Another one from the vaults! I haven’t been drawing as much as I ought to be lately, so here’s an old Illustration assignment from my Graphic Design classes last year. Its a scratchbord etching, scratchbord being a white clay tile with a thin layer of black clay on top. Considering that this and everything else in the scratching/etching family is aesthetically my least favorite medium, I’m quite happy with how it came out; all I can say is that It certainly pays to have a light touch . . . 
A style experiment, which I think turned out quite well! I’ve been considering for a long time the issue of trying to create tango illustrations that captures the energy of the dance, and here it seems to work. I have some more ideas for this knocking around, so stay tuned.
Credit for leg reference goes to the lurvely and talented Stephanie Fesneau . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Qwm7hfW4A
This is probably the only time you’ll see examples of traced works on this blog. In my illustration class last year, we had to create an event banner using an illustration traced from a pre-existing image, using a dip pen:
The original is below. My idea was for a dressage show similar to the Lippizaner stallions, a photo of which I used as my reference. As you can see, I Russified the horseman a bit to suit my personal tastes; the Regency period was never my era of choice for uniforms. I even came up with a brief psuedo-history of an imagined Russian riding school– the loopy thing above the rider’s head on my version of Peter the Great’s royal monogram.
All in all though, It looks a bit like an engraving stolen from a book of Dover clip art! This particular version is unfinished, as I couldn’t find the original. I consider it a triumph of technique (This was my first time with a dip pen) but I could never get the damn thing to work satisfactorily with either the paper dimensions or the typography elements I had to include. Ah well . . .
Some of you may have noticed my Portfolio page remains under construction– due, it so happens, to a mix of blurry photos and several unsatisfactory projects still in need of replacement! While I work towards creating the Perfect Portfolio that Is Everything I Could Ever Want, here are a few snapshots of one my better projects, Blue DevilJeans.
Before I reshoot this I plan on branding a pair of socks to go with them, so that our Blue Devil’s hooves won’t get chilly . . .
This is series of book covers I designed for my Graphic Design portfolio class. No actual story to go with them, sadly– just a vague “Hero’s journey” premise. Fairly simple to produce, too– like much of my other stuff, I simply Bitmap’d an inked drawing, created different colored “plates” on separate Photoshop documents, and then overlaid them to get that cool lithographed look.
Words to live by. I’ve been nursing an urge for a while to draw a male figure in white tie evening dress for a while Continue reading
Another portfolio project. 
Another portfolio-related piece. This was to be the poster for a vinyl record set I designed for a fictitious music group called Snow Garden. The girl is loosely based on Snegurochka, the snow maiden of Russian folklore. I’m not sure if she normally dumps wintery wind out of a cup, but it works quite nicely for the ambience.
One of my favorite projects. I did the original one over a weekend, after learning I was way behind on one of my class projects. For my portfolio class I added two more to make a set, with color and pattern variations.
Formosa was a vintage fashion line for the sake of the project, but for me its a reference to an aesthetic paradise where everyone dresses well. ( see the link on my homepage. )
Peter Litster 