I Pranked OK Go
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Illustration of OK Go Adds 503 New Band Members at Secret Audition

Last week’s illustrarticle featured one of my favorite bands, OK Go. I wrote and illustrated the story, “OK Go Adds 503 New Band Members at Secret Audition” – which you can read here: http://illustrarticles.com/exclusive-ok-go-adds-503-new-band-members-at-secret-audition/

okgo-clsup1 okgo-clsup2 okgo-clsup3

Click the above thumbnails to see the closeups of the painting.

okgo

A couple weeks ago, I attended an OK Go live show at Lincoln Hall here in Chicago. Basically, it was awesome. I bought the ticket back in May and later, the show was sold-out. The venue was tiny for a now popular band that originated in Chicago. The maximum capacity of Lincoln Hall is 507. It was a very intimate setting and I managed to get to the front. One of my favorite things about the band is their creativity. I love their videos and the way they interact with their fans.

This photo is of the audience at Lincoln Hall, which was taken by the lead singer, Damian Kulash. Can you find me in the crowd? Hint: I’m the screaming brunette in the center, behind the two dudes by the mic.

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okgo-show1

Can you tell that the show was very colorful? The band sounded amazing, too. Their new album, Hungry Ghosts, is coming out in October. At the last song of the set, the band invited some of the audience to climb up on stage to dance.

Here’s the photo I took while I was up there. It captured my perspective of that moment EXACTLY: trippy lights, confetti, jumping & screaming fellow fans, and the back of Damian Kulash’s head.

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Long story short, I sorta immediately got inspired and the result was this illustrarticle.

okgo-sketch

okgo-painting-wip

I had a show of my own coming up that weekend, Chicago’s Bucktown Arts Fest (my upcoming post), so I was pressed for time to finish. Still, I managed to get everything done.

My goal with this illustrarticle was to make OK Go laugh. Upon posting the illustrarticle last week, I tagged each of them in the IllustrArticles Instagram post, hoping they’d see the illustration and where to read the article. And, it sorta worked.

OK Go Adds 503 New Band Members At Secret Audition
OK Go Adds 503 New Band Members At Secret Audition

I cannot confirm nor deny whether any of them actually laughed, let alone read it, because I don’t know. But look:

 

okgo-damiankulashlikeDamian Kulash’s seal of approval! Printing this out and laminating it!

The Making of “Brainstorm” Illustration
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Brainstorm
Brainstorm – 11×14 Watercolor & Ink for IllustrArticles 3 Easy Steps To Total Mind Control

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain” – Vivian Greene

This might be one of my favorite illustrations I’ve done because of the spontaneity behind it. Most of my “brainstorming” happened subconsciously! It was created for IllustrArticles “3 Easy Steps to Total Mind Control.” The idea for the illustration came from a mix of a million things, such as:

– A thunderstorm that unexpectedly drenched me as I was walking down the street one day
– An apocalyptic dream I had, in which it was very windy on a field near a beach (similar to the one I live next to) and the sky was changing colors every few seconds (probably prompted by walking into that thunderstorm the day before).
– The Stepford Wives movie I watched
– I’ve been noticing cloud formations for about 2 weeks straight.
– Stress I’ve been dealing with around that time

I pretty much saw the gist of it the image in my mind before I even started doodling it, and kept making small changes as I went along. See if you notice them. These are some of the thumbnails and sketches I did, first:

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And then I scanned them and arranged them in Photoshop, and traced my computer screen on tracing paper. This is the tracing paper line art and the finished art:

tracing paper lineart & finished illustration

I should have photographed this step, but I forgot! Basically, after that, I attached the tracing paper line art to the back of a blank watercolor paper sheet, and placed them on top of a lightbox. From there, I went straight to inking with a brush. Then, I used watercolor for color. Last, I scanned the finished illustration and corrected the colors in Photoshop so that it looked on screen just like the original.

New Illustration Blog and Art Process
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New Blog!

IllustrArticles – Illustrated articles about important stuff.

I love reading blogs and articles about various topics and I’ve always wanted illustrate for editorials. I’ve done a few editorial illustrations for a newspaper in the past, and would love to do more for magazines, newspapers, blogs, etc. I also love to write. So, IllustrArticles is my way of indulging in both: illustration and writing, based on my life experiences and introspection about IMPORTANT STUFF.

About 2 weeks ago, I told myself that if I can think of 5 topics to write AND draw, I will buy the IllustrArticles domain name. It was up by May 2nd. So far, I’ve done 2 posts and working on more. If my sense of humor doesn’t make your eyeballs bleed, you can follow on Tumblr or subscribe to the RSS feed.

This Razorberries blog is just more of a place to read about my new art and peeks of my work processes, which I will post more of, now that I have IllustrArticles and I feel more organized. Speaking of work process…

Work process: Before/After

The following sketches and illustrations are the ones I created for my first two IllustrArticles (anyone getting sick of that word, yet?) posts.

Stiff Upper Lip - Before/After

Warm Hands in Cold Water - Before/After