Love Letter to Austin

A shmorgishborg of my favorite things about my place of residence, good ol' Austin, TX. This was done as my final project for the course on vector illustration and vibrant compositions I taught for Domestika.

The Process

In the course, I go through a detailed breakdown of my entire process. Students are tasked with brainstorming a list of their favorite things about their favorite place, to come up with something that's part-postcard, part-personal love letter.

Sketch

I talk about simplifying subjects while sketching by using references as a guide. I like to draw geometrically and distill things into their basic forms. Iterate and iterate some more until they're at a place I'm happy with.

Line Art

Once the sketches are completed, I bring them into Adobe Illustrator to create the line art with a wide variety of tools that I go over. Working to create the perfect geometric shapes until I'm left with a coloring book-look.

Color and Texture

I love using limited color palettes of 4-6 colors. I talk a lot about how I come up with palettes and tips for using them in illustrations, as well as using limits and setting rules for yourself. We're often most creative when we're limited in some way! Then bring them even more to life with added detail and texture.

Layout

Though it would be a bit easier to lay things out in the sketch phase, one thing I love doing is taking separate assets and combining them all together after the fact using a grid as a guide. It's a great exercise for thinking openly and creatively, trying out a bunch of things and ending up with a solution you never would have thought of before.

And more!

One thing I love about projects like this, is that we end up with ~a dozen illustrations that we can break off from the main composition and use in other ways, like stickers!

Or, you can complete the project in a totally different medium! Since I love working with paint markers, I also did a version on canvas after sketching out my layout first.