Lilla Rogers MATS bootcamp June assignment

The June assignment for Lilla's bootcamp was to produce a nautically themed wall art piece. Now wall art is not an area I have typically ever felt my stuff was appropriate for. I well remember when I took MATS part A last spring, the wall art week was the week that really freaked me out, mainly because it was supposed to be an abstract collage piece, preferably done non-digitally. We were given two colors based on our horoscope and went from there. I had pink and yellow and ended up submitting this below, which while not abstract, it was at least, a "collage." Frankly, I was just happy to have gotten through the week with something to submit!

This time, the parameters were a bit looser in terms of media, but the mini assignment was to draw ships in bottles and other nautically themed icons. So, I did a bunch of crappy sketches and ultimately ended up using one anyway… the first one I did of the ship. As per usual, I did everything in illustrator, messing around with transparency, brushes and generally grunging it up at the end. I knew I wanted to incorporate some lettering and in trying to come up with a nautical phrase, "sea the world'" popped into my head. I'm sure the phrase itself has probably been used before, but I thought it would lend itself to a kids piece…the direction I knew I would go in. I thought it would be cool to show the curvature of the earth, given the title. The dolphin idea was kinda like having a reindeer pull the sleigh, ha. I almost (really wanted to) add a mermaid sitting on the back of the boat, but thought it would be a bit too much. If it had been a longer poster format, I definitely would have added one waving to him in the ocean, haha. I added the houses on a curve at the bottom to counter the curve at the top and this is where I ended up. In the beginning, I was hoping to give this a vintage travel poster feel, but ultimately, particularly given the square format direction, per the brief, it looks more like a kid's book cover. I'm ok with that, even though it is probably not considered your typical "wall art" piece.

Check out the rest of the boot camp gallery here. This month featured a lot of really strong pieces, enjoy!