Every 24 hours in America

This many people die from smoking related causes:

That's 1213.69 people. Statistics found at The National Cancer Institute.

Get your crayons out

Because it's coloring book time! Sharpen your pencils, bust out your gel pens, wet your watercolors, because this time it'll be coming to you live on cardstock! I won't tell you too much about it right now, because I have four (!) projects (big 'uns) going on in my design production class, and thinking about the other three classes makes my eyes roll back in my head. But here's a sneak peak:

I have been so blessed and inspired by many amazing women in my life. Stay tuned, I'll keep mini-previews coming, and it will be available for sale November 4th!

First Illustration Project

The assignment was to create a cut-paper book jacket; the one I got was "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks. Sacks is a neurologist who "uses fascinating and occasionally bizarre and quirky medical case studies to examine the powerful connection between music and the human brain throughout history." It was really fun to design something almost entirely with my hands. Last year I created three book jackets for a Graphic design class, and all of them, start to finish, were mostly digital. This was a fun prompt, sometimes the limitations in our requirements really stretch us out of our comfort zone and produce much more unique results.

Thanks for reading, hope everyone had a great weekend!

Summer's Over

Senior Year Part Two has commenced, and the times of reading for fun, watching Twin Peaks, and having any sort of social time on weeknights is over.

This was the last book I read for fun, to be replaced by: "Forms, Folds, Sizes," "Pricing & Ethical Guidelines," "Print & Finish," "Pocket Pal: The Handy Book of Graphic Arts Production," and finally "Indie Publishing." I'll say this for my major, we have the prettiest textbooks, maybe someday in the madness I'll find time to draw them. But there are MANY things I'm excited for in the upcoming year.

1. Illustration 352 with Jim Henterly. This is probably not the thing I should be admitting on an illustration blog, but I will. DRAWING TERRIFIES ME. I still do it because it's fun, and I started this blog so I can try to improve. So the goal with this class is to break out my comfort zone of still life and "stuff", and practice practice practice.

2. Senior Design Production. My emphasis within the Graphic Design department is Design Production, or as I like to call it "the nitty gritty nuts and bolts". We are the ones learning the technical side of printing, file management skills, many methods of printing and binding, and how to do it all within budget. Our advisor, Elsi Vassdal Ellis, is an encyclopedia, an artist, and a knowledgeable machine. Stay tuned for updates on this one, it's going to be a fun year.

3. Design Ocean: our student chapter of AIGA. We're a club for our program that brings student speakers to campus, has group critiques, shares inspiration, and hosts an on-campus event called Design Days (go to the Flickr page to see pictures). The first meeting is of the year is tonight, and I'm terribly excited.

4. FRIENDS! Many have graduated and moved, many are still in school, and some are in Europe. (Europe? JEALOUS!). And many friends I get to spend hours upon hours with in the good ol' arts building.

5. THE FUTURE. Job searching? Leaving Bellingham? I'm very thankful it's only September, but everything my professors are telling me are to get my butt in gear. Hence part of the motivation for this longer-than-normal blog post.

So thanks for sticking with it, I'll be talking to you soon!

Augoblogmo ends

As said by Robert Byrne, professional chess player.

Torin's keys

I was drawing my keys while enjoying THIS cup of coffee:

When I got my first commissioned work. Sorta. It was my suggestion.

Voila! Torin's keys. P.S.: I'm taking commissions.

Bananaphone

I wish this was still my ringtone.