Charles Bukowski - Vector Illustration

So I decided to re-do an old piece for Vector illustration (with professor John Foerster) and here it is.

Here's the story behind it. Exactly two years ago in the Winter quarter of 2009, I took my very first illustration class, Drawing and Design for Illustrators with Professor Daniel Powers. We had to pick a Charles Bukowski poem to illustrate, I picked:

coupons, by Charles Bukowski

cigarettes wetted with beer from
the night before
you light one
gag
open the door for air
and on your doorstep
is a dead sparrow
his head and breast
chewed away.

hanging from the doorknob
is an ad from the All American
Burger
consisting of several coupons
which
say
that with the purchase
of a burger
from Feb. 12 thru Feb. 15
you can get a free
regular size bag of french
fries and one
10 oz. cup of coca cola.

I take the ad
wrap the sparrow
carry him to the trash bin
and dump him
in.

look:
forsaking fries and coke
to help keep
my city
clean.

We were limited to one coloured paper, one different colour of pastel, and black and white pastel.

And this is what I did:

Ehhhhh.... Loved the idea and the colours but awful execution.
....
But that was two years ago!

  

In doing this I discovered that re-doing or revisiting an illustration is not as simple as it may sound (it certainly doesn't sound like it to me anymore.) There is so much that lead up to the execution of this piece that I don't even know where to begin. One thing I will say is I do miss the old colours but I think those were effective because of the pastels, which gave them a nauseating, grungy quality even though they were such bright, happy colours.  It is somewhat frustrating to do this twice and still not feel 100% pleased with it, but I definitely learned a lot from this whole process. I almost want to re-do it again in my usual graphite technique, which would definitely give it that grungy feeling but it's probably best to move on to new pieces for now.