Oh the chickmanity. 2/2

When I got to class (all ready to do the final painting) and Eli and Thiel helped me shape the final piece, which involved no more painting and which I have two versions of with more and less woodgrain, respectively:

All for now, love and coffee,

Anne

Oh the chickmanity. 1/2

Updates on the Chicken Project from color studies and drawing to completion. It went over pretty well but... ugh, the thumbnails for the next project went bad... but more on that later. Anyway, I initially presented this first sketch after the thumbnail was approved:
Thiel actually smiled at it, a good sign. From there I did the final drawing:
and two more color studies:

More in a sec.

Goblins.

I thought I was going to need a new story for the kid's book class and I had a character I made for a game. A goblin named Grisks:
I made a young version of her for the kid's book story too:
I may have to go back to this if I can't make the other one work, so I'll keep developing it in the back of my head.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Children's book... UGH.

Children's book has not been going particularly well. It's supposed to be my fun class, my free to do what I want class. Working with Justin has been difficult. On the one hand it's his story, he deserves some control. On the other hand, he's very particular, and I had some trouble keeping myself interested in the project. I needed to be able to move forward. Here is the piece I thought would be the last I ever did for the project:

and what I thought would be the last character design work for it:
and here's why:

The last time I put pen to paper to do character revisions, the above is what resulted... or part of what resulted. I was ready to give up and do something else. I asserted my position and sat down with my creative partner and I think things are ready to move forward again. The main problem I was having involved the mother, who has now been completely cut from the story all together, she may be seen once at the end, from behind. Maybe.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

God. Fing Computers.

Had to do a portrait for Computer Illustration. Huge pain in the ass. I chose to do Gustav Klimt and to base my illustration on a painting of his. Unfortunately, as graphic as his work was, it still had brush-strokes and bits of stray color, and texture and generally looked 9-million times better than anything I could do with illustrator. I did three versions of the final image:

On the left is a version in which the colors in the skin are drawn from a self-portrait of Richard Gerstl, who was a fellow of Klimt's in the Vienna Secession. The middle image is my original idea, which pulls the flesh colors from Klimt's piece: Hope II. This is also the image that the other elements of the image are drawn from. The pattern and colors on the clothing as well as the background are drawn from that painting. It's beautiful, look it up. The image on the right is just my attempt at a normal flesh color.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Figure and 3D

We have been working with plaster in 3D, it's good fun but apparently the humidity has combined with our collective ineptitude to create the disagreeable situation of everyone having wet plaster to work with that seems like it might never dry. Oh well, here's the initial sketch:
In figure painting we have been doing 15-minute paintings, here's my best from several classes ago:
but we also had a homework assignment (in addition to the 15 sketchbook pages) that involved a self-portrait using viridian (green), burnt sienna (reddish brown) and titanium white. It's not great but I am planning to continue working on it so I figured I'd scan and post it before I fuck it up:

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Ill II

Remember when I posted the final version of my car illustration? Yeeeah. Thiel hated it. He made really vague suggestions about what I should do to improve it that I could not for the life of me decipher. Eli cleared them up a little. I was going to start over and all told I think I should have because Thiel didn't like the new final any better than the first version I made. Here are the three versions I brought to critique:
Through much discussion I eventuallyfigured out why these aren't any good at all. It has to do with the fact that I was not willing to draw the car in the way I usually would if I were planning to put down a drawing for watercolor because cars are supposed to be a certain way, they're shiny and sleek and I was afraid that the way I draw might make the car look jaggey... so basically, if I had just gone with what I do and drawn the car the way I would draw a person I probably would have been okay. I didn't, it's not.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Klimt for Computer Illustration

Our next assignment for Computer Illustration is a portrait. I have opted to do Gustav Klimt, in as close an approximation of his own style as I can manage in illustrator. Here is my sketch:

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Final Post for the Day: Children's Book characters!

To start working on our children's books we needed a story. Justin and I had been planning to do a story together and it turned out perfect for this assignment. I started with these character designs:
It was a reasonable starting point, I worked on the mother for a while, drawing a re-drawing changing and tweaking, then the boy. Once I had the boy worked out:
I added that style to the mother (far right) and asked some advice. Joe said she was a little "naughty schoolgirl" and not so much "business casual". I didn't like that for her to be "motherly" she had to be thick, but he's right, she looks better (though it may have more to do with the different outfit I put on her)
So here are the final working character designs, sized to scale!

And that is finally all for now! Love and coffee,
~Anne

Figure Painting Homework and For Fun

Part of our figure painting homework is to do a themed drawing/painting every week in our sketchbook (after researching an illustration in the same theme). The first week was animal, I found an illustration by Jill Bennett from Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr. Fox", which was a favorite book of mine as a child. I painted a Donkey. I need to work on contrast and figured it would be a good space to practice.
Also, I picked up a pack of tiny Ampersand watercolor boards just to try them out and I figured my girl in the striped shirt got rejected from the car illustration so I'd make use of her here, lest she never be seen again.

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

Figure Painting Sketchbook

Pratt has assigned us 15 pages of sketches from life, per week, plus an additional sketchbook illustration. Here are a couple of the sketches I did the first week. (I am now behind and need to catch up, go figure)

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

Ill II continues

For our next assignment in Ill II we have to do an illustration for a really short story about chickens and a man who eats them. I did thumbnails and Thiel actually approved the one that I liked best, it should be fun!

(Obviously the one I'm doing is the one marked with color.)

Love and coffee,
~Anne

The Car Project

Here is the beginning to end of our first assignment in Illustration II. I have Thiel this semester, I find myself enjoying him as a professor. I think you'll see why.
He gave us the introduction to a story for a magazine that talked about high-end, fast cars. I had a lot of trouble doing thumbnails because as near as I could tell the only real option was to make a nice drawing of a car. So I read and re-read the intro, I drew thumbnails, banged my fists, cried and on and on until I came up with a solution. Random balloon girl:
I showed the thumbnails to Thiel, explained my dilemma and he said that they were all stupid. He looked closer at the girl-on-a-car thumbnail on the left page ^ and asked about it, I explained that she'd be a hot Brit with bad teeth and he said "I guess you could do that one" I told him I wanted to do the balloon girl, but in the tall format of the second to last thumbnail I drew for it.
Thiel agreed initially, then I drew it bigger, he came back over, said it was stupid, we argued. I said that the car is in the picture, he said the picture was stupid, he doesn't like the balloon, I erased the balloon, put grapes in the background, he grudginly agreed to let me do it. He came back over said it was stupid again and I sighed and looked for something else to do. I ended up looking at bicycles. came across a penny-farthing bicycle, which I'm sure you all know was the logo for the Village in "The Prisoner". I hoped that Britian was the birthplace of the bicycle, but it turned out to be Germany or something. Pfft. Anyway, I did little sketch, ^ got approval from Thiel, found reference and did a color sketch.
And a final:
There are some serious problems with the final. Mostly, it's all pretty light. I'm thinking of throwing some gouache on it now, since I have a scan of the final watercolor that I can print if I fuck up the repairs. Wish me luck!

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

Computer Ill

We had an assignment in computer Ill to do three related images. I chose to do the three most sighted birds from the NH Audubon society's backyard winter bird survey. Sketches:

From left to right: Black-Capped Chickadee, Mourning Dove and the Common Redpoll

Finals:

These took forever, they are not good enough for the time invested in them.

Love and Coffee,
Anka the Art Cat

Back at school!!! 2/2

In 3-D we've started with a 3D modeling program. The models we made can be printed and we're making the actual sculptures out of paper. I made 4 but these are the two I went with:

Also, I finally have a photo of Joe and I... it's a nice photo of him at least.

2/2 Love and coffee,
~Anne

Back at school!!! 1/2

I have 5 studio classes this semester. That's a lot. Pratt (my figure teacher) is asking for 16 pages of sketchbook work per week, and is apparently fond of giving a great deal of homework besides. It'll be alright, I could use the practice. We spent the first class doing 15-minute drawings:

1/2