fall quarter wrap up

Well it certainly was a stressful and busy quarter at SCAD, but I have to say it was WELL worth it! I think during this fall I made huge leaps in the improvement of my work as well as gaining a lot of knowledge in new areas. I learned so much about typography, something that I think I will come to find very helpful as I get further into the illustration business. I also got a lot of experience with oils in my oil based media painting class. I learned so much technique wise and thought oils are not something I have plans to include in my illustrations at this time, I look forward to exploring more personal work with this media in the near future; particularly in the area of plein air painting!

So before I go on to talk about my plans for the break and next quarter, I'll share with you guys my final projects in my studio classes. This first is for my Type and Illustration class. The assignment was to illustrate a double page spread of a poem and it could not be a children's poem. When I heard the latter part, I panicked a bit, but my mom suggested I illustrated Edgar Allen Poe's Annabel Lee. The poem is so dark so it was a bit of a change of subject matter for me and I really enjoyed the challenge!


Below is my painting final. The assignment was to use the broken color technique, doing an underpainting in contrasting color and color tempurature. The subject matter had to be a 20th century artist's painting, so I chose Wolf Kahn. Though I am not a huge fan of more contemporary art, I have to admit I found his landscapes absolutely stunning!

Final, 48''x 36''

underpainting

You'll have to forgive my for the rather blurry photographs of the painting. I have a hard time getting good pictures with my digital camera because I have such shaky hands. A good quality camera is definitely on my list of purchases for the near future. =)

So now that this quarter is over, I have my 6 week winter break as usual. My plans for the break are to whip out a portfolio piece or two, do some plein air oil paintings, paint gifts for my family, prepare my application for grad school, create style boards and start preparing my list of clients to approach when my website is up and my portfolio is ready within the next couple of months. I have to say, I'm really looking forward to putting myself out there soon! I just have to make sure everything is perfectly organized first =)

Type and Illustration

As I've mentioned before, I'm taking the Type and Image class this quarter as one of my illustration electives. This class has been extremely helpful as I had very limited knowledge of typography beforehand. The professor is Linda Warner Constantino, who's work you can check out here. I've taken several classes with her in my time at SCAD and unless she teaches Promotion in the spring, this will unfortunately be my last one with her. She has become one of my role models since meeting her, and that is not something I say lightly.

Anyway, back to the class, it is extremely informative and I highly recommend it to my fellow SCAD illustration majors. I feel that a basic knowledge of type is a huge asset to illustrators and is also something that is usually overlooked. I've learned so much about fonts, kerning, incorporating the proper style of typography with my images, what fonts work well together, what never to do and so much more. Below I have some of my work from the class:



The assignment here was to create a book-jacket for a classic novel.



The assignment for this was to create packaging for a food or beverage product.

some fun with Type

While I may not be producing much illustrated imagery for my type class, there was one little excersize I think might be fun to share with y'all. We were asked to create a portrait using only letterforms. I decided to choose the comedienne Elaine Carroll's portrayal of Mary-Kate Olsen in the online series "Very Mary-Kate". If you have not seen these spoof videos, you should definitely check them out, they are so freaking funny!