Digital illustration at Marywood University is such a fun class for anyone to take. Professor Yermal paces it slowly for those who are not art majors, and the projects are fun and interesting. It helps to have a basic understanding of design programs such as Illustrator and Photoshop but is not completely necessary. Currently we are working on a project based on the artist Ben Rubin’s artwork, where cartoon monsters meet New York City Subway life.

Our project is similar to this, where we use a photograph we have taken and make a creature of our own to be placed in the image. The goal is to create a statement, something comedic, serious, friendly, etc. We then make a few different monsters for a few of the pictures, the strongest idea will be used for the final piece. The creature we make will be scanned into the computer and placed into the photo.

For my project I wanted to create something funny, I found a photo of my cousin that I had taken while she was fixing her hair. I also created a plant like monster to go along with it since we were in Florida at the time, and I know that Florida has a lot of weird-looking plants. The outline of the monster was transferred into Photoshop and I added a basic layer of color to each of the portions of the plant monster. I then added in the shadows and more details to make it look as if it was in the scene, such as being conscious of how the shadows in the photograph were falling.

This was a really enjoyable project, that combined so many different elements. Being able to take something funny and place it in a photo to create something completely new is fun and humorous.