Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I was recently commissioned by the RAND corporation to illustrate their 2023 calendar. This was truly a dream job. I had the pleasure of illustrating 15 prominent historical figures in my own unique style.

The first portrait I created was of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Just like in my illustration course, Dramatic portraits with pastel, collage, and Photoshop, I started with research and brainstorming composition ideas. Learning more about RBG helped me to create a rough sketch of my portrait which I used as a blueprint for the next steps in my image making process.

I made a number of revisions to the sketch and made sure to do all of my problem solving in the sketching phase.

I then added layers of pastel to build up the value of the portrait focusing on color temperatures and color relationships.

When adding the collage details I used a variety of papers with different textures. I used pastels to draw on top of these layers adding more details in the environment.

Lastly, I scanned in the layers of illustration that I created using traditional tools and used additional layers of digital painting to bring some extra life to the composition. Personally, I like to keep a light tough with the digital tools so I can preserve the handmade feel of the artwork.

I am extremely proud of the end result and am thrilled to share the finished illustrations with the Domestika community. Stay tuned for more portraits from the RAND calendar project.

If you are interested in learning more about my illustration process be sure to check out my Domestika course.