I was tasked this month with creating an Earth Day poster for my local park, which is hosting an event pertaining to native plants where they give away seedlings, plant some native flora around the park, and generally get everyone excited for spring planting. I love making posters. Of course I said yes.
Even though I wasn't getting paid much on this project, I still consider the old adage, "Make work for the job you want, not the job you have." I don't know who coined that, but I do know it wasn't me. At any rate, I really do want to do more poster and illustrative work in the future, so I considered this a portfolio building exercise, and treated it accordingly. The layouts I created are approximately 3 inches high. I was careful to include all the information the poster would contain, so I could be sure it would all fit. This is an important stage in any type-inclusive illustration, including comics.
So off went three concepts. I was pleased that they picked option A.
I created this piece with a technique I used for color illustrations before I owned a tablet: by layering multiple black ink layers in photoshop and coloring them each like you would a screen print or riso print. My skills for this are maybe even better for this now that I have some years of printmaking experience behind me. I created a two color piece, for reasons you can read about in my blog post:Color Separations in Photoshop.
Once those were scanned I had a series of black and white images I stacked in Photoshop and colored using the layer mask. And, while I did use my tablet to create and additional layer of color to make the illustration look more lush, it was nice to return to this more "tradigital" form of coloring. I plan to use it in future pieces where there is not time to paint, or where a painting would impede the design in some way.
If you find yourself wandering that long, lonely road called Allegheny on April 19th, stop by a little park on the edge of Port Richmond and plant some flowers with us.