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.