marker illustration | 20 Lines A Day

May 14, 2013
by Judy 4 Comments

FEELING PEACHY

For over thirty years, I’ve illustrated food. I loved the challenge of rendering fruit; each variety had beautiful colors and textures to capture.

With peaches, I always used an opaque medium (usually colored pencil) for the reflected light at the edges of the fruit. This gave the impression of “fuzz” because opaque mediums have a bluish cast.

This was one of my earliest jobs of my career. The fruit is very stylized here.

The illustrations I am sharing below were used on labels to indicate peach flavor for bath soap, baby food, sour candy, tea, yogurt, beverages, jam, wine cooler and sorbet.

This illustration is currently on jars of Beechnut Baby Food.

Just for fun, I’ve included some other fruit images in addition to peaches on labels groupings.

A marker layout in progress.

Before creating my final painting, I always provided sketches to my clients.

This was a recent illustration.

Remarkable Labels
Randall's Jams 6

These paintings were rendered with markers, colored pencils and/or watercolor dyes. My motto is “whatever works.” I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

http://foodartist.wordpress.com

© 2013 by Judy Unger, http://www.myjourneysinsight.com and 20 Lines A Day. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Judy Unger with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

May 4, 2013
by Judy 3 Comments

STRAWBERRIES

For over thirty years, I’ve illustrated food. I loved the challenge of rendering fruit; each variety had beautiful colors and textures to capture. With strawberries, I learned how to replicate the pattern of tiny hives crisscrossing each berry. They looked more realistic when I painted shadows and highlights around each hive.

The illustrations I am sharing below were used on labels to indicate the strawberry flavor for yogurt, juice, jam, milk, liqueur and sorbet. I’ve included some close-ups.

Painting a splash was probably one of the hardest things I’ve illustrated.

This illustration was early in my career, before I learned better techniques for capturing the strawberry texture.

The strawberries here were supposed to be simpler and less realistic. This was used on a liquid bath soap label.

Some of these paintings were rendered with markers and colored pencils and others were created with watercolor dyes. All of these paintings were done before Photoshop existed. I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

http://foodartist.wordpress.com

April 8, 2013
by Judy Leave a comment

SUPERSOIL ILLUSTRATIONS – PART 1

For this post, I am sharing illustrations I painted for a soil company called Supersoil. Several years ago, Supersoil Inc. merged into Miracle Grow and the packaging with my illustrations were no longer available. There were unique challenges for every painting and I searched through my neighborhood with my camera to find beautiful gardens I could photograph. When I completed this project, I enjoyed seeing my paintings printed on the large bags of soil sold in many home improvement stores.

For this first post, I share about four projects I painted. I have included close-ups, sketches, marker comps and even the original layout provided for me.

The first painting was for a potting soil mix and I illustrated a pot filled with flowers.

This second illustration was for a product called “Wonderbloom.”

This is my layout provided by the art director.

This is a preliminary marker sketch.

This illustration was for a product called “Palm and Cactus Mix.” I followed the art direction, which had a strange request for a “door going nowhere.” The strange perspective makes me uncomfortable, but my favorite part of my painting is the small lizard in the shadows (I had lizards as pets when I was younger!)

The lizard is there!

The last assignment for this post was for a product used on sod lawns called “Turf Fit.” This painting includes a dog, and it is one of the few animals I’ve illustrated.

My photo referene of sod was not very pretty to paint!

My photo reference of sod shows that it was not very pretty to paint!

My technique utilizes watercolors, dyes and colored pencils; these were created before Photoshop existed. I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

http://foodartist.wordpress.com

April 8, 2013
by Judy Leave a comment

SUPERSOIL ILLUSTRATIONS – PART 2

For this post, I continue sharing illustrations I painted for a soil company called Supersoil. Below are illustrations I created for several packaging assignments. I have included close-ups, sketches, marker comps and even the original layouts provided to me.

The first painting was for a product called “Garden Guardian.” I learned about the intricacies of painting mulch and picked at the paper with an exacto knife to create the unique texture I wanted.

This is the layout provided to me by the art director.

This is my preliminary marker sketch placed into the art director’s layout.

This was my photo reference for painting a rock.

This second illustration is for another potting soil product and I named my painting “Cat in the Window.” The art director provided me with a photo of a cat he wanted in the window. It was one that he adored, but it was deceased. At that time, our family had a cat that was identical!

My pencil sketch.

My preliminary marker sketch for “Cat in the Window.”

A rare scan I made of my illustration in progress.

This last painting I call “Garden Path.” It has a strange perspective (requested by the art director).

Art Director’s layout.

My technique utilizes watercolors, dyes and colored pencils; these were created before Photoshop existed. I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

http://foodartist.wordpress.com

March 18, 2013
by Judy 3 Comments

APRICOTS

I have been illustrating food since 1980. I especially enjoyed painting fruit, which I have been sharing on Twenty Lines. For this post, I am sharing my illustrations of apricots. These illustrations were used on packaging labels for yogurt, juice, jam and baby food.

All of these paintings were done before Photoshop existed. I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

http://foodartist.wordpress.com

March 9, 2013
by Judy 1 Comment

PLUMS AND POMEGRANATES

I have illustrated so many fruits, that it’s fun to select groups of them to share. I have been a food illustrator for over 30 years. For this post, I’ve chosen plums and pomegranates. These illustrations were used on labels for yogurt, baby food, juice, jam and vitamins.

Plums are similar to grapes with their powdery surface. I used a light gray colored pencil over my watercolor painting; the bluish cast was useful to portray that effect.

This painting was early in my career. Later on, I became much better at painting prunes. Compare this with my later illustration below.

Seeing these prunes close up, shows how abstract they become. There are many colors to be found within them. I especially loved the deep burgundy.

The pomegranates illustrated here were created later in my career. For the last few illustrations, I painted over a digital rendering that I generated on my computer and was definitely more photorealistic. The computer was extremely useful composing my painting and allowed for clients to give great input before I painted anything.

An example of my photo-reference shows how much improvement was needed!

I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

http://foodartist.wordpress.com

February 26, 2013
by Judy Leave a comment

JUST GRAPE

I have been illustrating food since 1980. I especially enjoy painting fruit, which I continue to share on Twenty Lines. Each variety of fruit I rendered posed its own particular challenges. Below are many of my paintings of grapes, as well as close-ups. My grape illustrations were used on labels for yogurt, wine, juice, jam and vitamins.

When rendering grapes, I always looked for ways to capture the powdery surface on them. Using a colored pencil over a watercolor painting (once it was dry, of course) was very useful for this effect. Colored pencil was opaque with a bluish cast, which is why it worked so well.

All of these paintings were done before Photoshop existed. I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

http://foodartist.wordpress.com

February 22, 2013
by Judy 4 Comments

BLUEBERRIES

Blueberry illustration used on a beverage label.

As an artist, my niche was food illustration. It would probably be even more descriptive to say that I was a fruit illustrator.

This was used on Darigold Yogurt.

For this post, I’ve decided to share blueberries. Most of my illustrations were used on labels. Some examples of the products were yogurt, liqueur, sorbet, jam, juice and vitamins.

This was used for a non-stick spray can label.

A few of these paintings were rendered with markers and colored pencils. Others were created with watercolor dyes.

This was Blueberry Cooler flavor for Caprisun.

Blueberries Wet

This label was for blueberry jam.

This illustration was used on a yogurt label. At that time, I cropped the artwork but later on preferred to paint whole fruit.

This illustration was used on a yogurt label. I regretted cropping the artwork.

These actually are sloe berries, used in gin. But they resemble blueberries.

This illustration is of bilberries, and it was used on a herbal vitamin label.

This illustration is of bilberries, and was used on an herbal vitamin label.

All of these paintings were done before Photoshop existed. I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:

http://foodartist.wordpress.com

February 8, 2013
by Judy Leave a comment

HOLY BAGELS!

In 2000, I became quite familiar with bagels when I painted two-dozen of them. My illustrations were used on packaging for Lender’s Bagels.

The art director wanted each bagel to have its own character. Many of the bagel flavors had different contours; some were rounder and others were more oval. Through experimentation, I discovered that markers and colored pencil worked best to create realistic illustrations. I added small amounts of acrylic to create details such as sesame, poppy seeds and highlights. I have included some close-ups of my illustrations.