Self Portrait as Walrus vs. Self Portrait as Rhinocerous

Here are a few more from an old sketchbook. The assignment was to do a self portrait as an animal and these were my preliminary sketches.





I eventually settled on the walrus for the final piece pictured below.

Ilan Schraer Illustration

For the last 7 weeks I've been taking an Illustration Fundamentals coarse at PNCA, as part of their continuing education program. The class turned out to be much more focused on the business side of illustration than I anticipated, but I've still been learning some good tips about the illustration world and how to better present myself as a professional. One project we've been working on is developing a "brand logo" for our illustration business.; an iconic image that we can put on business cards, letters, merchendise, etc.. I've already created something like this for my etsy store, but I thought it would be good to have another one for freelance work. Here's an idea that I've been tinkering around with:


I've used the walrus several times in my work so I thought it was a fitting icon, but I'm curious to see what it would look like in watercolor or an ink wash. I'll probably mess around with that a bit later, when I'm not swamped with work. Keep the faith dear readers. Summer WILL come!

Coffee with cream and sugar ... and walrus

I wanted to show off the amazing mug Stephanie got me for my birthday so here's a drawing of it! We've been admiring the ceramic work of Dan and Laurie Hennig at a local gallery here for a while so I'm especially happy to have my very own piece by them. I haven't done a still life drawing in a while so this was also a good opportunity to work on my chops. Check out their website for more info on this ceramic duo and take a gander at the pics below, too.