Getting my master’s degree in book publishing made me realize how much I missed illustration (what I got a degree in the first time around). Now that grad school is over (woo!) there is a bit of downtime while I search for full-time work, so I’ve been emailing art directors looking for illustration jobs.

As a result, I snagged an opportunity to work with art director Julie Showers at the Willamette Week, creating an image to go along with a piece about Jubitz truck stops.

Sketch (very similar to the concept sketch Julie sent me):

The digital illustration I submitted (colored completely in Photoshop, which was a new process for me):

How it looked in print:

They added a bit more red to the illustration (understandably so, as I was probably pushing the limit for the amount of pink in a truck-related image), and messed about with the clouds a bit, but otherwise it looks pretty close to the original.

I was initially told that the text would run above the piece instead of below it, which partly explains the awkward crop at the bottom. Chalk that up to a learning opportunity. In any case, I look forward to working with the Willamette Week again. Editorial pieces are fun because I wind up drawing stuff that I wouldn’t otherwise (like a teeny tiny poster of Brooks & Dunn).