Self Portrait

Doodle

This surely needs an explanation. I used the following symbols used in meteorology to spell "Google". The following are their meanings. February 5th is National Weatherperson's Day. :)

Logo

Wired Card

Icon

Artist's Statement: Peter Max

Have you ever seen the film "Yellow Submarine" starring The Beatles? That is where my love of Peter Max began. His colorful and often "psychedelic" images are well known around the world. I chose Peter Max for the challenge of creating an image in his style in Adobe Illustrator. The Part One's background is an image painted by Max showing his love for astronomy. I created the portrait of Max in the top left. The painting of the Statue of Liberty was created by Max soon after September 11th 2001. Max is still painting today. I loved his depiction of the "twitter" emblem in the top right.

Part two's background is a scan of one of his paintings. I wanted to use it so everyone could get a really close up look of what his paintings might look like if we had our nose against one. The top painting is (of course) of the Mona Lisa, albeit, embellished. The second, was done in the 1960s. This style is one of my favorites of Max and harkens to the "Yellow Submarine" period. Peter Max had in beautiful collection of landscapes that were profound but simple. The large sun, orange sky makes me think of how Shanghai may have looked to Max as a child. I used a 14x14 "record album" canvas size.

 I wanted to share a few more pieces anyway:

I really want a print of this desert scene.

Max was featured in all sorts of magazines!

Max was the artist for an assortment of events including The World Cup, The U.S. Open, The Kentucky Derby and of course, the Grammys.

More 1960s art.

Max, himself. He had an art gallery in Santana Row for a few years in my early twenties. He would sit with his own paintings. When I began this project, I realized I had spoken to him on several occasions without realizing it! He had painted an electric guitar that I was enamored on.

I would love some feedback on my portrait of Max!
 

Fruit

Typography

 

 

Landscape with Animal and Numbers

I'm not sure why I ended up with a patriotic-ish theme here. Spacious skies, purple mountains, amber waves of grain etc. I just went with it and the eagle and grizzly emerged. Again, I want to work on the bear's fur and legs, and touch up the eagle.

 

After practicing with the pen tool I finally got my numbers to look right. I am really happy with the brush stroke numbers. 

The "fancy" symbol numbers were tricky. I had to try a few different techniques to get the shape correct. I also started out with a symbol that was much too complicated and had to create another that was simpler. I like how the little star busts came out.  

My Animal

I am going to continue working on this eagle. I think the image looks pretty darn nice, but I wish I had finished connecting the wing on the right side and I would love to add more detail to the feathers. Plus, poor guy has no feet.

Collage

I was not initially sure where I was going with this. The gradient looked perfect for a multilevel collage. I used a lot of duplication and transforming to get the right look. I used the pen tool to make the fishing line, and again for the worm. Altogether I am pretty happy with how it turned out. It was fun!

My Flower

I like how my flower-on-a-vine looks like it is crawling right off the page. I think the petals came out nice and evenly spaced, although it took a few times to get it right.