I’ve wanted to be an illustrator since I was eight. And now, I’m trying to work on a spiffy portfolio and go back to school to pursue my dream.
Last Friday, I had a portfolio review with Art Center, and it went very well! My interviewer liked my work; she said that I had strong narratives, scene creation, and characters. Her favorites were the hair portraits and Ralph (blot number 7). The only thing I needed was MORE pieces. The toughest part will be coming up with 15-30 more figure drawings from life.
It’s really hard to squeeze in classes with my work schedule, so I’m going to look into weekend sessions. Fingers crossed.
Ken Robinson has an amazing speech about creativity. As artists, writers, designers, photographers, filmmakers, our essential job is being creative. Sure there’s the technical aspects of our craft. But those are merely a way to express our creativity. He goes on to talk about children and their capacity for creativity. The core of their creativity is their willingness to take a chance. They’re not frightened of being wrong. “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never create anything original.”
Most of us are products of universal education. We’re trained to be productive and good workers and to fit in. For some places and some countries, that’s what they need. We’re privileged. We have the freedom to create. We may not be able to make a ton of money doing it. But there is that off chance that we can and will. As an artist, we don’t care about the money. We care about our art. Sometimes people get that art. But that’s not important either.
Picasso said, “All children are artists, we just grow out of it.” Robinson proposes that we’re educated out of it. This is not to say that science and math shouldn’t be taught. These are definitely vital too. But the arts are woefully under represented. Instead of required as part of the curriculum, they’re offered as electives instead. But intelligence is multifaceted.
Intelligence is diverse. It’s visual, audial, kinesthetic, abstract, moving. Film encompasses all of that. Fundamentally, I believe that the best films, those that touch your soul, those that are entertaining, those that are timeless, embody all these aspects. You have the visual aspect of the film. You have movement in your actors or in the camera. You have the audial in dialgoue, music, and sound effects. You have the kinesthetic of your characters dealing with a situation or conflict. And then you have the abstract in symbolism and themes.
Intelligence is also dynamic. When you collaborate with other artists, there’s this synergy that creates something spectacular. Filmmaking is the essence of collaboration. As a director, you’re working with others to see your screenplay come alive. You have actors, your cinematographer, your sound engineer, your crew, and then you have your audience. Without any of these people and their input, you’d be hard pressed to make anything at all.
Intelligence is also distinct. We all have this heart, this passion that drives us to create. We’re drawn towards communities that foster this. Whether you’re a designer or a filmmaker, you do it because it makes you come alive. When I talk about my new screenplay idea with Ninja, my eyes light up. I get excited and I just want to share.
During my last class, my classmate, Danielle had remarked that hair was my thing, so I decided to take her cue + sketch some hair in my notebook. She’s got the lovely, wavy hair on the right page. Jeremy is the shaggy, layered head on the left page. After seeing my doodle of his hair, Jeremy kindly volunteered to let me do his portrait. Thanks so much, Jeremy!!
This is my pencil sketch of him. I realized that the pen doodling was more fun, so I switched back to the pen.
I started off with the purple pen. I liked how the pen has this feeling of permanence, + it forced me to make each mark purposeful.
Then I added some blue pen, a thin wash of gesso, + yellow highlighter (over the areas where the light was directly hitting the face).
I then loosely blocked in the shadows with the green highlghter.
I used gesso as a blending medium here. His face was looking too round + youthful, so I started to add more definition with pen.
Just adding some more blue + purple pen. He looks funny without eyebrows, huh?
I tried to age him by darkening the shadows to accentuate the angles of his face. I then blocked in the highlights + shadows with the yellow + green highlighters respectively. Unfortunately, I went a lil’ overboard with the heavy pen, + his hair started to blend in with the values of his face.
I applied a thick layer of gesso to his hair + background. What’s interesting is how the highlighter gradually gets absorbed into the gesso layer on the face + becomes a faint tint.
I added more crosshatching with the pen + used gesso to bring out the highlights of his skin + hair. I then reversed the background gradient so that there would be greater contrast between his hair + the background.
I finished blot no. 17 last nite + sent a sneak peek to a few friends this morning. Then, I got this email from my old supervisor just now saying:
“You know, you really should be doing book illustrations or something like it. You’re wasting your talent in advertising.”
Wow, I wish!!! For those of you that don’t know already, I’m a graphic designer. Hi. Um, I’ve only taken the one illo class—that recent nite class at SVA + that was just for fun. But I’ll be honest, I actually count the hours of the work day down + fantasize about going home to draw. I’m really considering going back to school for illustration. ^___^
It’s official! Well, technically, no, but, I’m a grad student! I will be starting my first semester at Allicance Theological Seminary in September. Once they receive my transcript, things will be set.
It’s been amazing, how fast everything got processed and how God really opened the doors. My schedule will be 3 nights and one Saturday a month. Hopefully, I can stay at my day job while doing this.
I’ve been working on this egg tempera piece for class. It’s been a slow process with lots of layers. This image is from the first pass. I’ve since reworked the problem areas (don’t have a photo of it), but I still don’t like it. I gessoed + sanded another block o’ wood last nite, + am planning on starting over again. I’m not used to cross-hatch shading + blending (haven’t done that since highschool), so this is good practice.
Haha, I’m not above showing you my mistakes. =P I figure we both can learn…
The major flaws: the eye on the right is off. Her nose is too long.
I’m pretty happy with this piece! While I liked my earlier robot sketches better (he was more insect-like + less human), this deteriorating guy came out well (my brother thinks he looks like an evil, rotting CP30). And this is sort of a mini mile marker—this is the first piece that I’ve done where my uber-critical teacher had nothing bad to say about. =) Haha, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all of his comments + no-BS attitude (how else would I learn), but it feels good to have something that he approves of (esp since his standards are so high).
This was the initial concept sketch. I wanted the bot’s head to line up with where the eye would be in the profile, + the bent back arm to follow the curve of the girl’s cheekbone.
He looked a lil’ too much like a limp marionette, so I pulled him upright a tad. I tried to mimic human anatomy while drawing him. I sort of gave him ribs + made his exposed, frayed wires like muscle fibers.
Here’s my tighter pencil drawing. It was kind of difficult to draw on toothy watercolor paper (my pencil kept on catching). @___@ And all those fine lines!
The air bubbles are placed where the girls eyelashes would be. And the disembodied hand reinforces her lips. So if you squint, you should start to make out the girl’s features better.
This is the first wash. I choose purple for the background to add depth + it also goes well with the yellow in the robot (as it is its compliment).
This is the second wash. My gosh, it was painful trying to make a smooth gradient WITHOUT going over the white wires. I intentionally painted around the wires + left the wires blank so the white of the paper would show through.
I later went over some areas of the girl’s gradient background to even it out. Then more layers on the bot + some fine line work.
I’ve been asked + yes, it’s ALL watercolor—no ink involved. I built up the dark background by adding many layers of paint. On top of the first purple wash, I added this murky blue-green, then olive, then dark brown, then a wash of ivory black.
Here are my rejected sketches, but I thought I’d share them with you anyway. =P
I used my own hand as reference, hehe. In addition to placing more objects in the room, there was going to be more splattered blood on the floor to make the image seem more like a cohesive whole (as opposed to just random objects placed in the same space). I was also going to add smoother blood, running off the giant robot hand, so that the pool of blood + splattered blood would make sense. Oh well, maybe I’ll use this for something else later.
Since I don’t know what a teenage girl’s room looks like (mine was really awful when I was a teen—posters + rubbish everywhere), I just used stuff from my room now. If you look at the table in the upper right, you’ll see my Dawn of the Dead dvd, James Jean’s Process Recess I, Akira Vol. 4, Pentagram’s Ideas on Design, + Noguchi’s Akari lamp. Oh, and that’s my plush toy penguin, Bacon, tucked away in the bed. =)
Oy, I don’t think I’ve touched watercolors in 4–5 years! Here’s part of my homework assignment for class (my watercolor study on water + glass). Nothing too exciting. The text (my poor attempt at rendering Helvetica Neue) is from the Radiohead song, There There, which I had playing in the background while I was painting.
The other part of my assignment? Sketches of a confused teenage girl who pilots a giant robot (based off this weird dream I used to have). =)
