Saturday, September 8, 2007

Barista Magazine

I am doing an illustration for Barista Magazine on an article called "Death of the Blend" on the trend toward the single origin coffee beans for espresso. They wanted me to do something fun and going along the idea of halloween a little. So I came up with a couple of ideas for more narrative illustrations: beans running out of town being chased by people with pitch forks and torches, two or three beans on trial for witch craft and then beans walking the plank. I ended up developing the walking the plank idea and this was my third painting attempt and I think it works. I might have to redo it with more of a "dramatic lighting." I think that is something I need to do in the future so that its easier to see where one should focus and it just makes the image more cohesive. We shall see what they think.


Then I was thinking that maybe I should also do something that was more conceptual. I just do not want to do work that is purely comic and I think spot drawings lend themselves to be used more in posters, publications, and they work with type better. So even though they did not ask for it I sent them this one as well. It is pretty self explanatory and I think it works just as well and in some ways better than the narrative.

3 comments:

Kevin M. Scarbrough said...

The first illustration you show could easily become a spot illustration if shrunk down. It might lose some of the detail, if that is the method they go it might be something to know for the future.

Either way, I think both of these work extremely well.

Ironically, I'm about to drink coffee in a sec. From a Halloween mug. Will blog on that later.

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to say how impressed I was with the drawing for Batista Magazine.

I know its a little late now, but I was the author of the piece in the magazine and you captured the article well.

thank you for making my words look cool

Best Wishes

charrow said...

Thank you so much! I love doing work for them. The article was great. You gave me a lot to work with.