I am hoping to be part of the Action! exhibition at the Chicago Art Department in July, so I am also working on another poster while working on the Sydney poster. Yes, I know, why can’t I just work on one piece at a time? Anyway, the theme of the exhibition is summer movies, so I am doing an illustration of a kid reenacting a summer movie scene. I’m just giving you a taste of it above. I’m experimenting a little with style this time around. I’m going to use black outlines and add texture to the fills. Illustrator work can sometimes look a little too clean, so I thought I would try to dirty this one up a little bit. I’m still not sure if I am completely sold on it yet, but I need to build on my style. One thing I like initially is how the doll looks against the orange background. It fits my intended feel….

It is certainly coming together. This is the “full” poster right now. As you can tell, I have made some significant progress. I’ve done almost all of this work over the past month…while holding down a full time job. That is a dramatic improvement over the pace I was on when working on the Chicago poster. With that poster, I did most of the work in the summer and some days I was working on it almost all day. The goal over the past year or so has been to develop this style and learn how to streamline my efforts. I’ve learned a few shortcuts in Illustrator, and made it practice to draw the buildings in detail before working in Illustrator. Above, you are getting a peak into that process. I scan the drawing in and the make sure the placement is correct. Then, I trace and make sure the colors work. My goal is to complete this before the end of the school year. That is going to be a stretch. Weekends are getting busier, and one of the buildings left, Town Hall, is extremely detailed. I can see myself spending at least a week on just completing that. If it is not possible, I’ll make the end of June the deadline.