Browsing all posts in "class assignment".

Updating the Owl Calendar in Illustrator

For my Illustrator class, we had a calendar project and I thought it would be the perfect time to start updating my Owl Calendar. I created another yearly version with the tree with pretty much the same layout but completely revamped images and colors. I’m still considering some changes, so I’m not posting an image [...]

How to Create a Late Night Disaster

For my first Illustrator II class assignment, we had to create a how-to illustration. I decided to go timely with How to Cause a Late Night Disaster based on all the hoopla going on at NBC with Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and the Tonight Show.

Final Photoshop II Project: NYTimes Opinion Illustration

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. It’s been a really busy month and I have lots of adventures to catch up on writing about. First, though, I wanted to share my final project from my Photoshop II UCLA Extension class.
We had to create an illustration for a New York Times Opinion [...]

Recreating a Planet Terror Poster, Textures and All

Last week’s Photoshop class assignment was to recreate the look of a Planet Terror poster using our own images and textures. I chose a photo I took of Guiselle where she looks sort of scared, and painted on some eye makeup and made her lips a deeper red-orange so she looked like she was wearing [...]

Playing With Halftone Photoshop Effects

One of the assignments in my Photoshop class last week was to create a series of halftone looks by using the regular and color halftone filters in creative ways. I may have gone a bit too abstract on some, but it was interesting playing around with an effect I hadn’t used before.
I used a portrait [...]

Creating Composited Portraits in Photoshop

The first big assignment in my Photoshop II class was creating two “editorial portraits” that could be part of one magazine article, somehow related and showed some of the personality of the subject.
When I took photos for the first week of class, I used my friends Guiselle and Kacie as models. I shot the photos [...]

Creating Custom Photoshop Flower Brushes

I’m taking a the UCLA Extension Photoshop II class, and it’s quite a step up from the Photoshop I class I took last quarter. It’s a lot more photo retouching and compositing, and we started the class by taking photos to use throughout the quarter.
One of this week’s assignments was creating a custom brush (to [...]

Illustrator Final Project: Designing a Beverage Label

My Illustrator class ended a couple of weeks ago, but I realized I forgot to post my final project — a beverage label designed by incorporating the things we’d learned in class.
I decided to design a label for sparkling water as Evan and I drink it all the time and we’ve even purchased a Soda-Club [...]

Photoshop Final: Reworking the Towards Darkness Poster

For my Photoshop class final, I had to create a movie poster, real or fictional. If it was for a real movie, I had to make sure it was entirely original. The project was supposed to show a range of techniques we learned in the class.
I chose to rework the Towards Darkness poster — the [...]

How to Photoshop a ‘Pencil Sketch’ – Fast

Last week’s Photoshop class assignment was so simple in concept that I was amazed it counted for a full grade. Our assignment: Create a pencil sketch using a technique our teacher showed us in lecture (which I’ll share with you in a moment). To get the base, black-and-white sketch, or the funky colored-pencil looking sketch [...]

Photoshop Class: Creating a Magazine Cover

For this Photoshop class assignment, we had to create a magazine cover layout, trace the magazine’s title, include at least 4 images, a number of blending modes and text effects, and of course the regular color and levels corrections.
I originally wanted to use one of our travel photos for the magazine cover, but I just [...]

Illustrator Class: My Posterized Murray Poster

Our last Adobe Illustrator class assignment was creating a “posterized” poster — a stylized version of a photo that combines areas with similar tones to create a more graphic effect. We had to achieve the postrized look using the pen and pencil tool, and we could also use the live trace tool. We also had [...]

Photoshop Class: The Paris Postcard

Last week’s assignment for my Photoshop class was creating a postcard using at least 5 of 7 pictures of Paris, and multiple creative layer and text styles. I wouldn’t have normally chosen to give the sky a watercolor effect, but I needed to figure out something to do and I didn’t want to obscure the [...]

Learning Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for Real

I use Photoshop just about daily, and have for quite a few years now. I’m familiar with many of the tools, and know how to get a lot of different results, but I’ve always felt like I’m not quite doing everything right — and that if I knew the program better it would help the [...]

Free Download: The Owl Calendar 2010

Our final project for Design Fundamentals, other than our design journal, was a calendar. We needed to show a change over time or some sort of metamorphosis while also displaying the 2010 calendar.
I started sketching some cute, boxy little owls, and created a little love story between the two of them. I didn’t know how [...]