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wayfaringwordhack I am still a little fried from my week, which not only involved an intensive workshop, but two nights of almost no sleep (yes, being an insomniac sucks), so this summary might not be very eloquent. I'll break it down day-by-day and include some images. It was, after all, a visually-rich experience.
Monday: As mentioned in this post, our first day was really, really intense. We had to get so much in place in order to progress throughout the week. Everything we did during this day, in a real project, would take weeks.
After getting our subject (mine being Jack and the Beanstalk set in 18th century Ottoman Turkey), we drafted our stories and set about researching our setting during the specified time period in order to design clothing, props, architecture, etc. I had so much stress to overcome about loosening up and being able to transform my drawings into an actual character that I had to keep repeating to myself that it didn't matter if I created something ridiculous or Not Good Enough. It didn't help that my teacher asked us to introduce ourselves and started with me, beginning, for some reason,* with the preamble that I am an artist. Saying it like it was my occupation. Although I did my best to clear that up, I still felt like I would be judged by the others on my output. So, yeah, lots of litanies in my head of "it's OK, it's OK, the point is to push yourself."
We took a break from our endeavors at one point to look at books that Maya has illustrated throughout her career as well as look at some children's books in different styles.
The best advice I picked up on that day was when Maya critiqued someone's spread. She pointed out how the person had put all of her objects that were on the edge *parallel* to the edges of the paper. This is something I knew but had not internalized. She also pointed out how almost every object in the scene was the same size, and the artist had truncated the character at a "no-no" point (these points are basically any joints and neck and waist.)
When it came time to put pencil to paper, I started with my giant. This is a progression of how he went, minus one spread that didn't photograph well and I am too lazy to redo.
Some quick "trying to be wobbly" sketches to see what he should look like:
Then I realized that I really did need to close my eyes and try with my right hand :
That's as far as I got with him at the workshop that day. This is a pretty painful process (and involves many pages), so I won't share the character creation for my entire cast. When I got home, I put a video about character design on in the background while I was working on my storyboard, and I looked up at the screen in time to see a character that was very distorted size-wise**: huge body, short legs, and small head, placed lower on the body. That inspired me to rethink the silhouette of my giant, and I came up with this variation:
I decided that was good and went to bed, not finishing my storybook homework.
Tuesday, Maya showed us some of her (gorgeous!) originals, and I worked on refining the other people and started my storybook, not finishing either. Maybe that is why insomnia struck. I was very tired and went to bed around 10. But J woke me up at 2:15, trying to kill a mosquito, and I could not go back to sleep. For the rest of the night. After trying for 2 hours, I got out of bed and went back to work, using a headlamp when the electricity went off for an hour. So, I was able to finish my character sheet and the storyboard.
Wednesday morning, I proposed these characters :
And my completed storyboard:
Maya chose spread 8, which is a vertical of the giant searching the kitchen for Jack, for me to illustrate. She also gave us a painting demonstration of her technique. The danger of watching a pro is always that they make it look so easy. :D
I will spare you the preliminary drawing of my spread and the step-by-step coloring throughout the remainder of the week and skip straight to what I came up with:
The text on this spread would read, "The giant searched the kitchen for Jack but could not find him." Can you find him?
And one more with Sprout holding it for scale (it is 50cm X 35, I think)
It is acrylic on paper with colored pencils. I used a wooden pencil and X-acto knife for texture on the tiles, turban, and baskets. All in all, the process was so fun. Thursday, my litany had become, "This is so much fun; this is so much fun getting to do this all day! I am doing this!" I was ready to imagine tackling all my projects.
But on Friday, after yet another night of insomnia (this time unable to fall asleep), I was feeling a little stressed that I wouldn't be able to complete the work by the end of the day. I didn't, but I put the final touches on it this morning. Well, as much as I could. I don't have any acrylics of my own, so I haven't finished putting highlights on the baskets or put a final glaze of burnt umber over the whole to age and unify it all.
I am happy with the result though because I think I was able to achieve something I would be pleased to see in a picture book.
However, I was so tired come lunch time that I started to fear the whole thing was a fluke, and I won't be able to do anything interesting in the future. I know that was just the fatigue and the after-effects of a really hard week talking. It is difficult to grasp just how energivore this week was, but even now after a day of doing nada, my reserves are still pretty low.
We have a busy week ahead of us before we leave for France, but I really hope that after our trip,*** I have all the creative energy in place again. Maya invited me to participate in her character creation workshop, so I asked for that to be my birthday present. :) It will probably take place in October, and it won't be as intense, only 4 hours/day instead of 9.
In the meantime, I think I am going to customize myself some t-shirts with my mottos from this week, one of them being "Get Wonky!"
____________
* I think this is because H, my friend, made suggested changes to my intro email and said I should say "I am a self-taught artist"
**I wish I could say who the character was or what the video was, but I don't remember and am too tired to look it up now. Are you as tired of reading "tired" as I am of typing it? :P
*** I hope to get the beginnings of a work plan in place concerning all my projects so that I can get down to brass tack. Because I am going to do this!
Monday: As mentioned in this post, our first day was really, really intense. We had to get so much in place in order to progress throughout the week. Everything we did during this day, in a real project, would take weeks.
After getting our subject (mine being Jack and the Beanstalk set in 18th century Ottoman Turkey), we drafted our stories and set about researching our setting during the specified time period in order to design clothing, props, architecture, etc. I had so much stress to overcome about loosening up and being able to transform my drawings into an actual character that I had to keep repeating to myself that it didn't matter if I created something ridiculous or Not Good Enough. It didn't help that my teacher asked us to introduce ourselves and started with me, beginning, for some reason,* with the preamble that I am an artist. Saying it like it was my occupation. Although I did my best to clear that up, I still felt like I would be judged by the others on my output. So, yeah, lots of litanies in my head of "it's OK, it's OK, the point is to push yourself."
We took a break from our endeavors at one point to look at books that Maya has illustrated throughout her career as well as look at some children's books in different styles.
The best advice I picked up on that day was when Maya critiqued someone's spread. She pointed out how the person had put all of her objects that were on the edge *parallel* to the edges of the paper. This is something I knew but had not internalized. She also pointed out how almost every object in the scene was the same size, and the artist had truncated the character at a "no-no" point (these points are basically any joints and neck and waist.)
When it came time to put pencil to paper, I started with my giant. This is a progression of how he went, minus one spread that didn't photograph well and I am too lazy to redo.
Some quick "trying to be wobbly" sketches to see what he should look like:
Then I realized that I really did need to close my eyes and try with my right hand :
That's as far as I got with him at the workshop that day. This is a pretty painful process (and involves many pages), so I won't share the character creation for my entire cast. When I got home, I put a video about character design on in the background while I was working on my storyboard, and I looked up at the screen in time to see a character that was very distorted size-wise**: huge body, short legs, and small head, placed lower on the body. That inspired me to rethink the silhouette of my giant, and I came up with this variation:
I decided that was good and went to bed, not finishing my storybook homework.
Tuesday, Maya showed us some of her (gorgeous!) originals, and I worked on refining the other people and started my storybook, not finishing either. Maybe that is why insomnia struck. I was very tired and went to bed around 10. But J woke me up at 2:15, trying to kill a mosquito, and I could not go back to sleep. For the rest of the night. After trying for 2 hours, I got out of bed and went back to work, using a headlamp when the electricity went off for an hour. So, I was able to finish my character sheet and the storyboard.
Wednesday morning, I proposed these characters :
And my completed storyboard:
Maya chose spread 8, which is a vertical of the giant searching the kitchen for Jack, for me to illustrate. She also gave us a painting demonstration of her technique. The danger of watching a pro is always that they make it look so easy. :D
I will spare you the preliminary drawing of my spread and the step-by-step coloring throughout the remainder of the week and skip straight to what I came up with:
The text on this spread would read, "The giant searched the kitchen for Jack but could not find him." Can you find him?
And one more with Sprout holding it for scale (it is 50cm X 35, I think)
It is acrylic on paper with colored pencils. I used a wooden pencil and X-acto knife for texture on the tiles, turban, and baskets. All in all, the process was so fun. Thursday, my litany had become, "This is so much fun; this is so much fun getting to do this all day! I am doing this!" I was ready to imagine tackling all my projects.
But on Friday, after yet another night of insomnia (this time unable to fall asleep), I was feeling a little stressed that I wouldn't be able to complete the work by the end of the day. I didn't, but I put the final touches on it this morning. Well, as much as I could. I don't have any acrylics of my own, so I haven't finished putting highlights on the baskets or put a final glaze of burnt umber over the whole to age and unify it all.
I am happy with the result though because I think I was able to achieve something I would be pleased to see in a picture book.
However, I was so tired come lunch time that I started to fear the whole thing was a fluke, and I won't be able to do anything interesting in the future. I know that was just the fatigue and the after-effects of a really hard week talking. It is difficult to grasp just how energivore this week was, but even now after a day of doing nada, my reserves are still pretty low.
We have a busy week ahead of us before we leave for France, but I really hope that after our trip,*** I have all the creative energy in place again. Maya invited me to participate in her character creation workshop, so I asked for that to be my birthday present. :) It will probably take place in October, and it won't be as intense, only 4 hours/day instead of 9.
In the meantime, I think I am going to customize myself some t-shirts with my mottos from this week, one of them being "Get Wonky!"
____________
* I think this is because H, my friend, made suggested changes to my intro email and said I should say "I am a self-taught artist"
**I wish I could say who the character was or what the video was, but I don't remember and am too tired to look it up now. Are you as tired of reading "tired" as I am of typing it? :P
*** I hope to get the beginnings of a work plan in place concerning all my projects so that I can get down to brass tack. Because I am going to do this!
