New: Etsy Shop!

It's been a while! I'll try to update with some recent work soon, but I wanted to make sure I mention my new Etsy store that I opened this weekend! I've already had some sales, and hopefully I can continue polishing in the coming weeks!


https://www.etsy.com/shop/JBoehmerIllustration

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A few Christmases ago, I took part in a "Creative Secret Santa," in which all participants had to make something for their giftee. I was fortunate to draw my friend Natalie's name, who had recently moved into a beautiful new apartment in St. Paul. I took process pictures while making my gift, and I've been meaning to post them here for a long time.

Young Love #4

Young Love # 3

Another Young Love Illustration

Got to a good point with another one.

I have to be ready to print 3 by tomorrow morning. Looks like a long night is in store for me!

First "Young Love" Illustration

Still a work in progress.

Handsome Gil

One of my classmates has been kind enough to hold a few Photoshop demos for some of the digitally-challeged illustrators (such as myself). Today, we were working with brushes and texture. What I ended up with was this handsome fella, whom I named Gil. Gil has a healthy tan.

New Painting

This is one painting of a series I recently finished. Hopefully, I'll soon be able to get them all documented and posted!

Cooper's Tattoo

For his birthday this year, Cooper got his first tattoo--of the pelican I drew for him in 2010!

Customer

 

My once-a-week shift at a local (amazing) bakery provides limitless inspiration for sketching. I interact with, I suspect, some of the most interesting characters of Minneapolis. 

This woman stuck with me the other day, and I did my best to draw her face from memory (I didn't do half bad!). I'm still getting my sea legs in Photoshop, so this was a good exercise in digital coloring.

Ewok School Portrait

A while back, I painted a Lifetouch-esque portrait of an Ewok as a gift for a friend.

But, who really needs an excuse to paint an Ewok?

Crossword Sketch

I've revived my project from two years back, and have been making new sketches illustrating crossword clues. (This one is: 54: Bigwig)

Winter

Oh man, I'm an art machine

 I've been cranking out new pieces (and sprucing up old pieces) for my portfolio portion of my grad school application. I'm in pretty good shape, and I think I have just 3 or 4 small pieces left before I can move on to photographing them.

I'm pretty happy with how the bus piece above turned out.
I'm feeling so-so about the biking one below (I'll probably leave it out of the portfolio).
And I like the update to my self portrait on the bottom.

Hey, 2 out of 3 ain't so bad.

More to come soon.

Drawing Class

I've been taking a really wonderful Continuing Ed course at MCAD called "Mining Your Creative DNA." It has had a lot of great reading about the creative process from a myriad of perspectives (scientific, spiritual, sociological), and it has really fed the work I'm doing to build my portfolio.

We've had models for a few classes, and we did monoprints a few weeks back. Below is the original print, followed by the "ghost" print which I went back and reworked with charcoal.

New Work

I've officially decided to apply for MCAD's Graduate program (potentially to start Fall 2012). During the next three months, I have the exciting, albeit daunting, task of putting together a quality portfolio of 20 pieces (not to mention an artist's statement, letters of recommendation, and figuring out all the financial mumbo-jumbo).

The direction I've decided to go is in the realm of autobiographical illustration. I've challenged myself to portray my daily activities in a visually interesting way, hoping that the assignment would, in turn, inspire me to do more interesting things on a daily basis (Sleeping in, going to work, and coming home to watch episodes of 30 Rock does not a masterpiece make). In recent weeks, the element of my internal goings-on have seeped into the picture. I've decided to follow this idea of internal/external happenings to see if it could lead to something interesting.

So far, I'm still skeptical that the finished pieces will be at all interesting to look at. I'm nervous that the concept is too self-important, or self-centered, or some other self-something. But I think that's the risk taken when choosing oneself as the subject matter.

Above is a [pretty-much] finished painting, while below is the beginnings of a large sketch, eventually to become a painting. Hopefully I can keep powering through, because come January, I need to wow some strangers with 20 pretty pictures.

Note: These photos were taken with my cell phone, so pardon the quality. It's midnight and I don't feel like dragging cameras and cords out.

SECOND NOTE: I just realized that the second drawing might be unclear: I'm sitting on the BUS. Not the toilet. Ok. Carry on.

Mill City Museum

A friend recently got married at the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis. One of her gorgeous bridesmaids (another friend of mine) asked me to draw a picture as a gift to the newlyweds. I'm lucky enough to work across the river from the Museum, so I'm quite familiar with the view, I chose to include the Gold Medal Flour building (probably my favorite part of the skyline from the river) along with the Museum itself.


If you live in the Twin Cities area and haven't seen the city from the Stone Arch Bridge, GO. Preferably at night.

Lost Bars of Dayton's Bluff

This summer I had the privilege of working with Michelle Leon, who wrote this article regarding a lost bar scene in East St. Paul. These graphics were my favorite project so far on Heavy Table--I hope more are soon to come.

sketchbook

a sketchbook page from today.

Heavy Table news to come soon!

Indian Food!

I've had another illustration posted on The Heavy Table! This is one of two (I'm not CRAZY about the other one, but it'll do).

I do have more pieces coming soon. I'm trying really hard to keep making work this summer!

Muddy Pumpkin Logo

I just completed another great project: creating a logo for a friend's organic farm in South Dakota: Muddy Pumpkin Farms.  Creating the logo was also the final project for a graphic design course I just finished this week. The class was a great start to learning about graphic design--something I've been completely clueless about. I hope to find more courses in the near future, so I can learn as much as possible, and hopefully have it inform illustration work.

Check out what Muddy Pumpkin is about at www.muddypumpkin.com.

Another exciting thing

I had another illustration posted on The Heavy Table! I used the opportunity to brush up on my digital coloring skills (which are....prettymuchnonexistant).  I have another project with the Heavy Table coming up in June, and it should be a really good one. Stay posted.

Exciting News!

This month I had a very exciting thing happen; I was commissioned for an illustration for The Heavy Table, a Twin Cities food and restaurant blog. I have had my sights set on editorial illustration for a while, and now that I've had a little taste of it, it feels like something I could do. 

Many thanks to Rachel, whose help gave me the opportunity in the first place.

More leisurely activities

graphite & watercolor

Exciting!

This summer, I sold two paintings to the Mayo Clinic in Sparta, Wisconsin, and I just received a picture of them framed & mounted! I'm so happy with how they look in the photo above. Makes me think I should always opt to frame things, even though it can be pricey, because it makes a world of difference.

Yay!