Friday, September 18, 2015

Round 2 of the GTS

I entered the Lilla Roger’s Global Talent Search again this year and was lucky to make it through to the second round. This is my second year of making it in to the semi-finals. Pinch me. It is such a wonderful opportunity for illustrators to win 2 years’ representation from the amazing Lilla Rogers Studio. It is an unbelievable opportunity. Below is my round 2 submission! If you would like to cast a vote, please click here! Thanks in advance for taking a look!



For the second round assignment we were asked to create a metal tin or multiple tins that would represent a style or look that "Our Muse Antoinette" might purchase for her small boutique.

I was very excited about the parameters of the assignment and had an idea right away about what I wanted to create. I knew that I wanted to do a set of nesting tins and it would be based on a theme that had it’s origins in a phrase or saying. I have recently been working with flowers and birds in my art so with that being fresh on the brain, I started thinking about a phrase that related to nature. The feeling you get when you are deep inside the forest surrounded by the lush canopy that muffles the sounds of the city, feeling small in its splendor. The phrase kinda wrote it self- "Find enchantment deep inside the forest." I did tweaked it somewhat, until I could break it into three sections that would  make sense on their own, Find Enchantment, Deep Inside, The Forest. Once I had the phrase the overall sketch for the design came rather quickly. 

Although, I do some work using traditional media, my work is primarily digital, My typical process progression would be to first sketch out the overall design just to visualize the space and then take it into the computer. Theses sketches are usually very rough and at times unreadable even for me. Once I have a pretty good idea of how the composition should be laid out, I then start sketching the individual elements. These are also pretty rough but detailed enough to bring into Adobe Illustrator to redraw digitally, before taking them into Adobe Photoshop to paint. Here are a couple of examples of the sketch, the vector shapes and the final digital painting of both the peacock and fawn I used for my tins. 




I love texture and have cultivated and developed a series of brushes in Photoshop to paint in the texture with. I'm also layer crazy and tend to get a little carried away using the blend modes that optically change objects on the layers below. Blend modes help to do things like make the color more luminous or change the hue or saturation of the objects below. At times, I get so caught up in using blend modes, that even a small shadow ends up taking 3 times longer than it should. I don’t mind though, I get so lost in the process that I never really think of it as being work.

Although I do use Adobe Illustrator to redraw and create the shapes that I bring into Photoshop to paint, there are times that I need a texture or a delicate line, like in the case of the bird’s nest below, that is more difficult to achieve using the software, so I will sketch or paint these elements using traditional media first. These sketches or little paintings are more developed then my typical sketches and I scan them in at a higher resolution to use directly in my digital painting. For the nest, I removed the white background of the page using the Channels palette in Photoshop. The Channels palette allows you to select the white of the page and delete it so that the background becomes transparent without losing any of the detail of the sketch. Once the background is removed I can then change the color of the line work and paint over it with my texture and airbrush brushes to get the final effect.



Lately, I have been working on my overall presentation and it made sense to me to stack the tins and keep the neutral background more simple since my designs are fairly detailed. 

The public voting round lasts through Monday 9/21/2015 and the 6 finalists will be announced on Wednesday 9/23/2015. This is such an exciting opportunity. I so appreciate your support. Thanks again! Diane


Friday, September 11, 2015

Global Talent Search 2015

I am currently taking part in the Global Talent Search 2015 by Lilla Rogers’ Studio and recently found out that I was selected as one of the 50 artists to make it to the 2nd round of the competition! I am so happy and honored to be included in this group of amazingly talented artists and illustrators. Check out the entries that made it into the top 50 by clicking here. Below is mine.

For the first assignment we were asked to create a pattern design for a pair(s) of sneakers for a fictional young woman named Antoinette. We were given an outline that fleshed out who Antoinette was, including an introduction to her neighborhood, job and a day in her life to use as a guideline to help us come up with our design/illustration. We had 2 weeks to complete the assignment which gave me time to do plenty of research and sketching. I knew that I was going to create at least 2 shoe designs and that 1 would be a floral pattern. I had a lot of fun taking photographs of all the lovely flowers in full bloom near the tennis court where I meet for a weekly drill. To create the pattern I brought my sketches into Adobe Illustrator and created the shapes that I then exported into Photoshop to paint them. I am still getting a feel for pattern making and spent hours developing a pattern out of all my painted flower shapes. I loved everything about the experience and was over the moon when I found out that I had made it into the top 50. I am now busy working on my 2nd round assignment. Wish me luck! :)


Saturday, September 5, 2015

Make Art That Sells Home Decor Course

I recently completed a new course offered by the Lilla Rogers Studio School designed for the Home Decor market called Creating Collections for Home Décor. It was team taught by top art agent Lilla Rogers & Margo Tantau the Creative Director @ Midwest-CBK.

The course was an intensive 5 weeks with one assignment per week using a different substrate to create a comprehensive home decor collection. For each assignment we were asked to create pieces featuring products made from metal, fabric, glass, ceramics and wood/MDF.


I have taken a few of the Make Art that Sells Courses and this course may have been my favorite. Below are the 5 collections that I created.






In creating these collections we were asked to choose a mood board made exclusively for the class as inspiration, in regards to color, texture, lushness etc. I chose the Field Flower board, mainly because I was attracted to the color palette selected for that board. 

As the course developed it became more apparent that the icongraphy overlapped with the previous weeks so that by the final week we had a varied yet cohesive collection.

Although the work load was intense I thoroughly enjoyed the class and was very pleased with the direction that my work took. I realized that I loved to draw and in creating work for this class, I was able to develop a digital painting technique that is probably the most aligned to my aesthetic and drawing style. That was one of the most exciting things that I took away from the class.

In the 5 short weeks, I learned so much about the home decor market and how to present my work and ideas. Thanks to both Lilla and Margo! And to the Facebook community of amazing and talented artists that make the class fun and dynamic and great place to share and learn!