Wedding Program

A recently completed project - illustrations for a close friend's wedding programs. She asked for an image of their hands, hers with mehndi (henna). The color image was used on the outside of the program, the line drawing on the inside.

The couple sent a picture of her hands after she had the mehndi applied - they used the design that I created for the illustration. Pretty cool!

Recent project - wedding logo

Here's one fairly recent project - a logo for a wedding. The couple wanted something they could use on all their printed materials - their menus, website, programs, etc. .

Color studies for dragon sketch

Here's some revised sketches and color studies for the dragon sketch that I had posted previously. The only difference in the bottom two is that one has the ball that the dragon is chasing; the other doesn't. I'm leaning towards leaving it out.

Sketch for a new portfolio piece

I'm working on adding to my portfolio, and am trying to do something a little different from my normal point of view. I'm going to try to render this in watercolor, which is a relatively new medium for me. Should be an interesting experiment.

Faking Tilt Shift Photography

Using this tutorial, I took some of our photos from Italy and made them look like miniatures. Some were more successful than others - you have to have the right photo to start with, but overall it was surprisingly easy.

Another mermaid/giant hair drawing

The hair got a little out of control on this one. But I really had fun drawing it.

Mermaids with big hair

I have decided to combine my love of drawing mermaids with my love of drawing women with big hair.

I have a new wacom tablet

I bought a new Wacom Cintiq 12wx and it's awesome. It really is very similar to just drawing on a piece of paper - that is, if that piece of paper was THE MOST AWESOME PIECE OF PAPER EVER MADE!! I think I'm in love.

In the meantime, I probably won't be posting much for a while, due to a top secret illustration project that will be taking up all my time for the next few months.

Cards for Art Star

A bunch of cards are on their way to Art Star in Philadelphia!

I signed up for Twitter

Well, I signed up for Twitter. I can't tell right now if it will be a great promotional tool or just a colossal time sucker. Right now it's tending towards the time sucker end of the spectrum.

Here's my twitter account - I'm sure I'll have no end of fascinating things to say, right? https://twitter.com/lizwongart

Breakfast

Who wants pancakes and carrot juice? Yum, yum!

Breakfast for Illustration Friday - done in a combo of Illustrator and Photoshop.

Magic carrot ride?

Yep, that's a blue rabbit riding a carrot. I don't really know what else to say about this one.

Have some tea

Another drawing in Adobe Illustrator. Going for sort of a retro look.

Coffee

Not sure where this came from - just playing around in Illustrator. I've been using Illustrator for a lot of projects lately; it's kind of fun.

Jane Austen Font

For you Janeites out there, I found this Jane Austen font on Dafont.com. It's based on her actual handwriting. There's quite a nice explanation of the font on the font creator's site.

Giant Hair

This is a perfectly reasonable hairstyle, I assure you.

Drawing with brush pens is so much fun.

Illustration Friday - Diary

This was way too much fun to do. I'm really loving the hand lettering.

Ripple Blog - raising money for the Gulf Oil Spill

The Ripple Blog is a pretty amazing site. They've raised almost $8000 for the Gulf Oil Spill so far - $10 at a time. Also, they have some big name illustrators (Mo Willems, Jared Krosoczka, Dan Santat, among others) whose art is available for $50. Check it out, buy some art, help some animals.

Fashionable Girl

Just a quick drawing tonight, didn't have time to do much with this one.

Happy Birthday, sorry about your present.

Working on a potential new birthday card design. Again, I am just missing posting on the 6th because it's 4 minutes after midnight.

Character Studies and Spot Illustrations

Just some character studies and spot illustrations of a pioneer girl. I just read the Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, which was great, by the way; guess these were loosely inspired by that book.

Scooter Girl Illustration

I have come to the realization that I have no idea how to draw a scooter. Also, technically I missed posting on the 4th of July, but only because it's just past midnight.

Hipster Illustration

I'm going to try to post more in July, every day if I possibly can. Admittedly, I missed the first day of July, but it was my birthday, so I think I can be excused.

Anyhow, I was just having fun drawing a hipster guy.

Chick Habit Buttons

A club in the UK is using my "Hey DJ" image to produce some buttons. It's called Chick Habit, and they only play music by women - pretty cool!

Website Update

I am very happy to say that I just updated my illustration website (LizWongIllustration.com) with a new header and some new portfolio images. I am especially excited about my new handwritten type.

Watercolor self portrait

It was self portrait day in watercolor class. We did a project in which we took a photograph of ourselves and gridded it off, then drew an identical grid on our watercolor paper. We had two index cards with 1" squares cut out of the center. As we painted, we put one card over one square on our photograph, and another card over the same square on our painting, and painted exactly what we saw in that square. Thus, my face is broken into 1" squares. It did come out amazingly accurate, though.

Illustration Friday - Slither?

Well, it's not slithering exactly, more swimming, but it vaguely fits the theme.

This is a study for a potential new portfolio piece. I was inspired when reading Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, which is one of the Newberry Honor books this year.

Recently completed project - wedding invitation

I just finished up this project - these are images for a wedding invitation. Any project where I get to draw unicorns, merpeople, and period costumes is okay by me.

Watercolor flowers

Another assignment from my watercolor class:

Watercolor fruit

I am taking a watercolor class in order to improve my skills. Our week 2 assignment was a fruit still life. I'm fairly happy with the results. Normally painting a still life bores me to death, but I can see why it's a good exercise. And I must say, I have always read that using good paper makes a big difference, and I always sort of scoffed at that idea, but now I must admit I am a convert to Arches watercolor paper.

Happy Easter!

Here are some bunnies for you.

Some useful portfolio tips

I ran across these rather useful posts about what art directors like to see in your portfolio and thought I'd share:

http://chavelaque.blogspot.com/2008/04/squids-101-what-i-like-to-see-in.html

http://scottefranson.com/3-books/publishing/analyzeportfolio.html

Watercolor experiment, 2

Here's the second of my watercolor experiments. I find that I actually have ended up painting several different parts on different pieces of paper, and then combine them digitally, so it ends up being a mix of traditional and digital.

Watercolor experiments

I've been experimenting with watercolor, and have decided to redo some of my older digital pieces in watercolor. Here's the old piece and the new watercolor version. My inking skills have improved quite a bit since I created this, too. I think it looks so much better, don't you?

Indie Fixx Logo Design Competition

Normally I am not a fan of design competitions, since it requires work on my part and no guarantee of pay, but this one is for Jen of Indie Fixx. I did her illustrations for Indie Fixx, the Indie Fixx Shop, the Indie Fixx Galleria, submitted a image for another project of hers called Feed Your Soul, and did a logo for Tickle Fancy. So, you can see she is a pretty faithful client with a lot of projects!

Here's an image I did for the (sadly, now closed) Indie Fixx Shop:

Anyhow, she has decided that it's time for a new look at Indie Fixx, and she is holding a logo design competition.

Here's the details:

http://indiefixx.com/2010/02/25/logo-design-competition/

New Drawings for Sale

New drawings have been posted on ArtGhost for sale: