text project...

Text illustration – where are you going?
Locate some text – a poem, song, quote or something that you wrote – that addresses your thoughts concerning where you are going. What do you expect for yourself as an artist, a student and/or a human?
Come prepared to work on this text based illustration next week. Following out triptych crit, we'll have a quick text tool demo, and then studio time.

triptych

Illustrator triptych – what were you taught?

Create a triptych that uses at least 3 frames. Use the brushes, text tools and shape tools to recreate the sketches that you made for today. Use color & text to enhance your initial drawings, and you may want to mess around with gradients & some distort tools. Start by drawing the frames in which the story is to take place, and go from there.

Thematically, we’ll make this project about your upbringing. Think about how your upbringing and the place that you come from affects the way you see things. Perhaps your community or region has particular nuances, or your family pushed you in certain directions, and you think in a manner unique to your family. What were you taught, by whom, how did you react, and how does that affect your sense of vision?

Also consider what you saw in Waking Life—how did they fill backgrounds, illustrate the human form, or advance the narrative? The movie has such an interesting visual approach to storytelling—what can you borrow for your own comic?

Whatever you do, make it interesting and avoid cliché. We’ll work on this next week.

3 panels	Technical proficiency	effort/carefulness	"about" learning	Total
10	5	10	5	30 pts

color & line control

Tools

Color guide palette

· Desaturating color

· Emphasis & subordination

· Web-only color picker

Line quality

· Stroke palette

· Brushes palette

Layers

In class assignment:

Add three new layers, and copy/paste your still life on each layer, or duplicate your original layer three times. Name your four layers “original,” “desaturated,” “scale,” and “repetition.” On each of the new layers you’ll be making adjustments to your original still life composition.

1. Desaturate your colors on every object but the focal point, either by adjusting existing color or adding translucent shapes on top.

2. For the scale layer, adjust the sizes of your still life objects, and break the picture plane with one of them.

3. On the repetition layer, I’d like you to use repetition & variety to create an entirely new image using only those objects.

We’ll look at these new images before class ends.

more basic tools...

Transparency

Smooth & erase pencil

Scissors & knife

Gradients

Mesh tool

Swatches, patterns & symbols

Warp tools

In-class assignment:

1. Launch Adobe Illustrator

2. Review the terms & tools we covered in class

3. Run outside and collect 5 items – 2 that are inorganic and 3 that are organic

4. Create an interesting still life on your desk and use the basic tools to draw your arrangement

5. Be mindful that this could be wicked boring, so exploit color, line and composition in order to make a compelling image

Homework:

Complete this still life for next class, consulting your Unity checklist along the way. Pay special attention to continuation & proximity, so you avoid a boring pile of stuff.

Next week we’ll work on a 3 panel drawing (a triptych) based on how you were taught. Consider who told you what, what you believed or didn’t, and how that affects who you are now. Come prepared to start work on this topic – any sketches or plans will help you immensely.

Technical proficiency	effort/carefulness	Strong design – proximity & continuation	Total
10	10	10	30 pts

darn this snow...

Hello all!

I've heard from a handful of you guys, and it seems like this snow undermined your efforts to complete mom. So, bring whatever you have, and we'll take some time in the beginning of class to get everyone close to complete. Maybe that's 15 minutes, maybe it's 30. We'll see what we need, but don't worry yourselves!

1st demo

Adobe Illustrator

The basics:

Drawing program

Rasters (bitmap) vs. paths

Object oriented program

Palettes & tear-offs

Tools

Artboard

Object

Paths

Anchor point

Fill

Stroke

The tools:

Selection (v)

Direct selection (a)

Rectangle (m)

Ellipse

Paintbrush (b)

Pencil (n)

Pen (p)

Hand (spacebar)

Zoom (z)

Group/ungroup

Bring to back/front

Undo (apple z)

Complete your mom for next class. Consult your Unity checklist, so that you bring a completed composition and not a figure floating in white space.

Next week we’ll work on an arranged still life, so come prepared. You’ll need five objects in all – 2 or 3 will be organic in nature, and 2 or 3 will be inorganic in nature. Don’t bring anything sandy, sticky or sharp – we can’t damage the workspace or computers in any way.

Post your mom image to your blog before class so that people can scope it out. If there's some funky color when you post your image, look for a post below for help.

Radiolab - memory & identity...

Here's the link to Radiolab, a National Public Radio broadcast that's totally amazing. The website is a touch confusing, but look to the right and you'll see a frame with an audio player. Scroll through the options till you find "Who Am I?" and "Memory & Forgetting."

Each show is an hour long, and they each complicate our understanding of identity & memory - incredible useful thinking!