Awhile ago, I got asked by Jordan Shiveley of Grimalkin Press to create a cover illustration for Hive 5: A Somewhat Quarterly Comics Anthology. For the illustration, I stuck to basic concepts. I took some inspiration with the title “Hive 5″ sounding similar to “high five” the hand gesture.  Since I had a nice ink drawing of a arm with a bee gracing the top, I took that as a starting point and progressed to the final draft of the image. Mark Leicht, Hive’s designer propose the possibility of a vellum dust jacket to separate the image layers to mimic the layering in my thesis prints. I’m excited to see the final design.

Started off super minimal and black and white. Placed temporary title design to work around the illustration.

Added some more atmosphere similar to my thesis prints.

Worked with color and nixed the title since that’s a design decision for Mark to handle.

The “final draft,” Mark Leicht will take the image and finish off the rest of the cover design.

I gave up on just using the arm and decided to include the figure that’s attached since it still felt so disembodied. I was stubborn about it since it felt overused in my thesis work, but it translates really nicely for the design.

Hive 5 will be on sale in the next few months, which I’ll be sure to announce along with showing off the final design. You can buy previous issues through their Etsy shop and see more of Hive/Grimalkin Press at their blog. They’re nice people, say hi.

Woohoo.

It’s a very unenthusiastic “woohoo,” because I still feel like I’m recovering. I’ve been on break for a week already and I’ve mostly spent it on resting and organizing. I’m spending the break absorbing feedback, sketching and reading. I’ll also print some projects for people and and get some art ready for some 2010 shows starting up next month. It seems like whenever I just want to “be done” with art, I get sucked into shows and projects. I’m glad for this,  it keeps me going and reminds me that there’s a life outside of graduate school.

I also wanted to make a public thank you. This past week I received an anonymous check meant to supplement my art making. I am immensely grateful for this extremely generous gift and plan to use it for my thesis work next semester. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you (thousand times over).

The next few weeks, I’m going to update and organize the website/blog. I’m getting a camera for Christmas, which means I can re-shoot recent work that didn’t photograph well the first time around.

And to end this post, here’s some books I’ve been using towards my thesis draft:

And books that I read for fun… or try to, because I start them on vacation and then take four months off to do school. This winter break I plan on finishing these books:

First of three complete. This is the one that I projected to take the longest. The other two will hopefully be quicker since this is the template for them both.

Later!

Megan

edit: See it bigger version here.

“Such fairy tales begin with an original lack of differentiation between two siblings: they live together and feel alike; in short, they are inseparable. But then, at a certain moment in growing up, one of them begins an animal existence, and the other does not.” –Bettelheim

Combination of silkscreen/drawing monoprints (or mixed media depending how you want to define it). Completed the final semester.

Graduate school 2nd year:

Artwork completed during my second year of graduate school.

Graduate school 1st year:

Artwork completed during my first year at graduate school. Media range from relief print, etching, silkscreen, and mixed media drawing/prints.

All work © Megan Frauenhoffer