Day 7: My Art Process

Day 7

In case you cannot tell what this poster is about, here's a message for Wahl Clipper Corporation: call me. I love your product and will gladly make a poster for you. I get giddy when I use your product every two weeks--it means I just saved $40 on a haircut.

I am planning a lengthy post about haircuts and its effect on my personality so we can skip that today. Instead, let's talk about my art process. My current process is thinking of a phrase that's been useful to me or I find funny. Then I sketch ideas while riding the morning train to work and paint after work at night.  While sketching for Day 5's idea, I ended up with a derivative sketch for hair. My doodles are below.

Day 5 sketches

It seems a bit early in the challenge to recycle ideas but I did not feel inspired this morning. I decided it was better to make a poster based on a defined idea than make a poor poster based on a uninspired idea. Once I started the poster, I had fun. Since the idea was simple and there was more time today, I refined the typography. Edges were straightened and made to be crisp rather than blurring as seen in the previous posters. I also tried to paint "OWN" as a serif typeface. Since I decided on serif after painting "own", there is not much difference between the thick and thin parts but the "O" turned out rather nicely. As a sidenote, I'm still learning the correct usage of typeface versus font. So feel free to correct my usage.

The text and hair was black because my hair is black. Also I get a thrill from the inkiness of black paint and applying it to blank paper. The bow tie added color for visual interest. The tie is blue because I like blue. The dots are orange because blue and orange are complementary. To use up extra paint that would be wasted, the text was highlighted in a light wash. The wash also added balance to the poster so the color was not at the bottom only. The main lesson for today is: if you're reluctant to do something, just start. Once you start, it'll be fun and you may be pleasantly surprised by the result.

What item on your to-to list are you procrastinating on today?