Road Intersection and Road Sign Gouache Painting

Here is another piece I made for work. As you can see it's taking a lot of my time! So exciting to have a job where I get paid to draw things, though.

This piece was done in gouache in sections, then assembled in the computer. The sizes ranged from 5"x5" to 11"x14". The final posters, below, are 11"x17". More info on these events, about intersectional town hall education discussions, is on my org's website, OurFamily.org.

Balloon Animal Sketches

I made these balloon animal sketches for a piece at work that ended up getting changed to a completely different concept along the process. But here they are as individual objects for your enjoyment! They were done in ink on drawing paper, and each animal is about 8" square or so.

Monsters!

I made these computer-illustrated monsters at work for some promotional materials. As you can see it's not my usual style at all. I am especially happy with the monster for the Halloween invite, above and below. For the MaMas & PaPas monsters, I don't think that they hold up as well on their own, but I like how they work in the overall composition, below. They were inspired by the monsters in the Children's Creativity Museum logo and materials, where the group is held. It was a fun challenge to try to make them fantastical but still cute and welcoming for children. 

For all of the monsters, I sketched them out by hand and then traced them in Illustrator. For more info on the events, visit my work's website at OurFamily.org. 

September 2013 Porcupine Desktop Background - FREE DOWNLOAD

Happy September! Here is this month's Porcupine desktop background. Click the image above to make it bigger and then save it or right-click and set it as your desktop background. Drop me a comment or email if it doesn't work, or you need a larger size!

Below is a detail of the full porcupine, which was done in ink on 14"x" bristol paper. 

Clotheslines

I painted this piece for a fair that raised awareness about clothesline drying and the environment, though it ended up not being used. It was still really fun to make! I am really happy with the washes and the color scheme. The houses are inspired by the Victorian houses around Oakland, Berkeley, and the rest of the East Bay, while the treehouse, birdhouse, and swing remind us how fun and exciting clotheslines can be! The original is 18"x24" watercolor. 

Below are some details, the original sketch, and an alternate version. 

Alphabet of Augury & Haruspicy

This is a book project I've been working on for a few weeks, called "Alphabet of Augury & Haruspicy." The drawings are ink on bristol, while the cover and binding is made with embroidery floss, a papier mache bird, canvas, more bristol and ink, and linen tape. 

Augury is the superstitious process of determining the future from the flight of birds, while haruspicy is a similar divination that uses the entrails of sacrificed animals; both originated in Ancient Rome. This book is a visual exploration of these practices as well as the practice of art, mark-making, and letterforms. Both divination practices rely on "signs" from the gods, which the augur or haruspex interprets. In this bound series of original drawings, the birds bodies and innards become at once sign, letters, and text, the text becomes entrails and fortune-telling, and the act of art-making becomes akin to the act of divining - or creating - the future. 

Right now I only have photographs of the bound book and selected bound pages, I will post scans when I have them. These photos are on the blog in the order in which they are bound in the book, though not all pages are shown. 

LGTBQ Immigration Stories / Historias de Inmigración LGBT Illustration and Flyer Design

I've been trying to post to this blog regularly again, but things keep getting in way - usually fun things that keep me busy, like the fact that I have an awesome new job as the Design and Communications Coordinator at Our Family Coalition, a nonprofit in San Francisco. One of my favorite parts is getting to do illustrations for the org's collateral, like these flyers I designed for an LGBTQ oral history project. (English is above, Spanish version follows.) 

Monarch butterflies are a symbol of the beauty of migration. Part of the art direction for this project was to check out the awesome art / political project, Migration is Beautiful. 

Some of the text from the English flyer: 

We will use personal stories to move public opinion in support of LGBTQ immigrants. Our primary goal is to disseminate powerful LGBTQ immigration testimonies through digital and traditional media in order to inspire change. Don't let our immigrant families' stories continue to be ignored by the mainstream media! Make your voice heard today. 

Share your story via application by August 15th. 

Be interviewed by one of our team members, who will work around your schedule. Interviews can be anonymous.

Apply today by sending us an email to policy@ourfamily.org with your name and the best way to reach you by August 1st. For details and questions, please contact marina@ourfamily.org. We look forward to hearing from you and sharing our stories with the broader community!

The illustrations were made with pen and ink and watercolor. The silhouettes I outlined by hand in ink, then filled in the computer. The wings are watercolor with ink and gouache over them, and the backgrounds are watercolor and gouache. Details of the individual piece are below. 

I would have liked to make a more complex image of the winged family, but we were working on a very tight deadline. In the end, I like how all of the somewhat simple images work together in the composition. And I will have more opportunities to explore this and other imagery in future work for my new job! 

This is also my first big project with both English and Spanish text. It was an interesting challenge to see how the different lengths of text changed the layout, and how having accent marks limited typeface choices. 

August 2013 Fire Ant Desktop Background - FREE DOWNLOAD

Hello August! Here is this month's Fire Ant desktop background. Click the image above to make it bigger and then save it or right-click and set it as your desktop background. Drop me a comment or email if it doesn't work, or you need a larger size!

This month I included calendars of the previous and following month too, since I find that I often end up looking up what day of the week certain days in those months are. Also, below is a detail of the full fire ant, which was done in gouache on 9"x12" bristol paper. 

Full Color Spread of Louise's Scuba Diving Trip Underwater

Louise's scuba driving trip in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the spreads I colored for my final project. She meets a saddleback turtle, a sea spider, some eels, a seahorse, various fish, and a happy manatee family.

The original is ink, watercolor, and a tiny bit of gouache on 30"x11" watercolor paper. Some colors were adjusted in the computer.

Spidery spread sketches for Louise

As I mentioned in my spider-free post, I had made a full dummy of my book with sketches for each spread. I started out doing my sketches at the same size I would paint them, like the underwater spread and parasailing spread. But as the deadline approached, I decided that since I wouldn't be coloring these, I would do them at a much smaller size. So they have significantly less detail, have not been cleaned up as much, and the lines appear much thicker compared to the other ones. 

If I were to complete the entire book, I would go for a much more consistent look. I like how these sketches with their heavier lines turned out, but for this project I like the look of working in a larger size and shrinking down. 

These were done in pencil and pen on 15"x6.5" paper. 

I made another post with the spreads spreads that do not have any spiders, for those who don't like seeing those critters but like to see my work. Here are the remaining, spider-filled spreads. 

From top to bottom, these spreads depict: Louise visiting Louise Bourgeois' Maman in Canada (my character is named after Bourgeois, however, Louise is also my middle name, so her sister has my sister's middle name for her own, Joy); Louise visiting a trapdoor spider in her arts-and-crafts-style underground house; a vegetarian spider (the Bagheera kiplingi) and bat-eating spider that Louise encounters; Louise biking out to find Joy; Louise meeting some horses, dogs, cats, and argiopes in stable; and the first spread, when Louise meets the mailman (recently renamed Liam) who gives her Joy's invitation to come visit.