I started this class because I love working with tangible materials and I'm a sucker for paper crafts. Also, I've been in a bit of an illustration funk lately so I decided to try a totally new medium. As far as subject matter, I knew I wanted to do something personal and I'm currently working on a dog project, so I thought I'd create a small illustration of my dog Zoe with her most favorite toy in the whole wide world, her moo cow.

To start, I did about 20 thumbnails...

Zoe and Moo Cow - image 1 - student project

Zoe and Moo Cow - image 2 - student project

I really loved the innocent puppy gestures, so I decided to go for a pose with Zoe cleaning her baby cow.

Thankfully I had some reference to help me with this weird perspective...

Zoe and Moo Cow - image 3 - student project

From here I sketched further, trying to finalize the gesture and elements making up my composition.

Zoe and Moo Cow - image 4 - student project

And my final drawing...

Zoe and Moo Cow - image 5 - student project

I had a lot of fun breaking down each piece and figuring out how the layers will work and effect one another. In my illustration there were a bunch of complicated overlaps, and I ended up gluing a lot more pieces down than I would have liked.

Here is some of my work in progress...

Zoe and Moo Cow - image 6 - student project

And my final...

For my background I chose a simple dot pattern. I didn't want it to be super busy, but I like the little bit of raised texture this paper had. I think if I did this over again, I would have made her gesture more playful and expressive, and/or added more to the background.

Zoe and Moo Cow - image 7 - student project

Zoe approves!

Zoe and Moo Cow - image 8 - student project

This was such a fun project, and I'm excited to try another illustration with this technique!

Laura Ballard

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