Dark Side of the Rainbow

Two more weeks left to go on Ryan W. Cox's "A Circus Mind" Kickstarter project! Here's another illustration I did for the book for a poem entitled "Dark Side of the Rainbow". Prints (and more!) of this image available for sale on my Society6 shop page!

For the Society6 t-shirt I've altered the image a little -- faded away the bottom a bit so it melds into the tshirt colour and added the bottom to the lowest falling brick for added effect.

This is my second Wizard of Oz-inspired illustration. I did the first one for UPPERCASE Studio's Work/Life 2 book. I have a lot of love for Alice in Wonderland and Dorothy, so I couldn't resist illustrating Ryan's "Dark Side of the Rainbow" poem. I really wanted to capture an ominous, dream-like feeling while keeping the image looking kinda storybook. I think the red linework gives it a bit of extra kick!

Here's my initial sketch. Sometimes I like to use grey tones to get a better idea of how an illustration is going to look when it's done. This sketch was done with my tablet.

And here's the sketch I did by hand. This is an extra step I'll do occasionally when the digital sketch requires a bit more finesse before I head to final.

One of the reasons I love the Wizard of Oz so much is that there is such a strong sense of colour throughout that story. The yellow brick road, the ruby slippers, the emerald city... Even the four countries that comprise Oz (Gilliken, Munchkin, Winkie, Quadling) have colours associated with them. Love it!

"Dorothy in the Poppy Field" print selected by Society6

Just a quick note -- Society6 chose "Dorothy in the Poppy Field" to be included in the Society6 shop. I can vouch for the quality of their prints, having ordered an "Umamihime" print of my own!

Dorothy in the Poppy Field

Here's my Work/Life 2 image! I wanted it to look somewhat related to my Alice at the Tea Party illustration in subject manner and execution. My Alice piece has a very early springtime feel, I wanted this one to be more lazy hazy late summer.

Dorothy prints on canvas and more on my Society6 Printshop
Dorothy original silkscreen prints for sale on Etsy

My mom tells me that I should make sure to let people know these illustrations are silkscreen prints. She's a clever lady, so I'm going to do as she says!

Everything on my portfolio site (except for "Umami: The Fifth Taste" ) are silkscreen prints. That's hard to see when stuff is at low-res 72dpi, so I'm going to start posting images of extreme close-ups of my work so all the weird, rough, real, and natural details can be seen.

I once did a (for me) massive silkscreen print for a college assignment for wise and wacky illustrator/illo prof Rick Sealock. If you ever get a chance to have Rick as a teacher, grab it with both hands and wrestle it to the ground! I mean wrestle the chance, not Rick. The silkscreen print was about 20"x10". I don't often work that large because the amount of materials, time, difficulty, and potential for disasters increases exponentially as I increase the size of my prints. But I wanted to explore the possibility of working larger, and that's what school is for!

My point being, I had done this gigantic silkscreen print, dusted off my portfolio so I could drag it all the way to Oakville, and Rick pointed to an area of the illustration the size of a melba toast and announced that that was the bit he liked. I was just relieved that he liked any part of it, but it's true: Sometimes little corners of an illustration can be lovely and work on their own.


(Click the image to enlarge)



(Click the image to enlarge)

I love silkscreen printing. I love having a physical piece of art in my hands that doesn't just exist as Matrix-y strings of zeros and ones. It's worth the struggles, surprises, and little discoveries. Here's to wabi-sabi!

Going My Way, continued

Here's something I'm returning to after being busy with other stuff. My Wizard of Oz piece! I decided to update her look a bit to make it a bit more fashion-y. It's kind of the same thing I did with my Alice piece, although visually I have a different look in mind for this one.

Yellow and green are two of my favourite colours to use, so I'm kind of surprised it's taken me this long to do a Wizard of Oz illustration!

Going my way?

I love the Wizard of Oz books. The movie is classic, but for me the books will always win. John R. Neill's pen and ink illustrations made such an impression on me when I was a kid. I might even bust out some Glinda the Good and Ozma!