This illustration was made for Issue 7 of this year’s volume of The Collegian. For this cover, I was given the theme of The Haystack, the Seventh Day Adventist version of a taco salad. Usually, each issue has assigned articles to the writers, however, this edition features “Writers Choice” as the main theme. Because each article was different, it was almost like each one was an ingredient for a haystack. Now that the theme was given to me, I had to start the process of creating. I started out with a sketch, adding the layers of lettuce, cheese, beans, chips, and all the fixings. I also added a fork and spoon, because how else would one eat the contents of the newspaper? I then colored each sketched layer to create the different textures of the ingredients. To add more detail, I made a separate layer for salsa and created a font to match. It’s a hand-drawn type spelling out the newspaper’s title. I added a dip of salsa on the spoon to make it look like the title was drawn with it. I finished the piece by removing the sketch layer and sending it of to my manager for production.