Editorial Illustration: “Healthy Poultry Is Affordable” Concept and Mixed Media Collage #MFADays (3 of 3)
This 3rd and final post for my #MFADays series shares my concepts, process, and final design for a poultry-themed editorial illustration assignment.
The specific theme to illustrate was “healthy chicken is affordable.”
We students were tasked with developing FOUR initial concepts; from there the instructor would then choose which of our four he wanted us to finalize into a full page color illustration.
We were to imagine/pretend that our final illustration would be the featured image for a magazine article with a runners and marathoners readership.
Here were my four starter concepts 
My instructor chose the bottom left concept 👇🏽 which he deemed as the strongest of my four:
After our concepts were approved, the instructor encouraged us to create our final illustration in whatever medium we wanted 🙏🏽 and so I chose collage.
Behind the collaging scenes
Here is my initial collage work, in mixed media tatters and in total progress 👇🏽
My collaging supplies included:
- food packaging and assorted cardboards
- fabric scraps
- junk mail
- an old book cover I dry-brush painted with white gesso
- sashes and trims
- vintage handkerchief
- restaurant napkins I inked in forest green
- old book pages I stained with coffee
- old restaurant receipt (from vintage ephemera lot I got off Ebay)
- acrylic paints, “oops paint” from Home Depot, and a red paint marker (from POSCA)
- fabric glue and masking tape
After playing around with composition options for a while, I locked down what I thought could work (on thick mixed media paper) with using large paper clips 👇🏽
At some point, I then had to figure out how to best shape my rooster illustration using my collaging supplies; which materials would work best to create the chicken guy in the dish?? 🤔
I eventually made the rooster figure from:
- old book pages for the main body, wings, and beak
- a scrap of burlap fabric for central area of body
- old book cover for the circle shape of his head
- thick burgundy card stock for the rooster’s wattle
- green-embroidered detail for the rooster’s feet I snipped out from a 1950s handkerchief
- my hand-gesso’d book cover, which I cut into the shape of a plate for rooster to lay on
And as for the red comb on top of the rooster’s head, I used a light yellow trim which I hand-painted using a red POSCA marker 👇🏽
These photos show the SHORT VERSION of my initial process
While there’s a whole lot more assembly and artistic detail I could share beyond these images documenting my collaging starting point,
… the bigger point is that when it comes to mixed media collage, the only limit is one’s imagination!
Well after my starting line and a slew of eventual digital edits, I completed the final collage
And here it is in various color variations 👇🏽
Last but not least
Here’s a magazine mockup displaying my editorial illustration 👇🏽
I think this was the one assignment, more than 2 years after my first mixed media experience, that sealed the mixed media deal for me ❤️
By early 2022, when this assignment was finalized and graded, I was madly in love with mixed media and I just knew that whatever art journey steps awaited me after graduation, that they’d be headed in a mixed media direction.
Today
I’m continue to joyously pursue this vibrant path with no end in immediate sight.
In sum, I’m in it with my whole heart; the latter phrase is borrowed from Van Gogh, who used “whole heart” to describe his own passion and commitment to painting.
Before closing, I hope you’ve enjoyed this #MFADays series and learned a lot. My walk down MFA-memory lane has re-inspired me and I’m excited to share more of my artistic adventures in mixed media as I blog more along.
Until then …
Yours in mixed media,
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