Illustration Techniques
This page displays some illustration projects created using (1) traditional illustration techniques and medium, such as collage, color pencils, scratchboard, gouache, markers, and others; and (2) digital camera and Adobe Photoshop tools.
For any questions, please send me an email ([email protected]).
Honorable Mention from Mayor Tom Bradley Art Competition, 2018
The Life and Legacy of the Mayor Tom Bradley Project (Illustration)
The illustrations below, one with line-art only and the other colored with color pencils, celebrate the great achievement of Tom Bradley, the first African-America elected as the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, serving five consecutive terms (1973-1993).
On the top, Pope John Paul II who visited Los Angeles during Tom Bradley's term, Adlai Stevenson who served as his political mentor, Martin Luther King his comrade during the Civil Rights Movement, and President Linden Johnson appear as angles above a celebration scroll and a group of balloons. In the middle, partially in front of and partially behind the gigantic image of the Mayor is featured a movie film stripe enclosing images showing the Major's important life events and major accomplishments, such as his ancestors being transported across the Atlantic Ocean on slave ship, his early years living in poverty with his sharecropper parents in a simple log cabin, the mascot of the Poly-technical High School he attended, his playing football, his connection with the Southwestern Law School, the Olympiad in Los Angeles during his term, the LAX Airport that he helped to expand. |
On the middle left, images of sky-scrappers of the Century City, Warner Center and Bunker Hills Financial District represent his successes in promoting economic growth, the image of Ethel Bradley, his wife also appear here. On the middle right, images of Los Angeles City Hall and of local plants symbolize Los Angeles' multi-cultural communities.
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At the bottom left corner, a lotus flower, a symbol of peace and unity in Asian-American culture, is associated with the logos or symbols of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Rainbow Coalition, Jewish and Protestant faiths, and the LGBT Civil Right Movement; many of the members of these groups constitute his social foundation and power base. The logos of the Donkey representing the Democratic Party and the Grizzly Bear and the Red Star from the flag of the State of California are both embedded in his jacket. At the bottom right corner, rose and peony blossom symbolize his love for the City of Los Angeles and friendship with Chinese-American communities. The major is a great promoter of public transit system in Los Angeles; scenes from the Metro Subway System at the middle right affirm his contribution in this area. The artist's image and signature are featured at the bottom right corner.
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The Life and Legacy of the Mayor Tom Bradley Project (Acrylic and Enamel Painting)
A corresponding acrylic and enamel painting project has been completed, and is displayed in the Acrylic Painting webpage of this website.
The Alperts Give Millions for Music Color Pencil Illustration and the LACC Herb Alpert Music Center Mixed Media Illustration
The two mixed-media illustrations below celebrate the donation of $10 million by Herb Alpert Foundation to the Music Department of Los Angeles City College, creating the Herb Alpert Music Center.
Figure IT-2. Mixed media illustration (watercolor, markers and color pencils) created to celebrate Alpert Foundation's donation to Los Angeles City College Music Department. In this illustration, thinned watercolor inks have been loaded to the tip of a 1/2 inch wide brush and splashed over the illustration board to create some background texture; next, black markers of various tip sizes have been used to create outlines of different features; and then color pencils have been used to complete the illustration.
The Los Angeles City College Herb Alpert Music Center Mixed Media Illustration
The Birth of the Manchu Nation Illustrations
This project consists of (1) writing a story and (2) creating illustrations for the story using a variety of traditional and digital tools. The writing part includes several components, such as the story outline, the character description, and the story development, which includes (a) Stasis/Exposition, (b) Rising Action, (c) Climax, (d) falling Action, and (e) resolution; each of these is subdivided into scenes for the creation of illustrations. The sample story could be read in the pdf. file below.
edward_storytelling_birth_manchu_nation.pdf | |
File Size: | 246 kb |
File Type: |
The side views of the faces of Aisin Joro, shown in Figure IT-2F, are created by first creating the side views of the face without eyes and mouths, and next, manipulating the eyes and mouths shown in Figure IT-2E with Photoshop Edit-Transform-Scale and -Warp tools and combining them with the faces, as illustrated in Figures IT-2G through IT-2P below.
Order and Chaos Magazine Cover
One Word Illustration Project
This project requires artists to create a simple illustration per one selected word. In this project, "corn," broccoli," "strawberry," and "sad" have been selected.
Camera Angle Sketch Project
This project consists of watching a YouTube video, stopping at a point where an interesting camera angle is found and make a quick sketch, and repeating the same procedures six times.
Figure IT-5. Quick sketch exercises using graphite pencils and sticks, for different camera angles found in YouTube videos, including "bird's eye," "group shot," "framing with overlay" (top row, from left to right), "medium shot," "view through overlay," and "tilt/Dutch angle" (bottom row, from left to right).
Marker and Pencil Illustration Techniques
Figures IT-4A through 4F demonstrate the step-by-step procedure for creating a line art illustration using markers and color pencils.
Photoshop Coloring Techniques
Coloring of lineart illustration could be achieved digitally in Adobe Photoshop. in Figure IT-7 below, the lineart work has been created with a black brush tip marker and scanned into Photoshop; next, several new Layers have been created for coloring and placed below the layer containing the original scanned image, and the white background of the scanned image has been deleted; next, the Brush tool with a soft-edge brush tip has been used to add colors.
Collage Projects
Illustrations with Other Media ...
Websites from illustration professionals and teachers
Textbooks
Reference Books
- http://www.artsandjustice.org/ (This site belongs to Professor O.M. Santos, who teaches Graphic Design, Animation and Illustration courses at Los Angeles City College). Professor Santos' website offer a lot of insights and real-world techniques.
Textbooks
- Arthur L. Guptill, Rendering in Pen and Ink, ISBN 0-8230-4530-7, PCL Call Number 720.284 GUP 1976 (Edward Locke's Note: This is a great book for the study of the skills of using pens and markers for line art illustration).
- Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast, Illustration: A Visual History, ISBN 978-0-8109-7284-1, PCC Call Number NC 998 .H66 2008 (Edward Locke's Note: This is a great book for the study of the evolution of styles of illustration, and is highly recommended as the principal textbook for a college-level history of illustration course).
Reference Books
- Andrew Loomis, Creative Illustration, ISBN 978-1845769284
- Bert Dodson, Keys to Drawing with Imagination: Strategies and Exercises for Gaining Confidence and Enhancing Your Creativity, ISBN 978-1-44035-073-3
- Dan Cooney, The Complete Guide to Figure Drawing for Comics and Graphic Novels, ISBN 978-1-4380-0098-5
- David H. Ross, Freehand Figure Drawing for Illustrators: Mastering the Art of Drawing from Memory, ISBN 978-0-38534-623-8
- James Gurney, Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist (James Gurney Art), ISBN 978-0-7407-8550-4
- Martin Dawber, Modern Vintage Illustration, ISBN 978-1-84994-032-0, PCC Call Number NC 997 .D39 2012 (Edward Locke's Note: This book offers a great source of inspiration for illustrators and graphic designers, with examples of a variety of styles).
- Peter Gray, The Complete Guide to Drawing & Illustration, ISBN 978-1-78599-164-6
- Scott Robertson and Thomas Bertling, How to Render: The Fundamentals of Light, Shadow and Reflectivity, ISBN 978-193349296-4 (Edward Locke's Note: A great textbook!)
- The Society of Illustrators ([email protected]), Illustrators 45: The Society of Illustrators 45th Annual of American Illustration, ISBN 0-06-058570-6, PCC Call Number NC 975 .I5 2004 (Edward Locke's Note: This publication offers a great source of inspiration for illustrators and graphic designers).
Recommended YouTube Videos: Illustration Styles and Techniques
Edward Locke's SuniSea Studio
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