So that means that all future bloggings will be going on at millielandis.com/blog

Cheers!

As promised, here is a more inclusive post with all seven pieces that I did for the Drink Philly show in November.  (One of my many new years resolutions is to be more on top of things, blog included)

These were all conceived in a brainstorming session among friends- some sound more delicious and appealing to me than others- some I just really liked the wordplay.

Some are a little tongue in cheek.

And some were just plain fun to draw!

All in all, it was a really great show- and I look forward to showing with them again in the future.  Once I recover from the holidays and get my new work space put together.  I’m also really looking forward to seeing what Drink Philly’s got in store for us this month.

Maybe I’ll see you there!

We showed with Drink Philly for another First Friday, but this time it felt a little more important because it was just the four of us and the show went over amazing!  The atmosphere was great, it was loud and crowded and exciting, I’m so proud of us!

Like I said, there will be plenty more pictures (maybe even some process shots), but for now, here are some great shots my sister snapped , and a little teaser.

Keep and eye out for the rest of my labels!

For now, I’m going to go continue to catch up on sleep.  Yes it’s been three whole days and I’m still back-logged.  I require a lot of beauty sleep.

Wishful tattoo thinking unfortunately (the size this would have to be is a little more of an investment than I’m ready for at this point in my tattoo life)

So instead I ended up having something a little more traditional done- still a small homage to my family’s pennsylvania dutch roots.

And Second, another piece for a little show.  Megan, who showed at Drink Philly last month, organized the Melt show (the theme of food, by any interpretation of the imagination).  This piece was something that I had started right after I graduated (when I was still trying to force myself to stay artistically active, before I had my spirit broken..) and by luck it fit the theme- so I took a minute to sit down and finally finish the thing.

I think it came out alright- and by alright, I mean awesome.

I’ve got another show coming up in the fall- so keep an eye out for some fun in-progress updates and book makings.. should be interesting!

Drink Philly opened up their office for the first time as a gallery space and invited the public in for beer sampling and pretty pictures.  It was a little bit of a melting pot show with a couple of fine art painters (Megan Coonelly and Brit Miller) and a photographer (Jimmy Lin) and two illustrators (April Kuhn and myself).  It went over really great, was massively attended (see below), and was a lot of fun!

Hopefully we’ll be working with them again and participating in more shows in their space.  It also served as great motivation for me who, post-college, has been having a lot of trouble getting my act together.

And here are the two new pieces I created for the show.  I used the same techniques as I did in my last post (that piece was also in the show).  It’s very involved and not totally practical, but I think the effect is really interesting and it also serves as a tool to get me more into the project (I love cutting and pasting and playing with paper!)

Because I’m so proud of it, here’s the drawing construct first:

At the time, because the drawing/cutouts/shadows were relatively complex I kept the colors pretty simple…  Looking at it now, I kind of want to either redo the piece, or go back in and spend some more time with the painting aspect.  We’ll see….

And here’s the other piece that I did, which turned out to be my favorite.. even though it had the most involved and annoying process.  I ended up drawing everything on different layers of layout bond, which I photographed separately and digitally composed (because layout bond is too thin to make the 3D constructs out of- hence the annoying rippling that I encountered in the first piece), then I printed the drawings, drew back over them to get good, thick, textured lines, and then I cut, composed, and took the final photos.  A lot of fuss, but I think totally worth it because I kind of love how it came out.

It’s definitely the best 3D effect I’ve gotten so far- and it carried through really well to the final product.  Probably has a lot to do with the nature of the drawing, the fact that it’s kind of in an empty space (no real perspective to deal with), but this is still a learning process so we’ll have to see what interesting new road blocks I run into with the next piece!

Thanks for looking, and the next time I’m in a show, maybe I’ll actually give some notice, invite some people, and we can bust the seams out of that gallery!

tried a new approach this time around- i like cutting out and building stuff :]

started out  with a flat sketch.. by the time i had figured out all the layers and overlapping parts it was mighty confusing, but i figured it apart onto separate layers of layout bond and then used my bookarts prowess and made a little cut-out diorama (similar to how i would construct a carousel book).  i used a shoebox and everything!  the photo above was a test shot… obviously this technique will require some further tweaking in future projects…

my one major disappointment was that once i started to add the flat colors it lost a lot of the really cool 3D effect from the layers and photography :/

but i think the final made a lovely comeback, and i totally love it!  again, i’m going to be doing some major tweaking and experimentation with my next project- i don’t like the wobbly lines (a product of the paper buckling when i tried to avoid having to actually crease it…)

so we’ll see where this goes- maybe i should just make a whole book next time!  (that might be a lot bit of a project for me right now- being all rusty as i am- but we’ll see)

thanks for looking!!  i promise to update again soon (i actually have to now or april will kick my ass!)

this is kevin- the picure doesn’t say much about him- but the comic is taking place in a good part of his timeline, so he’s just standing in as a superficial character.  i have a few short stories about him, things don’t always go well for him.  actually, things don’t really go well in the comic- but it’s not a tragedy or anything.   there’s ice cream.

i’m in love with my pattern- i plan to use it for the end pages of my portfolio and maybe for wrapping paper or in future hand-made books.

isn’t it cute??

(sorry to post at such an overwhleming size- but i love it)

here ‘s my final submission for the portfolio day mailer.  it wasn’t chosen- but i get why, and it doesn’t change how much i like the piece- which is a lot.  this was just a really nice piece to just bang out over two days, it went incredibly fast, and i’m really happy with how it came out.  the problem fundamentally is that the piece doesn’t work without the incredibly cheesy tagline (looking for that secret ingredient?), so better to just drop it and have a good piece without a lot of concept.

i’m ok with not being generic enough to speak for an entire senior class of illustrators- i’m big on selective humor, not everybody needs to get what i’m doing, or find it funny.  but i know there’s someone out there who can relate.

seriously, i don’t know about you- but this exactly what happens everytime i set foot in the kitchen:

literally, i look at the stove and the smoke detector goes off.

oh and about that secret ingredient- it doesn’t exist.

it ended up being my favourite of the four pieces, i think, because it was the smoothest sailing, and is my favourite colour scheme.  so i think that’s how it weaseled it’s way up to the first place spot.  although- there is still a warm spot for the first piece and how much work i put into that type.

first, the initial thumbnail sketch and revised sketch:

big changes right?  yeah, i’m not sure what was going on with the first one (i kind of hated this piece during the sketching phase) but once i redid it a couple of times i started to like it more.

now with value and color:

and then i moved right along to the final:

and yeah- this one was really a breeze compared to the others.  but i don’t think that’s the only reason i like it so much- i really am pleased with how it came out.  this was one of those rare cases where clarity came in the crunch, and things just fell into place.