GAW2 Art & Design

01/15/2025

It's very rare that I create or design anything cute or cutesy. I admit that every once in a while I get an idea, but I usually don't follow through with it. However, this time is the exception. So, as you can see...I'm not a total square.

What do you think?

11/22/2024

Interested in owning a print? Check out the link below

This digital illustration of a singer was originally done for a poster to advertise a blues music festival. Afterwards, I thought the illustration could stand well enough on it's own and I created a background to compliment the neon singer. • Millions of unique designs by independent artists. Find...

07/18/2024

Discover the music under the stars. The digital illustration of the neon singer was done in Adobe Illustrator and it was originally created for a poster to advertise a blues music festival some time ago. However, I thought the illustration could stand on it's own as a piece of art I call "Neon Serenade".



Interested in owning a copy? Check out my online shop:
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/162983725?asc=u

07/13/2024

06/06/2024

This week I've been thinking about website design; the steps involved and how complex it can be to create one. The larger the website, the more complex and sophisticated the design/development has to be to meet the needs of the company and the users who will use the website.

The few websites I have designed (including my own) were not very complex when compared to say, Amazon, or FedEx's website. So, this post will take you through seven common steps to create a website. I've even included links to test out the example site used in slides below:

Mobile
https://xd.adobe.com/view/d7580064-817c-4c6f-b444-c894933ba40d-820b/?fullscreen

Desktop
https://xd.adobe.com/view/d8b57425-00fb-4bb2-b3b6-e896f05c52ef-8de6/?fullscreen

05/30/2024

This week I'm going to do another reflection post. Again, this is a piece of artwork I finished back in May 10, 2014. This piece is a portrait I called “Michael Jackson: King of Pop”. It's hard to believe that ten years (and 20 days) have passed since I finished it. The inspiration for this piece actually came from a request from a family member. They asked if I could draw them a portrait of Michael Jackson and I thought I could.

If you take a look at my notes, which show my sketches, color swatches, and time tracking, you will see that I started this piece in January. During the coming days, weeks, and months I devoted as much time as I could to finishing the piece. And, in 43 hours and 30 minutes the piece was finally finished.

A few days later, I presented it to my family member as a gift with the finished artwork framed and ready for hanging.

Want to celebrate the legacy of Michael Jackson with your own copy of this portrait? Click the link to visit my Redbubble shop and add this artwork to your collection now!
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/162631568?asc=u

05/16/2024

I created this movie poster a few years ago, but it's a good example of how to use an existing design to help develop your own skills. I took the original poster for A Most Violent Year and redesigned it based on my thoughts about the film.

Like most projects, this one started off with research to gauge the current trends in movie posters at the time. Then, I moved on to some thumbnail sketches and finally a rough sketch of the possible final design.

As for the final design, the imagery was inspired by a scene in the movie that takes place at night, can you guess the scene?

05/09/2024

Guess who's back?

So, for today I have a 14-slide presentation design to show you all. The presentation is for a counseling service company for children and young adults with mental and developmental challenges. Let's say the CEO is going to use this presentation and these slides represent an overview of the services they offer.

While conducting research for this kind of project, I ran into mostly templates for Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides. Later in my research, I looked at the company's website and social media accounts to get a better sense of their brand image.

I discovered that bands of color were used throughout, and I kept that same aesthetic in the slides, using color as a framing device and to show movement from slide to slide.

The use of color, along with the design and layout of the elements give the presentation a progressive look that’s appropriate for convention or conference settings.

04/25/2024

What I have for you all today is a set of dine-in and take-out menus for a soul food restaurant. Let's say Ruby's moved to a new location, and a new location calls for brand-new menus. My goal was to complement the interior design of the new building with menus that were modern and sleek.

I researched menus from all different types of restaurants to gauge the trends happening in menu design. Afterwards, sketching process started with the dine-in menu and then the take-out menu to ensure the layouts complimented each other.

In the end, each menu serves a different purpose with more than just size differentiating them.

04/18/2024

I'm doing something different for this week’s post, today will be a reflection post on a piece of artwork I made back in 2014, titled “The Nineteenth October”. This colored pencil painting was created based off a photo I took at the Missouri Botanical Garden on October 19, 2014.

I visited the garden that day with some artist friends and we walked around stopping to take photos or sketch different areas of the garden. The picture was taken in the Japanese Garden section near Crane Island. At first, I was down by the water with everyone else, then I decided to walk up the path and that’s when I took the photo.

I started on the piece a few days later, using the photo as a reference, along with a grid to keep the key elements in place. After about four hours I had finished piece of Impressionists style art.