This project was given to challenge students by creating a piece of work that encompassed two words. There must be a narrative explaining the two words chosen with sketches and final sketches. The project instructions said to use certain tools all in Adobe Illustrator.

First, I was randomly given the words spy and underneath the water. With these words, I made two mind maps. This encouraged a lot of ideas and I made eight first-round sketches. After being critiqued by my professor and peers I picked my final sketch. Then from this final sketch, I created my narrative.

I created nine sketches in total. The first eight sketches were random ideas all encompassing the words spy and underneath the water. I finally settled on my idea of an octopus that was a spy under the sea. This was the perfect idea for my skill level and was agreed upon by my peers and professor. 

My initial narrative is different from my final narrative. My first idea was a spy gets caught and has been thrown into the water. He is fighting for his final breath of air as he sinks lower and lower into the water. My final narrative for this project is a mystery. There is a suspicious pile of rocks that are different colors and have bubbles rising. Mr. Octopus spy is crouching on a rock and investigating the suspicious site. He uses his monocle to get a better look at the rocks.

These are some work-in-progress images. When I first started this project I had some goals to be more confident in my creating ability, be able to use the brush tool, be able to use the pen tool, and be able to create a story. When first getting my initial lines down on the page I used the the brush tool. This was very effective because I was basically drawing on my ideas to the page. This created the vision of the octopus on a rock looking at a mysterious rock pile. After using the brush tool I went over every single line with the pen tool. I had to do this because I needed to be able to color-fill the objects. This was a minor setback but I still would do the process the same way. 

This is my final product. This encompasses the words spy and underneath the water. The octopus is inspecting a suspicious pile of rocks. The different shades and bubbles rising is unusual for the sea so the spy octopus is taking a close look at the rock formation. 

I learned a lot from this project. I now believe in myself when creating an illustration in Adobe Illustrator. I have somewhat mastered the brush tool and the pen tool. I worked with gradients and color-fill. I am confident in my abilities now when using Adobe Illustrator.