Midterm portfolio

Here are the five illustrations I've chosen to include in my midterm portfolio. They are the memory portrait, the product illustration, the large watercolor, and two smaller watercolors. I've come to realize I like watercolor a lot more than gouache. 

Here is my memory portrait. I first used pen and ink and drew out the details.  Then, I used watercolor to add the color. I choose the color scheme because I thought the blues and purples caught the quiet mood well, and the yellow adds a little bit of contrast and fun.  Overall, I think it is successful because of the abstract use of color and the variation of line weights.

Here is my gouache product illustration. I choose to do a bottle of Sun Drop. This was one of the first gouaches I have ever done, so considering that, I think it's pretty good. I like the subtractive process that you can use in gouache, but it is easy for the image to get messy and muddy. My favorite part of the illustration is the top of the bottle and the bottom right corner, with the splashes. Oh, and the red splatters of blood.

Here is my large watercolor. I the subject matter of this one a lot. The image was taken from a photograph I took when driving back up to school from home on highway 100, around Hermann, MO. It's quite a beautiful little spot. I think the trees and clouds are pretty successful in this one. After doing it, I realized that you don't have to necessary have a lot of detail and visual information to get the same message across. I will probably go back and fix the messier parts of this illustration, ie the brushstrokey road and the parts of the sky that are too blotchy.

I like this little illustration because it is when I first started to understand how to use watercolor to its fullest potential. I realized that you can use a lot of water and have the surface really wet but still manage to have control over the piece. I really like the colors and the foggy lake.

The clouds in this one are probably the best I've done. I think I used tissues instead of paper towels to blot out the clouds, and it proved to be pretty effective. The landscape kind of looks like somewhere out in the Dakotas or maybe Wyoming. Cooooolll.