Welcome to the Circus!

So I mentioned that I was completely reworking my circus characters, so here are my sketches for them. :) I've finished the second step for one of my characters: The Juggler and I'm pretty pleased with how she turned out. If anyone can catch the influence, you win a gold star!

And~~~~ here she is. :)

My juggler! I haven't touched her up yet in photoshop, so this is just the raw. This is pastel on recycled card of some kind, I really enjoy it. The texture makes for a challenging and interesting surface and I like how the texture looks on screen.

And yes, my sketches are usually that messy. I'll update this post again when I have more. 

<3

**Update**

Bad People, Good Things: A Presentation by John Foster

I mentioned that I was going to a lecture? Well, it was just as amazing as I thought it would be.

Mr. Foster began with a loud theme song and a presentation of books before him. And I have to say that my first impression of him was that he had loud shoes.

Foster's Website [http://badpeoplegoodthings.com/]

[All of these books were raffled off and given to students.]

[You can't see here, but he's wearing RED shoes. :)]

[This is my favorite piece of his that he showed.]

Overall, the presentation was fantastic. He was energetic and passionate, answered every question willingly and all in all, was a complete gooberbean. In my book, a great guy. He had some amazing advice and some really funny quotes such as "Use your creative urges for the forces of good!" and "It may help if you care about your client." My favorite tidbit he left me with was "See the opportunity not only for what it is but for what it may become."

Turns out I was one of the FEW non graphic design majors at this lecture and I think that is quite a shame. Most students here don't realize how often our majors overlap and how important it is to take advantage of these amazing minds that SCAD brings in to talk to us.

[[[Lecture presented by the AIGA–SCAD group along with Rockport Publishing.]]]

Currently I'm designing a series of circus characters with a focus on shape, color and texture. I'm testing out making images without any lines at all, which I hope will be most evident in my final mock-ups of these characters.

So far, all I have right now is my Jester. 

[Ignore the font, it was just for play.]

However, since I've been working on these concepts most of the night, my idea on this has changed dramatically so I will have those included in my next update.

I may use the above picture for something, but as of now I'm considering it a "for fun" drawing. My new stuff is looking rather enjoyable.

Professor Danawi had suggested we draw all of them in a straight sequence and THEN do the inking and etc... And I figured I would try it, it is helping a ton, especially since I want these people to look like they are from the same circus. Wish me luck!

Bill Nelson, C.F. Payne and another day in illustration

Today we are going over our practice samples of our studies of Bill Nelson's technique [http://www.billnelsonstudios.com]. He does beautiful works of art with colored pencils on toned paper. His works are beautiful and so carefully crafted with love. This fish was a quick study of his style in which I did layers of pencil work in the figure and ground and left a great deal of the tone of the paper in tact. It's also a test in simultaneous contrast. 

Today our professor was teaching us about C.F. Payne's work [http://www.cfpayne.com]. Just in case you don't know who he is -he is one of the greatest caricature artists of our time.

My professor Don Rogers has been given two pieces of art by C.F. Payne and he was able to show them to us in class today. He showed us how he (my professor) approached C.F. Payne's technique, but looking at the man's work, I have no idea how anyone could recreate something as lively as the things he's made.

The contrast between his finished and unfinished pieces amaze me. His craftsmanship is gorgeous and free and I love the vibrancy in his work with the woman coming out of the flower.

I love this class because we're learning about contemporary artists and exploring such a huge range of media and techniques. It really impacted me to see the work in person.

[[Class is Materials and Techniques II with Don Rogers, SCAD]]

For my other class, we are focusing on studying the different markets for illustration. We've done work for a magazine cover (The New Yorker cover that I showed in a previous post) as well as poster design (also in previous post), children's book illustration and now something more focused on advertising.

The following were the experiment with children's book illustration inspired by Edward Lear's limericks [http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/BoN/bon010.html]

There was a Young Lady whose bonnet, Came untied when the birds sate upon it; But she said: 'I don't care! All the birds in the air Are welcome to sit on my bonnet!'

There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, 'It is just as I feared! Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!'

Ended up going with this one. The only requirement was that it be in black and white. Unfortunately, I probably chose the most difficult thing I could have done.

I'm planning on illustrating both of my original ideas over again but with more of a focus on mark-making and less specifically on stippling. 

[[Class is Intro to Illustration with Mohamed Danawi, SCAD]]

[http://danawi.com/home.html]

Going to a lecture about poster designs tonight. I'm really excited.

dream a dream

When I think about the fact that I'm already a junior in college I almost can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday I was nervous about going to my first day and meeting professors. My experience here has been nothing short of exceptional. I've met people from all over the world; students from everywhere, professors with cultured experiences and so many people that SCAD brings in to talk with students (Can you say meeting Zahi Hawass in person?)

Since this is the first blog I've ever had and I plan on keeping it updated, I'm just going to say how I plan on structuring it. The first part of it is going to be recent art: finished, sketches, ideas, concepts, anything I've been thinking about lately. And next will be glimpses into my mind. Beware!

This year has been what I will call my official introduction into the world of Illustration. I've been learning about self promotion, opportunities that are available, about what's current, what's hot, what's important. I got to meet some very influential people, whom many of you may know: Chris Sickels [http://rednosestudio.com/], Christoph Niemann [http://www.christophniemann.com/] , Anita Kunz [http://www.anitakunz.com/] and Yuko Shimizu [http://www.yukoart.com/].

I'm more in love with life now than I've ever been. I'm learning, working hard and feel that everything is heading in the right direction.

Right now, I'm trying to develop my style and I'm drawing people more often in an attempt to capture that essence that is in every pair of eyes. My sketchbook is packed with patterns and designs. For some reason, I can never get them out of my head! I'll post them soon when my scanner feels like working again.

I'm really looking forward to the winter break. Why? I'm going to be building my website [official!] and I have a personal project that has been bouncing around in my head. ;) But we'll get to that when I can reveal more images.

Thanks for viewing! Have a great day. :)