#micas art

The finished piece that these doodles were studies for; my final for Watercolor for the Illustrator. This was a very emotional piece for me, as the concept deals with the mental health issues I’ve been struggling with this year. It felt good to do, though.

The finish of my Atlantic Blue Crab life cycle painting. I might fuss around with the type design a bit more, but it’s done for now. [ETA: type changed somewhat.] See the work-in-progress here.

Working on my atlantic blue crab life cycle illustration- here you have my palette, my color comp, the in-progress final piece, and all of my research on what other people have done with the same concept (almost universally badly drawn, typeset, or designed, which is actually kind of heartening)

Extra-credit assignment in Survey of Illustration, for the prompt ‘circular composition depicting a fantasy creature in their environment’. I had the most fun background painting here- the gnomes were a bit of an afterthought, to be honest. 

sao-miguel-with-an-iphone:

Part 2/3 of my Azores sketchbook: midweek, the accidental mountain climb, and botany fun.

1. The bridge leading into the center of town in Povoação
2. A waterfall in a gorge above the town of Faial da Terra, in a rare patch of native laurel forest
3. Quick drawing of the venation on a leaflet of a Rooting Chainfern (Woodwardia radicans), and an example Solanaceae flower to use as a watercolor technique demonstration for my mother.
4. And a panoramic painting of the view down from about 3/4s of the way up to the highest point on São Miguel, Pico da Vara, shortly after we spotted the (very) endangered Priolo.

Speedpaint of the town and lake of Furnas (São Miguel, Azores).

The Priolo (or Azores Bullfinch) is the second-rarest bird in Europe, and I had the extraordinary privilege of seeing a couple of them in the wild when I was on São Miguel last month. This is for the wonderful people at the Centro Ambiental do Priolo, who are doing fantastic conservation work to recover the native laurel forests and protect the remaining birds.

Very quick little whale skeleton drawings to go in the new museum map for the New Bedford Whaling Museum. (Not to scale)

Colored pencil on vellum rendering and digital collage of Shiitake mushrooms. You may remember this from the work-in-progress I posted a few weeks ago. Get the print here at my society6 shop!

The final version of my Rosa rugosa painting. See more work-in-progress shots hereandhere. Get the print here, at my society6 shop!

More work-in-progress shots from this painting.

It’s finals week here at SCAD, and my finals are consumed with botanical illustration! Stay tuned for the finished versions of all the work-in-progress shots I’ve been posting lately.

Some work-in-progress shots of my current pieces: the final rendering of the mushrooms (in colored pencil on mylar), and some media/style tests for my edible plant book (watercolor and ink on hot-press illustration board).

Quick studies of Shiitake mushrooms as preparatory sketches for a final rendering.

Dogwood studies. Black and grey colored pencil on vellum- April 2013. There are several species or cultivars represented here.

The New York Times style magazine letter T, for advertising illustration.

Mock-up book cover for the digital collage assignment in Electronic Illustration. If you haven’t read any Gerald Durrell, you should do yourself a favor and do so, because he’s wonderful. A lot of his work is currently out-of-print, but easy enough to find nonetheless.

The sculpture portion of my cicada project. I’ll have the final rendering and layout up tomorrow.

Approx. 4" long; chavant clay, armature wire, and acetate.

More progress on my cicada project- starting the final rendering of the larvae exoskeleton.