Some Sketches and Blasts from the Past!

Here are a few sketches of my classmates from last night's Life Styles (lifestyle/fashion illustration) course. Aren't my classmates (and professor--in the hat) cute? :)

And as a special treat, some hand-drawn type from my Hand Letters class waaaaay back in sophomore year--an 'illuminated' text alphabet, and (my personal favorite) a delicate, wrought-iron-inspired one.

The Next Train to Sexytown.

I took a short trip to the edge of Sexytown (where Babs' artwork lives) and stayed in Babs' guest cottage, where I made these sketches for a set of illustrations that incorporate photographs within the drawings--sort of advertising.

I set my characters in a forge/smithy--strong, sexy, blacksmith women! It was also my first time EVER doing true digital coloring, and my first time with a tablet! Eep! I hope it pleases! (Special thanks to my wonderful boyfriend John for the use of his tablet! :D) The finals will be done for next week!

Baby Gaga and a personal observation...

Firstly, a new Baby Gaga! I'd love to draw a little companion piece illustrating how she maimed her childhood dolls into that wretched ensemble...we'll see. :P

Secondly...well...

I have this weird tendency to get super, super into competitive sports if there is even the slightest bias for someone to win. This was regarding the Kansas U game for March Madness, as my good friend (and artist!) Katie is from Kansas City and is a huge fan. (they lost...sorry Katie!)

This weekend and the next is going to be full of THESIS, thanks to my boyfriend John being indisposed due to A Midsummer Night's Dream, playing at MICA right now. GO SEE IT! The sets are spectacular and the actors are super-talented!

I gots a header!

It's super-simple, but I love that drawing of myself. :P I should put bangs on it, though. I drew that a year ago and I need to update my look!

(I'm a liar--no new Baby Gaga yet. Soon!)

Gulliver and more Thesis!

The first thing here is a finished piece based on the upcoming film Gulliver's Travels, using fashions selected for Alexander McQueen, mostly. This is really my first experimentation with pattern, and I like it! It's ink and watercolor.



I'm posting these scans of my 'Thesis-in-Progress' to demonstrate my process. I overlaid tracing paper in order to approximate where my dialogue should be places within the panel and how my speech bubbles should be shaped. Page Eight is a tas askew, but you get the idea. (I tried to choose interesting pages that won't give too much away plotwise!)






Next time: more Baby Gaga!

An Alter-Ego and a BRILLIANT idea.

Here's a little something (two little somethings) that came out of a fun evening with friends. The first is a drawing of my friend Bess, the sister of close friend (and fellow Blogger) Emily. This alter ego was invented simply by switching her initials and a fleeting moment of mock-mustache twirling. :D It was really fun and I really love how it came out.

The second drawing, Baby Gaga, was a concept I came up with two days ago, watching some babies play out in Cohen Plaza in the sunlight. I searched to see if anyone else had come up with it yet (No one! Although BabyGaga.com is a baby/pregnancy site), so I'm going to run with it. :P

Hope you all got a laugh out of it! Watch out for more Baby Gaga!

Last Midterm Crit EVER!

Had a great day--got up EARLY for my 6-9 AM shift, and got three solid, computer-less hours of work done before my midterm critique with Rebecca and Jamison Odone. I was mixed up with a whole bunch of new people, and saw some really great stuff! I went last (probably for the best with all of the pages I had to tack up), and heard some good feedback. I've been told to do full color from the outset, but print in greyscale. AKA Time Suck. But I suppose it's for the best.

I got some good ideas as far as marketing myself, which is a good thing. (Phew.) I also got Jamison's email (I'm usually so good at talking to people, but his awesomeness made me into a bashful, stuttering MESS), so I'll be begging him for guidance at some point soon. :P

After the crit, I had lunch with John out in Cohen Plaza and watched other MICA students lounging out on the grass, in the sun. I watched one professor play with his adorable babies and WISHED I'd had my sketchbook so I could've drawn his adorably chubby baby son. :D Aw, bbs.

After lunch I had seminar, and I watched Jamison and three other artists present, and they were all very successful, which was encouraging. I got to work AND bond with some fellow illustrators in the senior studio after seminar, which was really refreshing, as I usually feel like I'm a completely separate entity from the department (sometimes I still did, even today).

Now I'm home, procrastinating both artwork and packing and waiting for John.

-A.

Artist Biography and Statement

We all had to write a bio and statement for the course Professional Practice for the Visual Artist, taught by Judith Page. I feel a little out of place there, as I'm the only commercial artist in the whole class--everyone else is a painter, sculptor, printmaker, etc. It's definitely geared towards the gallery crowd, but it has been helpful. Where else would a MICA student write a budget plan?

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Bio

Alyssa Devlin was born in Reading, PA in 1988 and grew up in Sewickley, PA. Both sides of her family were involved in the arts, and she was a singer and actor from a young age. After going through several incarnations of potential writing careers—first journalism, then creative writing, and at the end of her junior year of high school, she found her talent for fine art, and chose to study at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She combined her passions for drawing and story-telling as an illustration major—particularly in sequential media—and graduates in the spring of 2010.

Statement

Humor need not be found only in my doodles—I built a comical illustrated world around the everyday occurrences of my own diary. My most personal sequential drawings revolved around a four-month excursion to Florence, Italy in the winter of 2009, but my comics extend to the fictitious as well as the factual, although it is all highly personal. My thesis project, a short-story I wrote translated into comic form, is an amalgamation of personalities, events, and experiences that I have had, and that have been entrusted to me. I am interested in realism, but that does not necessarily mean drama or solemnity. I believe that real life contains as much humor as it does seriousness, and I intend to reveal that through my illustrations.

Flashback to Italy (and some friend-ly fun).

My friends and I went bowling this weekend after the MICA senior gala (which was FABULOUS, and I admit, I looked pretty good!), and we had a fabulous time. During our third game, I started cartooning the parties present, and John lent his lettering talent to our names! Colin and myself were little, well, crappy at first, so we re-vamped them into more interesting characters! :P

I also wanted to post the sequential art book/diary that I wrote/drew while I was abroad, but there are FAR too many pages, so I'll post a preview, and you can access the full book here!