you ALL so so very much for pointing these things out to me. I've got a lot to work on for my next piece!
@davidhohn So glad you like it! I too have a soft spot for felted critters
I know I'm not the only one who does this - so who else struggles with calling something done?
The artists I admire the most are generally really loose and sketchy and you can see their hands in it. You can see the under painting, all the pencil lines - (Peter de Seve, Carter Goodrich,) - There's a lot of movement in their work... Which I find myself lacking.
I tend to over work and it becomes very dull to me. Flat. I get nervous that my lines are showing up too much - but then I get nervous that I took them away too quick!
Gah - anyways this piece started off as being so fun, I even posted a thread about how fun it was! and now I'm struggling with it because it now feels messy and flat all at the same time. I love the turtle. That's about it.
Does anyone have suggestions for keeping loose but also feeling like an illustration is done and feels complete?
So tired of overworking things haha
March on fellow artists!
