Local Life Magazine

Throughout the summer of 2020, I had the pleasure to work for LOCAL Life Magazine in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. The magazine’s stories focus on people, places, food, fashion, culture, creativity, homes, and health. My responsibilities included designing editorial spreads, developing hand drawn illustrations, utilizing photography and videography, interviewing local and national celebrities, and writing content for articles and social media. To this day, I continue to contribute to the publication as their illustrator.

LOCAL LIFE HOW-TO SERIES

Every month, I have the opportunity to create a how-to, full-page illustration for LOCAL Life Magazine. I work with the editor, Lance Hanlin, to brainstorm topics that coincide with the unique theme of each issue. Once we decide upon a direction, I digitally illustrate the how-to within the program Procreate and add typography in InDesign. Black line work and watercolor are used for how-tos, while the main article illustrations are digitally oil painted.

The Process FOR MAIN
ARTICLE ILLUSTRATIONS

When creating illustrations for articles (not how-tos), I am either provided by the magazine with photographs or I go out and take my own pictures for the illustration. I, then, upload my favorites into Procreate, an application on the iPad. I manipulate the photos and take the best aspects out of each. With the oil paint brush in a new layer, I am able to form a detailed digital painting that meshes all of my favorite components of the photos. The drawing process is very tedious, but the end product is worth it. Once the illustration is complete, it is placed into InDesign as a PNG with a transparent background. Now, I have the capability to play around with typography and the illustration to form an eye catching spread that is divergent from spreads with rectangular photography.

Turtles: Revered creatures
throughout time & cultures

My first illustrated spread was “Turtles: Revered Creatures Throughout Time & Cultures.” Here, I was provided with the story written by Eddy Hoyle. For ease of reading and typographic design, I collaborated with the writer to break up each myth with its specific region. This allowed the illustrations to easily match with the content.

Outer Banks
from the Inside

LOCAL Life entrusted this entire project to the two interns, Michaela Satterfield and me. Together, we pitched the idea to cover a story on the Netflix hit show Outer Banks. Once we received the go-ahead, we contacted each publicist for all of the main characters, Chase Stokes, Rudy Pankow, Madelyn Cline, Madison Bailey, and Jonathan Davis. We were so happy to see that Rudy Pankow agreed to the interview. Within our allotted thirty minutes, we were able to discuss about the show, his process of becoming an actor, as well as, his ability to use his platform for good. While Michaela wrote the article, I was able to develop three illustrations on Procreate based off of photos provided by Netflix. Once the article was complete, I designed the editorial spreads with the freeform illustrations. Their dynamic shapes allowed for the overlapping of lines and unique application of typography that would not normally be seen in spreads with rectangular photography.

August Features

The ukulele illustration was first developed as a contender for the August cover. Within LOCAL Life, the team chooses the cover based on thirty different options. Each person gets a vote. After a couple rounds of voting, the ukulele illustration made it to the top two. Although it was not chosen as the final cover, it made its way to the inside page that highlights some of the interesting articles within the publication.

The production of the illustration was a fun and interesting process. After work, I headed to the beach with my ukulele and camera, found a washed-up log, and photographed the two together. The sunset reflected on the sand, giving it a pink hue. Once I found a balanced composition that pleased me, I took the image into Procreate where I used the oil paint brush to digitally paint the image. After twenty hours of rendering, it turned into my favorite illustration that I have completed for LOCAL Life.

Practice Makes Perfect

In collaboration with Michaela Satterfield, the other intern and journalist, I was able to develop eight musical instrument illustrations. I, then, used her writing and my drawings to develop two editorial spreads.

In salute to a Legend

Earl Williams is a well-known local musician who plays tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute, harmonica, and banjo. Among his instrumental talents, he also sings and tells jokes when he performs. He has played with many internationally famous people such as Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Issac Hayes, and Chubby Checker.

I was tasked with the illustration of Earl Williams because of the lack of high quality photos of him. With the use of different reference photos, I was able to create a portrait of him that was more vibrant and lively than the original photos provided.