Final Portfolio

All of my pieces were officially approved! YIPEEEEE! For my final portfolio I included my three image gouache, my world record, my classical music cover, and my society of illustrators. I was pretty pleased with each of these four pieces. On my three image gouache, my favorite part was the background modeled wash. I also really liked how the zebra turned out, probably because he is the popping part of the piece since he's black and rainbow. The world record was a struggle. It looked like poop for a long long time and then what do you know, some guy told me to splatter the road and add line art, and it actually worked- who would of thought??? The world record has been the piece that was most largely impacted by line art; the line art was not complicated and for the most part it was just defining edges, but it made all the difference. My classical music carousel horse is one of my favorite pieces. I liked the simplicity of a single image on a solid background, and who doesn't like horseies? The Society of Illustrators turned out well. I think the suckers really made the piece; they add the lighter color of yellow green to the piece which I think really helped it along. I was pleased with my shadows on the octopus because I'm usually really bad at conveying shadows, but I think I did a good job on this one. And once again with this piece the freakin line art, shadows, and highlights that that one guy always harps on my to add, made this piece pop! You are just as bad as a mom who is always right!
I really liked this class! It was probably my favorite class this semester. One thing I wish I had done differently would have been to take this class during a less stressful semester so that I could have spent all of my time on it. Originally I was planning on studying abroad fall of my junior year, which is why I took the class this semester. Now I'm not really sure if I will study abroad or not, which sucks since that means I could have taken this class then. You are always so helpful, by far the most helpful professor I have had a Truman. Your suggestions always make the piece better and you are always willing to help and give suggestions. I always feel respected as an artist, even though illustration is not my forte; I don't really feel that in all of my classes, so thank you. After this, I still plan to use all of my supplies and skills to keep making some cool stuff!
See you next semester and have fun in Africa, don't get eaten by a tiger!

- Jacquelyn Wheeler

Life and Death

Here's the marker comp for Life and Death! Mmmmmm TURKEY!












And here's the final painting! For this one I went with watercolor and line art. I really like how the live turkey turned out but death is rough and so is my dead turkey.

Society of Illustrators

Here's just a little pre-sketch of my octopus for Society of Illustrators.




















Here's the pre-colored marker comp!
















The Society of Illustrators marker comp completed!

 Well I thought this one was done, but for you Rusty I'll add some freakin highlights!

To Kill a Mockingbird!

 So here is my composition for
my "To Kill a Mockingbird"
book cover. I drew each of the
pieces individually then placed
them together in Photoshop.

Here is my first crack at attempting to illustrate a night scene. . . ya . . I know.

 It's in the works!

 Dat da da da! And we have Scout, Jim, and the creepy guy whose name I can't remember because I haven't read the book in four years! The finished product, we have some yellow ochre on the birdy, some green on the little leafies, and the characters.

The Washington Post

This is my initial sketch for my carousel horse that represents the classical music song,
The Washington Post. I chose to do a carousel horse because The Washington Post use to play on the teeny three seat carousel in the old Kirksville Hardees that I use to ride on; if they still had it I would probably take it for another spin, sadly though, I think they got rid of it :(. Oh and in case you were wondering, yes, my sister and I did force Mom and Dad to eat in the back room every single time we ever ate at Hardees so that we could ride on the baby carousel. . . even when we were too big for it.


The marker comp turned out nicely for this one
. . . especially after you added some line art.

And in the end I was very pleased with the final art; it looked like the marker comp, but better!

World Record

So here we have some of the first stages of the world record illustration. I started with a sketch drawn form a number of reference images and then moved to the marker comp. This marker comp is actually the second marker comp; the first one will magically appear later. I started with a two page full bleed spread with the road spanning both pages and the pig just on the right page. But when your teacher continually hints about making it smaller and making the road more curvy and changing a bunch of little details, you do it. And if that teacher's name is Rusty and he's missing one finger, then it always turns out looking better than the original idea.

Dat da dada! The final piece is complete. I really liked how this one turned out. I wanted the colors to be bright and just kind of funny in general and I think that the bubblegum pink pig accomplished that!

3 Image Gouache

      So here are three pieces of my three image gouache process: the first template, the approved marker comp, and the final photo for the mounted piece. I liked this project in that it was fun to get to put three random objects that I like in my favorite colors! Initially I hated gouache, but I came to find that I really just hated straight up gouache pick out. But since this project could be treated more as a water color with picking as a supplementary tool, I started to warm up to gouache. I'll be posting more soon!

Midterm Portfolio

So here it is, the portfolio! Throughout the first half of the semester I have learned a lot of cool new stuff! I don't really feel like I have had time to fully enjoy and play around with all that I have learned, just from being so busy with other school stuff D: (that's a really sad face, Rusty). I've learned a great deal about how much line can impact a work, whether it's painted line or good ole Sharpie on top of watercolor or by itself, line can really make or break a piece. I've learned a lot about how important it is to let the stinking watercolor dry completely before adding a bunch more to it, so that it doesn't make poop on the paper- I've made quite a bit of paper poop. In addition to letting the paper dry, I've learned a great deal about layering watercolor. Though I don't really feel that I have a "good" handle on the water color layering yet, I think it can make so really awesome stuff happen on the paper. Along with stuff that I've learned that is really cool and that I like, I've also come across stuff that I would really rather gag myself with a spoon than do again, a.k.a gouache pick out! I loathe the gouache pick out!!!!! And I really like what can be done in digital, but I am not so hot at it yet . . . lots of room for improvement :D (that's a really happy face).
In regards to the work that I included in my portfolio, my favorite two pieces are my ketchup, not only is ketchup the best condiment ever, but I really like how the product illustration turned out, and my cows. Both of these pieces, especially the ketchup bottle product illustration, were definitely worth the redo! I think I will frame the ketchup and hang it in my kitchen someday and the cows my go to Grandma and Grandpa's :) ( Just so you know, when my dad saw my cow painting the first thing he asked me was what kind of cows they were, assuming that I wouldn't know, and I spouted right out that they were Holsteins, he was so proud.)
I really do like this class.

KETCHUP! Then and Now

Version 1: So I thought this was pretty great                               Version 2: But then I did this one and
whenever I first did this, and my roommate thought                    I was like well hot dog! This is nice!
it was so freaking awesome that she could hardly                        Heheheheh, I said hotdog and you
contain herself. I would like to let you know that                         can put Ketchup on a hot dog!
this is a fridge pic b/c it is hanging on the fridge in
our house!                    

Self Portrait

Self portrait phase 1. I'm going to come back in with some line work and try to define some areas, especially in the hair and scarf area- yes that's a scarf.

















 Phase 2: So I about peed myself when Rusty started slopping crazy colors on here, but it does look better so I guess I will do some of the same. I think the line art really helped too; there's a lot more contrast and definition going on now. Stay tuned for phase 3!

Line Art and Wash

I really like the ombre affect that happened here.

 The bird got a little muddy  but I think there are still some nice fady affects happening, especially for 2:30 in the morning.

 I didn't have the images picked out that when I made the first loose washes so I ended up with a blue green pumpkin.

 These blue butterflies are my favorite butterfly so therefore, whether this is a good illustration or not, I like it!

 Ya, I didn't really realize that I was using so much blue and green...

 Hey look! Warm colors! And who doesn't love a rubber ducky?!

 Daisies are my favorite flower! I'm not sure how I feel about the little yellow poop drops that happened in the corner.

 Mehh...

 I really like how this wash turned out. The two colors blended nicely and made a happy little accident.

Pigs are cute.

Creepin

5 random people, ok so let's just accept that I honestly just googled random people's faces and got these. Above there is the rainbow girl. I like her face; the rest got a little murky. Below there is the old lady with crazy cool hair, in blue!

 Ok I still don't know how to edit this so that its right side up but let's not dwell on that. I don't have much to say about this one other than not bad :)

EWWWWWWWWW!











The red head had some issues, but he's kinda cool right?

 Ketchup! It really should be a food group! Ya ya I'll redo it without a background! I honestly got new paints and I squirted a little
bit of each color out and the blue was just so pretty  that I had to use it
on something!