Wow, I’m surprised this actually uploaded!
This poster is something I did for my band’s concert back in New Jersey. It’s intentionally a little loud because it’s a loud concert, you know? And frankly, I think maybe it’s a little TOO polished. But I don’t care, I had fun with it, and it was MY dang event; it can be what I want it to be. I just needed to remind myself of what I can create. It’s been a little while since I’ve designed anything and my self-confidence is faltering.
For some reason, people seem to like this one when they see it. I see it as real sloppy, a sketchy sketch…an idea, more than a “piece”. And the idea is neither original nor terribly unique. I do like the little splashes of color, the red shoes and yellow light…If i were to go and paint it, a lot of that yellow would have to be reflected in her hair and dress…so it could be a little interesting, but I never really cared to move further with this. Still, the more I think about it, the more I realize “hey, I’m thinking about this”…and isn’t that really the point with art? To entice one to *think*?
I went through a period at work where I was trying something a little more youthful and playful…stuff I was doing in college (i.e. song lyrics) and so I’d draw a tall lady and add words, basically. These are the words that I added to this piece. I felt the emotion in the drawing and I don’t know if anybody else can see it, but I know these really speak to me personally.
website mock
This isn’t a real website. I don’t remember what the assignment was exactly, but we had to recreate an already existing website. That sounds like a Josh assignment…ANYway…London Fashion Week was that week and I’m in love with Agyness Deyn, so this was really a no-brainer for me. I found a fierce photo of her, adjusted the color to make it tons edgier and dark, and then went with black and white. High contrast equals high fashion. I’m really super happy with how this turned out and it was really very easy. No fancy logo, no fancy fonts, not a whole lot of images to mess around with, just clean, simple, and sharp. I never underestimate the strength and power of a really good photograph. You just don’t NEED more than that.
One of my few forays into actual photoshop painting. It was nearing graduation day when I whipped this one out as a last minute project. I had finished my website and really wanted some graphic illustration for my portfolio. You may not have noticed, but pretty much everything I do is with a pencil or something. So and of course Alice in Wonderland hadn’t come out yet so it was still hip and trendy to be talking about it. I really don’t know that I would change anything. I was inspired by the illustrator for Entertainment Weekly’s Must List whose artist name is escaping me at the moment. It’s not really a name, more of a title like… “artbook” or something like that. Anyway, I may do some more experimenting with this when I actually have a space to sit down and work at. We’ll see.
I don’t know where this came from. Honestly. I put brush to tiny canvas and this is what happened one night. I have always been fascinated by honing in on specific parts of the face and honestly, there’s only 3 that interest anybody; eyes, nose, and mouth. I’d done eyes and a nose, but I hadn’t really done a mouth yet. I think red lipstick was coming back into style…Angelina Jolie was huge…and cigarettes were really on their way out. So, and I was probably in a bad mood, but all these subconscious cultural pieces of information were batting around in my head and I just started to paint. This isn’t a large piece, about 8 by 10, I think. And most of my paintings start like this, messy and deconstructed. I go back in and refine, refine, refine. This time, after about 2 nights working on it, I felt it was just…done. I couldn’t improve on it. Adding detail and refining it would have totally defeated the emotion of the piece. So I stopped, and now it’s pretty much a “fan favorite” in my tiny world. I’ll show people my work and this one always causes a little reaction…or a big reaction, and I love that I can create something like that.
This is one of my favorite artists, not just as an artist, but as a person. I had the pleasure of communicating with this fellow through myspace ( I know, myspace still exists?!) and he is one of the coolest, most open and supportive people I’ve met online. And his art is KILLER. Since I’ve been focusing here a lot on my own sketch work, I thought I’d share some other folks sketches and Richard was definitely one of the first ones I thought of. I snatched these from his myspace album. I’ve also included his website (as a fledgling web designer myself, I am SUPER impressed with his site, even if it is all flash). So go check him out! Here is a drawing I drew inspired by Frost’s caricatures.
House, naturally.
drawn during work
This was drawn during my “Jason Rudolph Pena” phase. For those of you who don’t know, his art is like…faces in a funny mirror, only the mirror isn’t THAT funny, just ever so slightly skewed. The eyes look enlarged, but not freakishly so. His work is the very definition of whimsical and kind of sweet, but he definitely has an edge that he isn’t afraid to use. Anyway, obviously I’m STILL a huge fan of his art and he continues to inspire me.
Pena's pieces
Ah, fun with a sharpie! I was listening to a LOT of Morrissey when I drew this and I believe it was inspired by “Every day is like Sunday”. It looks like it was, anyways.
I’m not sure what possessed me to draw this. It was really a doodle that I had time to finish, you know? I finished the initial sketch and then I found I still wasn’t being interupted, so I started to fill in the shading and coloring in things (which I so RARELY do with pencil) and before I knew it I sort of had this fully fleshed out drawing of a very odd thing. I should do that more often. I usually just go for something I’ve done before, like a tall lady or some sort of very angular face, but this fella was completely inspired by my hand and some extra time.
Emily Adrianson Design 