Hold Your Applause

About six months ago, I was looking at apartments in Boston and spending a lot of time with fellow illustrator/recent grad Kate. We were talking about making portfolios and postcards and realized we were doing very similar self portraits to blow off steam. Constructing a lot of stuff that says, in a demure and subtle way, "I am so awesome you want to pay me lots of money to do all this for you" is stressful to me, so I drew a piece that said it explicitly. (Kate was painting herself as a saint.)



Actually, the piece includes a lot of what my work is about: anteaters, yes, but also bright color, pattern, a generally light mood, a healthy dose of cuteness, and stylized but accurate and researched anatomy.

Like I said, I thought of the composition in December, took about a month (and a lot of embarrassing reference photos) for the drawing (and one night to ink it), colored it, hated it, put it away for five months, and pulled it out today to finish it. I wanted to do this piece digitally since the beginning, but it's been a struggle to find a level of finish that isn't fully rendered or shaded but still shows all the forms I want it to. For now, I'm pretty happy with it, and hopefully it will kick off some rather breakneck portfolio building in the next few weeks.