A Little Tour of Haymans

I have my two classes in Haymans Hall, a brand new Illustration building at SCAD, Savannah that opened up at the start of this quarter. From what I hear, it is a major improvement on classroom space and work area for students.

I don't have a picture of the outside yet, but I have several of the inside and you can see why. It's a mixture of Pee-Wee's Playhouse meets contemporary art installation.

One of two walls of denim clothing.

Luscious lip paintings.

A mural of the first chair of the department whom the building is named after.

Last Friday, there was a Haymans open house where the public were welcome to see the building and attend live demonstrations by Illustration faculty.

Epic doodle wall.

Live model in Victorian attire.

Lots of children's books created by SCAD students on display.

A little panda family. One of several 3-d pieces made by students for children's books.

Drawing Assignment 1: Still Life- Travel

Let's go back in time for a moment to my first assignment for my Drawing for Illustrators class. The theme for the assignment is "travel" and my mission is to create a still life drawing with that theme...

One step before my thumbnails included a little brain storming sheet where I wrote down a a list of different travel items as well as traditional still life items. I combined those two to discover several possible concepts for my image. I go with the items at my disposal: my clothing, purse, bedroom furniture. Limited to those items, I narrowed down my options and started making thumbnails:

 

In my thumbnails, I arranged my belongings in different ways to represent different narratives and/or symbols. My professor makes a couple notes on some of my drawings, but we both agree that the last three thumbnails are the strongest compositions.

I go with the middle concept for its dynamic "drop":

Next, I replicated my thumbnail as best as possible with my photo reference:

The photo above is one of about 4 different photos I used for my final drawing:

Sexual Assault Awareness Poster Process

I'm entering a sexual assault awareness poster contest with a piece that has a heroic spin on it.

The line drawing was a little hard to see in the photo I took, so I give you first the color comps for my painting. I decided blue and red would best read as "hero", so I experimented with cooler and warmer versions. The bottom right seemed the best fit. Having the colors closer to primary red and blue seemed the most appropriate.

I'm working with gouache and start with a light wash over the figure. The wash puts a layer between you and the pencil lines so that they are less likely to rub off. Also, It benefits seeing the edges of the figure more clearly. I don't worry about the wash being uneven and having little blooms here and there since I have many more layers to go. Also, gouache lifts off the paper with water much more easily that watercolor, so I don't have to worry about areas being too dark in the areas of the figure receiving the most light.

With both the hair and the skin I work transparently. There are just a few highlights where I use opaque white paint.

I had the shirt "finished", but a wise classmate of mine pointed out the monotony and formlessness of the folds. I took new reference photos and started over. The shirt is the only place that I worked opaquely, which started out as a transparent painting might, but I used more paint and less water as I proceed with each layer. Once I got to a thick level of opaqueness, it was really tricky to add just the right amount of water that allowed me to blend in the new layer. Too much water and you remove all of the hard work you've done in previous layers, which I encountered frequently. I don't know how Harry Anderson did it.

Almost there! I just need to clean up the scan and add text.

SCAD Grad Week 2 and 3 Sketches

 

What you are seeing are all drawings from life. The top two sketches were done during my Drawing for Illustrators class on a little field trip to a local coffee shop. The bottom two are part of a homework assignment that called for 3 still lifes composed of 4 different objects. The still life on the right is made of a skewer, a piece of tape, foil, and Sculpey. Yep.

Here's the third still life.