Back to the drawing board

Last night, after trying several more techniques in attempt to use a scanned photograph of Keith Haring for my mag cover, I decided to turn the page and try out some cover concepts based strictly off of illustration. I feel as though illustration is definitely my strong point. Even though I definitely need some more photographic pieces for my portfolio, I will save that venture for a project which doesn't require obtaining a good photo of the deceased. I have really gotten into learning about Haring and his life story and I believe his story/work as well as his NY gallery opening this month are definitely worth promoting, so I do not believe I will be switching lead articles at this point.

To get the train rolling, I thought it would be helpful to sit down with my Haring book and a few sites pulled up and begin sketching/exploring his visual language. At this point, for the cover concept, I'm leaning towards either:

a. an illustration of Haring and some sort of physical/mental interaction between his portrait and his trademark characters

b. an illustrated collage consisted of his trademark characters/objects/themes and perhaps illustrated typographic elements

Either way, I'm still trying to decide if I should give the magazine a 'Special Edition' title/the 'Keith Haring' issue. Not sure yet.

Below are a couple of sketch experiments I've done so far. For the first one, I sortof free-form sketched while glancing at pictures of Keith and his work. For the second one, I began seeking out images/characters/elements which seem to be Haring's trademarks and sketched out a 'Keith Haring Alphabet' (If you're wondering why the alphabet includes a penis and semen, read a book..or check out his work).

I'm getting lots of ideas now, and it's a funny thing-sometimes I really do forget to step back and do probably the most important thing for my process-sketch. Every single final concept I've ever come up with that was substantial has surfaced through a sketch process. Sometimes I get caught up in the digital world for too long and just have to go back to the drawing board.