VisComII: People on Baitshop Walls

Next 2-page spread. Things to change: 'guys' to people(maybe) in the title to a wider audience and not just men. I need to COB my fishing lure images better...and any other suggestions Rusty?

Second layout: I added the logo, changed the title, and made the image of the fishing lures slightly smaller. Time so far, a little over an hour. I still need to edit the lures image, but I haven't had time to fix that part yet, decrease shadow on headline, move logo, and whatever is the 'nasty' factor will be.

Final layout. I changed the image, fixed the headline drop shadow, moved the logo, and finally COB'd the fishing lures image.

Illustration: Cartoon

First step, come up with 5 gags for Department of Motor Vehichles. This image was chosen to go further. It is a student driver and the cop/ teacher is not in the car because they have flown through the window into the tree. This will be easier to see and understand in the image in the next step.

Second step, view original cartoon gag in three different views. This is the one chosen to go further. A student driver obviously didn't slow down and hit the speed bump which caused the wreck into the opposite direction and the cop/teacher flew out of the car into the tree. The arrow that you can slightly see was a note to move the cropping of the gag.

My final cartoon gag after being scanned and taken into photoshop and colored there.

Illustration: Memory Portrait

First step, draw from memory a family member. This image was chosen to expand further to the next step.





Second step, 3 color studies. I think I like the image on the left best. It is more eye grabbing than the very right and the blue haired well its just too crazy and are complementary colors(it looks blue but it's really purple as you'll see in the final portrait.

Final step, I chose watercolor to work with, then used ink on top. We had to scan at 100% 8X10, print, then mount with 1" border. I am happy with how it turned out, the way I had started with this project before (coming up with memory comps) finally coming up with this final portrait. I didn't paint anything in the background, but I like how it turned out from scanning. It looks kind of like rays coming from her and it works because I have her singing.

VisComII: How Safe Mag. Spread

First layout, I need to rework the headline and work with the space that will be the at the top of the page, also move the page number and header to the bottom of page, bleed photo, and make the caption for the image more readable. Time: Probably around an hour, just readjusting everything in the space took some time.

Layout #2, align the heading, also align the body of text with image, with that make the font smaller and move picture caption to under body of text if it fits.

Final layout of the How Safe 2-page spread. Total time didn't take as long because there was so little text, maybe about 3 hours, taking photos and getting all the space around the photo with the text. From the second layout I tightened up the text to line up with the photo and moved the photo caption below the body text.

VisComII: Health Mag. Spread

First layout, I need to figure out my point size, a bigger image, and I put the title of the sidebar in the wrong spot, I didn't 'proofread' in a sense to that. Time: not too long, the majority was the text so a little over an hour.

Layout #2, I need hierarchy and align the heading.

My final production for the 2-page spread. Time wise probably close to 4 hours total throughout all 3 layouts, if not more. Looking at the layout from a distance, I think it may look better if I move the big pile of pills to the center of the layout into the gutter and wrap text around it there, will do for the portfolio.

Illustration: Gouache Painting

My gouche painting from a black and white photo. I am happy with it, it turned out a lot better than what I was expecting. The pumpkin gave me a little trouble as well as the shadow behind it, everytime I would try to work on the pumpkin it kept getting worse, so I just left it alone. Gouche is a bit difficult to paint with when it comes to getting too much water in your brush and mixing or painting over, without taking the other paint off; although, I think I like working with gouche better.

VisComII: Gilligan List

The five fonts I would choose would probably be times, bellrose, helvetica, arial, and garamond. I want a variety serif and sanserifs. They are simplistic and common for the most part and can be used for/ on anything, except bellrose, which is a font I found, but I have used on several projects of mine. I think its readable and still eye-catching.

VisComII: Stressed Out Magazine Spread

The background of the spread is a very light blue, I think I should darken the value of that slightly and fix the pull quote to make sure it's more readable, darken the blue of the quote or lighten the box behind it. Figure out what images I want to use and how much space they may take up for sure. The time estimate was right on from about 2-3 hours overall. So far I've used 3 fonts from my Gilligan list- times, garamond, and bellrose.

Second layout, I think is much better. It didn't take as much time to do this layout because the text was already layed out to fit the two pages. I made the headline bigger, changed the colors around, added images, and messed with the layout a bit.

Final production for my 2 page spread. It changed quite a bit each step. I am happy for the most part with this layout. I think it feels like it needs more to it or like something is missing, but not sure what. It didn't take much more time to get to the final layout from the second presentation, except for photoshopping the chain link.

Illustration: 20 X 30 Watercolor

I am happy with how my 20X30 watercolor painting turned out. The thing I think I need to work maybe a little more on would be the grasses on each side of the boardwalk. It was time consuming, but how couldn't have it been, approximately between 3-4 hours. It is like a smaller painting I did earlier, except this image was to the left of the previous image (can see below).

VisComII: Shut Up & Dance

Our next redesign assignment. We didn't get to go over this layout in class. Not sure too much what I would do to change or fix this layout. It seems very simplistic and as if it wouldn't have too long, but I messed around with the layout so the time it took was a bit longer than expected. I couldn't decide between a silhoutte or the actual image, but as I was thinking about a concept, I chose the silhoutte because it's as if she has shutten up and is dancing.

VisComII: Native American Heritage

We presented our next redesigned flyer for Native American Heritage Month. I need to add the rest of the logos, downsize the reslife logo, and whatever other advice Rusty has. The next step is improving this layout as well as starting another flyer.

My next layout still lacked a concept, I haven't been able to come up with any good saying to go along with the teepee. Someone had suggested a diagonal layout/grid, which I think would help it out a lot, along with saying. Another improvement needs to be the text, add color and space to separate each of the events. So concept, layout, and separation.

The third layout before final production. Not sure on what much I should change, it does lean a little more to the left as I noticed when it was up on the wall. I'll have to look more at it after I've finally had a break from staring at it for so long. This layout didn't take as long, estimated time was about right, between 30 minutes to an hour.

This is my final production for my Native American Heritage Month poster. I moved the logo down, downsized the top headline a bit, took down the line weight for the line, and moved the main headline over slightly to balance the layout. Final production didn't take long at all, I knew what I wanted to change, and then printed.

Illustration: Watercolor

This was our second assignment for experimenting with watercolors, landscapes. I think I like doing landscapes the best so far. Below was our next assignment was to paint something with architecture which was not as much fun, so I included some landscape in pretty much all of those too. The painting above looks pretty close to its original photo...no I didn't go to the ocean over night but I have been painting photos I've taken. I'm glad with how it turned out, the different 'textures' of the grass and shrubbery in the sand and the big palm-like tree to the left. I was actually able to create a slight sense of depth/perspective.


This was probaly my most sufficient architectural painting. It's very simple and didn't take much time to make it look decent. Again I did the landscape and I think, mainly because of the bridge, I was able to create a prospective. The other architectural paintings I don't think were as succesful, it's not that I needed to spend an overly amount of time on each of them, but to allow them to dry and so on, takes time that I didn't have. There aren't enough hours in a day to get everything done for every class.


This was our fourth assignment, watercolor then 'copy' another illustration with pen and ink. I chose these illustrations because I feel I did fairly decent with the pen and ink image. I could probably add more lines to it for more value and better perspective. Overall, this assignment was okay. I've done pen and ink before, but I've forgotten all the techniques, and I remember the one project I did in high school that was pen and ink. On an about 13X19 sheet of drawing paper, we did a western scene, mine was looking pretty good until I tried a different technique for grass, and well I ruined the piece just a little, so that was my fun first experience with pen and ink. I'm looking forward to the next assignment, washes with both watercolor and pen and ink.



Next was to do a pen/ink then watercolor wash and then watercolor wash with pen/ink over it. The results seen above. Coincidentally these two I chose were the last of each set I did. The peach is not the same above, this was the watercolor wash first then took pen/ink over it. Working with pen/ink is harder dealing with value, but I know that it takes practice. As for the marker in the top image, first applied was the pen/ink, then watercolor wash on top. I'm happy with how this turned out. I think it was easier/ better looking working with the ink first then wash, the pen/ink isn't so dominating of the image and allows for a good balance.

I think this is our last for little 10-20 small image paintings. This last assignment was to do the same object with 10 different styles/techniques. My object was a Sharpie pen. The top image is done with just pen and ink and the bottom was pen and ink with a gouche wash over.

VisComII: Redesigning Flyers

Our first, second, and third assignments, were to redesign flyers Rusty found around campus, with the use of only black being our only color and no bleed.

The two above were the third redesigns, the specs were on a 11X17 this time. I think I had the most fun with these, maybe because I got to mess around in photoshop more and even sketched my own graphic for the 'Latin Dance Fiesta'. 'Climb to New Heights' I've change from the critique in class, as you can now see the contrast better on-screen than what my printer allowed, and I alligned the title to a straight line, rather than diagonal to before.

As for the 'German Evening' it was a bit more difficult I think, just because there wasn't as much to work with or hard to come up with a full concept.

I already know things I want to change and if need be for a portfolio piece, I'll change the image to an illustration ('Ancient Greek').