Locations to Include in Your Portfolio Part 2

Images by Advocate Art illustrator Julia Seal (left) and Astound Us Inc. illustrator Vanessa Port (right)

Locations to Include in Your Portfolio Part 2
Teacher: ITSme Society

Oh, the places you’ll go, in your illustrations that is. The more travel in your work, the more exciting your portfolio will be. In this blog series, we are exploring the places, near and far, that publishers are looking for when searching for illustrators. There is so much to explore in each location, we only touch the surface here. Please use these as prompts to make each illustration a unique experience.

Your artwork can take you anywhere. Including places people haven’t been to yet. Use your work to explore the great unknowns of space or the depths of the ocean. While these locations couldn’t be further away from each other, they have a few things in common. The vast majority of each location is greatly unexplored. We do not know what is at the bottom of the ocean, nor what is further out of our galaxy in space. Let your imagination and creativity wander as you uncover what fills these locations.

Under the Sea:

Images by Advocate Art illustrators Hannah Abbo (left) and Marc Pattenden (right) 

Just along from the land and under the water of the coastline, lies something very vast indeed. Snorkel down to the coral reef and swim alongside the sea life! Have you ever swam with turtles before, or discovered first-hand how intelligent octopuses are? The deeper you go, the more you can imagine. There’s already some fascinating, unthinkable life as deep as our submarines have traveled – now might be another good time to put on a deep-sea documentary! We haven’t explored 80% of our oceans. So go on, get the submarine out of the attic (that’s a completely normal thing to have on hand, right?!), and go and say hello to the mermaids and water dragons down below.

Space:

Images by Astound US Inc. illustrators Joel and Ashley Selby (left) and Monica De Rivas (right)

Who is to say that illustrations need to take place on earth, or even in this universe? After considering the peculiar things science can prove exists deep in our own oceans… can you imagine what aliens may dwell in the craters of Jupiter’s moons? Let your character put on their favorite astronaut outfit, and float into the stratosphere. What will they discover amongst the constellations and just how close is too close to the sun? Pop a David Bowie playlist on the radio, float around in your tin can, and perhaps while sketching you’ll find the answer to the question, “Is there life on Mars?”

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