What's in a Name?

Prepping my portfolio for the SCBWI conference has been a lot of fun, but time constraints have prevented me from completing what I would consider the ideal set of work. Last semester's retail shows, commissions, and teaching (and grading!) obligations sucked a lot of the time I had set aside for portfolio development.  If I had another two or three months, the portfolio would look different than it will when I drop it off for the portfolio review at the start of February.  As it is, January has been a blur.  It's been many, many very late nights in the studio.  One more tiny drawing to complete, and it's out of my hands for now. 

One of the requirements for the portfolio is a given: include your name. I decided (not uniquely) to make a title page for the portfolio, but that was not as easy as it seemed at first. In fact, it took me five tries.  I wanted it to jive with the rest of the work, but be unique on its own.  I read online on an artist's blog that a good way to have people remember you is to have your title page match up with your business card and your postcard.  Uh oh...I already had printed the latter two and they were not related.

My new business card for www.jessicaboehman.com looks like this:

While the postcard is my Little Women illustration:

2013 Promotional postcard, recto

I began to despair. They are not similar at all.  It surprisingly took me a few minutes to figure out that there was a link. Look closer at the Little Women illustration:

Detail of "Jo's Castle in the Sky"

The light bulb went on. You see, it's a faulty switch now that I am getting so little sleep.  Realizing that hippocamps were the common thread, I knew I had to go in that direction.  I wanted to use a decorative border to match up with several of the pieces inside the portfolio, but the border of my hippocamp drawing already made use of a sea theme.  I decided on a garden theme instead (who wouldn't want a hippocamp in their garden?). 

Here it is in progress. You can see how the left half is rendered while the right half is a line drawing:

Voila! The completed title page.

Title page, 2013 portfolio. Pencil. Copyright 2013 Jessica Boehman