Fruits of Advanced Illustration last semester

Last Semester I had the pleasure of taking my second illustration class with Professor Kathleen McCarney at Canada College in Redwood City, CA, USA.  I've been using what I learned to revise my pattern covers and make sure there is some uniformity between them. 

Here I am revising the Patti Cover. It initially had flat renderings 

and I want a bit more lifelike representations.

I generally start with a photo.  

Which I then reduce to a line drawing.  It can look quite different than the photo but I find it helpful to start from a photo.  Here I added in some shadowing for a more 3D look.

I then started to audition color combinations

Not liking the blue and brown much.

This combo wasn't bad.

The pink and brown is a bit more appealing to me. The numbers written on the pages are the pen color numbers.

The final (I thought) version.
Then I realized it was too long,
not representative of how
 the pattern would turn out.

So I shortened it. Subtle
but more accurate.

It is wonderful to have control over the process. Some of you are laughing because you know I am a control freak, albeit a messy control freak.

The downside is it often takes a tremendous amount of time before I am satisfied with a drawing.  Thank goodness for the training I received!  The more I exercise my skills the faster I become and hopefully better.