sunrise

Graphite, digital, and 30 Rock reruns

Playing with new ways of working—much more painterly than how I typically work, which is often with vectors and a millions layers.

back to basics

Moving away (but not all the way) from digital. Watercolor and colored pencil.

cavalcare o morire

sketchbook—the amelia peabody edition

Honestly, who wouldn't want to be "adopted" by Amelia Peabody?

math is useful sometimes

graphite, Adobe PS, Snyder's pretzels

Total change-up from my original inception—no linework to linework, warm shadows to cool shadows, hinky math to still-pretty-hinky math...

alternative portraiture

Another commissioned alternative portrait, chock full of inside jokes, idiosyncrasies, and memories—way more fun and personal than traditional portraiture, if you ask me.

Contraption...

...was the word of the week for Illustration Friday LAST week so this work-in-progress probably won't make the cut. OH deadlines.

I'm a twit!

Follow me on Twitter, if you're so inclined: @MaggieCoburn

And then read The Twits to start your day off right.

A Little Fairy Tale

I haven't thrown any artwork away since 1999. It's just too sad to say goodbye! So I save everything because you never know when a good idea needs to be recycled. Below is a 2011 grad school assignment to tell a story in five panels.

And my 2014 reinterpretation:

just wait until you're older, kid—bubble baths are just as amazing as fairy wings

six-legged goalie

Believe or not, pick-up ice hockey games don't happen all that often where I come from. Probably because of the awesome weather.

pinterest fall > real fall

because pinterest is dangerous this time of year

midsummer grapes

up to something

a whole wall of cork board might be in order

Summer's on its way out (although no one's informed the mosquitos yet, those jerks) which means back to school, back to work, and back to my battered drawing board. Looks like fall's gonna involve building castles out of pillows and finding Julie here a quiet place to read a book.

all she wants is five minutes of peace

People will think you're... up to something is an oft repeated line in our household. It's usually directed at guilty-looking canines.

surprise!

new moleskine italia journal

Guess what! I'm a terrible blogger! I suppose that's not a surprise. But I'm working on developing a couple new projects (gotta get those illustration contracts and pay off those student loans!) and now that I've graduated from AAU and we've settled into our new duty station in Naples, I can at least pretend I'm striving to make this process blog a routine. Already there's a challenge: Blogger is in Italian! 

Stay tuned, internets, I'll have more posts throughout the week (and this declaration makes me nervy).

Post-Apocalyptic Space Pirate Hero Chick

For funsies I may digitize this later. This blog is starting to look a little gray...

caricature

I'm taking a character design class and we just studied caricatures. I think I coulda' gone farther on this one but I didn't want to lose that aaaaooooww look on his face.

buzz

I used this photo as a reference for my very first digital painting. Corel Painter isn't nearly as frightening as I had thought. 

Graphite-Stained Wretch

Some random graphite stuff from the week including environmental sketches for my thesis project.

It's been a while...

I started this blog a couple years ago as a means of escape from a dreary office job, but since then I've quit that job, moved to San Francisco, entered a graduate program in illustration, got married, became a Navy wife and relocated to Jacksonville, FL. Now I've got drawings and sketches and art coming out of my ears, so I'm re-upping the blog.

Cheers!

I'd never leave the house...

...but I'd entertain all the time.