Day of the Dead

 This one I'm pretty proud of. Once again on assignment for Little Red Bicycle, I had to create a stamp for yarn packaging. My guidelines were to use certain colors and do something day of the dead themed. This is the art I created:

I owe some credit to Didi for the baller colors. And thank you Alycia for letting me use your face.

For a while now I've been taking training courses in Illustrator and naturally I want to try and use the stuff I learn. What I was really able to take advantage of this time were gradient meshes. Gradient meshes allow you to simulate a kind of airbrush effect when done correctly. These are the gradient meshes in my piece:

I wanted to use these with this project because when I think of Mexico and Mexican art one place I turn is towards street art and murals, which are done with spray paint.

I'm trying to master pattern making as well, and what better subject than Day of the Dead to try some patterning out? I think my candy skulls work well. I didn't want to make them insanely detailed because they are background elements, and I think I needed to keep some balance between the business of the face and background areas.

One thing I tried that didn't work was simulating a bad press job, where I would apply grains to each of the separate colors in the piece, as if I had printed all the purple on one block, the pink on another, etc. The piece is so busy in the first place that it ended up being distracting and ugly. Though, if you notice the text, I did mimic poorly aligned printing/stencil art in the process of making the print more legible.

Overall I'm really happy with this and I want to do more work like it in the future.