My topic of choice was a monochromatic landscape illustration with a subject in the foreground. The artwork by Joshua Blake from the examples given last week captivated me from the start. The vector illustration by Joshua Blake depicts a nighttime scene with a train breaking through a circular background. The dynamic of the train breaking through the background gives a sense of speed, weight, and scale. In my final illustration, I had wanted to convey a sense of isolation and mystique. The astronaut depicted in my illustration is walking alone in a wast-forsaken landscape. By placing the astronaut in the foreground, I hoped to achieve a sense of scale, weight, and space, similar to the train by Joshua Blake. To help add texture to my drawing, I had used the technique shown in the video by Cosmin Serban. In the Youtube video, Serban (2019) teaches the viewers how to use the grain texture effect in Adobe Illustrator to implement stippled grain texture onto their artwork. The stipple grain helped create a weathered surface on the astronaut. The stipple grain also makes a more polished artwork and provides a more hand-drawn look instead of computer-generated vector illustration. The most challenging aspect of this project for me was generating the needed textures. Before learning of the stipple grain effect by Serban (2019), I had started to use textured brushes to add texture to my work. The problem with the textured brush was that it is not constrained to a particular area. After applying texture to an area with a textured brush, I had to clean up the surrounding area with the selection tool. The color I had gone with was the various shade of red. Red has been associated with the planet mars and also heat. I think that red helped the feeling of isolation that I was trying to portray. 

Serban, C. (2019). Illustrator Tutorial: Flat Illustration With Grain And Noise Texture. YouTube. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WX9l27xGTc.