ART219 Illustration

Watercolor begins next week

We will begin working with watercolor next week. Bring your tools and supplies to class on Weds. We finish up the last Terry Madden watercolor video on Friday, so you should all be well-versed in technique. I'll do some demos on Weds and you can paint along. Buy plenty of the watercolor paper pads. We will burn through a lot of small watercolors to bring up your technique skills. Sound familiar?

Mass-O-Line Art

Here is what I assigned today in class.

For Friday: 10 line art illustrations of architectural structures, aka: buildings. Size: 5.5 x 8.5. Observational. Same composition drawn in various ways or different compositions drawn different ways. I don't care, just make them look good.

For the Monday we don't have class - three day weekend: 10 line art illustrations of natural objects, aka: trees, grasses, plants, landscapes, etc... Observational. Ditto on the specs above. Blog these and bring to class next Weds.

For next Wednesday: 10 line art illustrations of people. aka: people. Observational. These can be stalker drawings or find a model to draw. Ditto again on the specs.

Did I say make these look good. Focus on line quality, composition, intent and show me some confidence in your drawing. Make your drawings read as though you meant do it and you were confident in doing it. Make me believe it and I'll put your drawing on the refrigerator. Again, you can do an initial pencil drawing to establish subject matter and composition then use marker or tracing paper to execute the line art.

One more thing, when you blog. I want you to write too. Analyze what you just did and what you think about process, how long it took you, skills needed, things to remember, etc... I am looking at the blogs. I do consider blogging in your overall grade. You'll go to Hell, if you don't.

Watercolor

Wasn't Terry fun today? As goofy as the videos are, he demonstrated some of the fundamental things that you will be using and getting good at (hopefully) this semester. Did you take any notes? He already has given you the four secrets to watercolor - wet on wet, wet on dry, dry on wet and dry on dry. Also, what is the difference in a loaded brush and dry brush? Start practicing some of the things he was demonstrating. You have to learn to walk before you run and we will be running full-out by the end of the semester. Practice, practice, practice. Quantity is your friend. We watch the intermediate video on Weds.

Blog

Don't forget to create a blog so you can begin posting your work and thoughts of what you are doing in class. You can use blogger, wordpress or, what's the other one...? This blog has grade weight in your mid-term and final portfolio grades. Give it serious attention. Don't forget to send me a link to your blog so I can add it to the list on the Illustration blog. This blog is a digital journal of what you have accomplished and what you think you have learned or even therapy for the difficulties you have faced during the course of the semester. Write something worth reading.

10 more line art drawings... they seem so similar

For Wednesday...

Ten more line art drawings from observation - 5.5 x 8.5". This time pick one subject matter to draw ten different ways. Each one of the ten should have a different look and feel based on how you use line. We looked at and saw a broad variety of ways of drawing with line in the first ten. I offered some tips and showed you some examples today. Best tip of the day is to do an initial pencil drawing of your subject and composition and then using marker paper or tracing paper ink the ten technique variations. Fast and easy. Right?

Apparently my supply list sucks

Ignore the brush set and gouache and watercolor set suggestions. Here is some specific info about what to buy.

Brushes: Look for a range of sizes (3 or 4) of watercolor flat, round and bright brushes for watercolor washes. Also buy a assorted range of the synthetic flat, angled and round brushes. These are good for scrubbing techniques. We will talk more about brushes in class soon. OK. Monday.

Watercolor and Gouache tubes: Here are some of the colors I like to have in my palette. If you can find a set with most of these... go for it.

• Alizarin Crimson
• Burnt Sienna
• Burnt Umber
• Cadmium Orange
• Cadmium Red Deep
• Cadmium Yellow
• Cerulean Blue
• Cobalt Blue
• French Ultramarine
• Ivory Black
• Olive Green
• Phthalo Blue
• Raw Sienna
• Raw Umber
• Scarlet Lake
• Sepia
• Titanium White
• Viridian
• Winsor Violet
• Yellow Ochre
• Magenta

Too much time on my hands.

Wow, I am actually blogging some info for you. Here are some of my thoughts on line art. Being able to draw black and white line art is one of the most useful skills you can have as a designer. I'm talking pen on paper, that you can then scan and/or modify digitally later. We will deal with that later in the semester.

Think of as many possibilities that you can using a black line and try them in your drawings. We talked about only a few in class today, but there are many more. Look at illustation work in CAA or other trade magazines to see the variety of ways line art is used. Printmakers are also a good source for how imagery is constructed using line art. Your skills using line art will become a foundation for you to build more and more complex artwork. Line art in illustration is comparable to the use of grids in a design. The drawing serves as structure in the artwork.

Be carefull and don't just crap out scratchy looking drawings. Be deliberate and confident in your markmaking. Be aware of line quality, line direction, use of line as value. The actual "correctness" of your observational skills can be overcome by simply being confident in how you draw what you see.

These first ten line art drawings will establish your baseline. See how many "good" drawings you can do from the ten. I can hardly wait until Monday.

10 Line Art Drawings

For Monday, execute 10 observational line drawings. Black line with whatever drawing equipment you want to try - Sharpies, pen and ink nibs, Micron pens, Rapidographs... whatever. Subjects for these 10 drawings are your choice. Size: 5.5 x 8.5, landscape or portrait format. We will look at the 10 drawings in class on Monday.

"Kill a tree" syllabus link

Hardcopy Syllabus link: Download ART219 Illustration SyllabusF11

Course Description

Introductory studio in illustration media including watercolor, gouache, mixed media and digital painting. Exploration of traditional and electronic imaging interactions, image, technical and conceptual development.