collage

Neil Diamond Background Conundrum

| Erika Schnatz

Hey!

So I have a frame hanging on my wall that is sans a picture. In an attempt to rectify this situation, I drew a picture of Neil Diamond last night, because, why not? The man has amazing eyebrows.

I was going to pick a background for him, but then I thought, “Why not put this up to a vote? Maybe people want to contribute to this amazing portrait.”

Dear readers, I come to you with a conundrum: which background looks best with Neil Diamond?

Option 1: All American Hero.

 This is the background I initially planned to use. Because Neil Diamond is a real American hero.

Option 2: Groovy-licious.

Neil Diamond is also a super groovy man, so this may be an appropriate background.

Option 3: Silver Fox

For some reason, Neil Diamond looks the most suave with this background. Or maybe that’s just me.

Drop me a comment to let me know what you think! Let the people decide! The winner will be revealed at some point. Maybe Monday?

Materials: Micron Pens, scrapbook paper

A Week of Gnomes: Day Eight

| Erika Schnatz
Day Eight: Turn an old book into something new
I am always on the lookout for old books that I can mess around with, so I had lots of choices for this one. I thought it would be fun to make the gnome visit a Mayan pyramid, so I got out my Exacto knife again and cut up an image to make it a pop up picture.
 
I believe this is a Reader’s Digest book about World Mysteries (or something of that nature). I bought it at Goodwill for a dollar.
 
I cut around different parts of the image and folded them up to make it pop up – there are four different levels to this picture.
 
You may also notice the tiny gnome I made on the right hand side of the picture, approaching the pyramid. Not correctly proportioned, but if I made it the “right” size he’d be practically invisible.
An additional view.
Materials: Book, Exacto knife, paper, pen, and markers (to make the tiny gnome), tape
This took very little time and turned out way better than I anticipated. Fun times!

Jay and ‘Ye in SPACE!

| Erika Schnatz

My brother is a huge fan of Jay-Z and Kanye West, so I made him this ridiculous illustration as a Christmas gift:

Here is the line art of Jay-Z and Kanye
I decided to stick them in space (totally normal, right?) so I created this background with some watercolors and acrylic paint. I found a super easy tutorial on how to do this via YouTube:
Then I cut out the line art and Mod Podge’d it to outer space. Easy peasy!
This was a super fun project and it only took me a few nights. I need to start drawing more!
Materials used: Micron pens, other black pens, watercolor paints, white acrylic paint (for the stars)
More posts will be coming your way next week!

Travel

| Erika Schnatz
Last fall I created a series of illustrations so I could throw together a stop-motion-y video for a Southwest Airlines competition to win 30 million rewards points to fly wherever I wanted. I love to travel and thought I threw together a fairly convincing and creative presentation as to why my broke AmeriCorps butt should be able to jet across the country on a whim, but they didn’t pick my video. (You can still make things right, Southwest!!!)

I was pretty bummed that I did all that work for nada, but you all can view some of the pieces I created. Maybe I’ll try to throw the video up on YouTube or Vimeo or one of those places. I wrote a children’s book-esque script to go along with the video and narrated it myself and used iMovie to edit it all together because I have lost whatever Final Cut abilities I gained in college.

I’ll shut up and show the pictures.

That’s supposed to be me. Broke and living in Portland, Oregon. BUT HAPPY!
Then I discussed driving across the country in my tiny little car to serve in AmeriCorps because I am an amazing, selfless person.
This is a really weird combination of images: Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a geyser (Old Faithful if you’d like) from Yellowstone, because I saw both of those things on my drive across the country. It’s kind of surreal and I really like how it turned out even though it makes no sense without explanation.
Hey, look! I don’t have enough money to fly anywhere and go on tropical vacations.
Like 99% of Americans.
I explained the awesome things I would do if I was able to fly all over the country for free.
You may notice that I love alliteration.
 I tried to tug at the heartstrings of the soulless marketing folks who didn’t choose my video. I talked about going back to Philadelphia to visit my family because I missed them very much. That’s a pretty accurate representation of my Pops.
Then I did a little stop motion bit of the ridiculous amount of flights I would be able to take with all those reward points. I even made the airplane look like a Southwest plane. Because I have a crazy awesome eye for detail!!!
Then I cleverly brought it full circle by using the first image, but I changed the words on the sign! Brain-explosion-inducing, I know.

So those are some pictures. I made them with patterned paper, markers, watercolors, and Mod Podge.