Rigid

More ideas

Thinking more about the neighborhood project while I walked to class this morning, I realized how every house on my block is a Polish flat.  This gives a real sense of commonality to the street.  Each house is different, however, in color, upkeep, front yards, etc.  So I decided to try and convey these similarities and differences all in one composition.  I think I  eventually want to add people to these sketches, to fully convey the ambiance of the area.

Just an idea.  Might not make the final cut. 

Needs some tweaking on the palate, but I wanted the colors to be vivid and diverse.

Neighborhood photos

These are some of my favorites from the neighborhood photos I took.  The rest can be viewed on my flickr. 

My Neighborhood

I live just west of the Milwaukee River off of Locust street.  My neighborhood is pretty diverse, and walking down the street you see people from all walks of life.  From families to college students to divorced middle-aged men who get drunk and play hair-band-style guitar all day (my neighbor).   The houses also reflect this diversity.  Some of them are in shambles, some are really nicely kept.   The one I live in is slowly falling apart, probably due to the fact that 4 rowdy boys live in it and our landlord is neglectful.  We all work and go to school full-time, so it's super messy, but none of us really mind.

The cool thing about my neighborhood is that I definitely feel more of a sense of community than I did living closer to campus.  Just crossing the river puts you in a totally different world.  No longer do I find myself getting harassed and having to dodge beer cans when I walk around late at night.  And while crime has tended to be an issue in River West in the past, the community has been doing a really great job of trying to prevent it in the future.  It's a thriving mix of artists and local businesses living reciprocally. There is a real sense of diversity and humanity in River West, and I feel that I can be an individual there without being frowned upon.

The Illustrated Voice

I found the reading from "The Illustrated Voice" to be quite relevant in my life.  I love poster-making, and if I had it my way, I'd do it for a career.  There is an almost unattainable goal in poster-making, and Craig Frazier describes it really well in the reading.  It's to present a reasonable amount of information by using the simplest means possible.  If a poster is too complex, people will get confused and won't be able to extract the information as well.  If it's too simple, it might not stand out to people in an image-saturated society.  This is a limbo that the designer and illustrator constantly have to deal with, but as Frazier points out, nothing is more satisfying than hanging up a poster and walking across the street to find that your design is just as powerful from far away as it is up close.  

"EXPLODE"

I wanted to capture the moment just before someone loses his or her beans.  My friend Kelly posed and I hand drew his portrait.  Later I scanned the picture and added color in Photoshop.

Neighborhood Project