Getting started with acrylics

More short and sweet videos. No bs, just right to the point:

Mixing values

Order of operation in beginning a painting

Paper cutting

How to do clean paper cutting with an exacto-knife:

Demos on how to Begin

Blind Contour exercise:

For a detailed explanation of blind contour drawing check out one of my first entries on this exercise:

https://starting2draw.blogspot.com/2010/09/week-2-more-notes-on-contour.html

I think after a good warm up like BCD (blind contour drawing) the next vital step is to understand how using gesture drawing can make you a stronger artist. 

How to do Gesture Drawing:

Cleaning up and finishing a contour drawing:

As much as I've come to enjoy working digitally, I sill work out my thumbnails on paper. My ideas just flow better for whatever reason!
-Becky Cloonan
http://www.beckycloonan.net/

Mechanical objects

Book Cover Project

Good Book covers don't necessarily require strong drawing skills:

Bold & legible titles and authors names are key factors!

Thumb-nailing your project is always

 the first and most important step!

Next, if appropriate color studies are a good way to help to set the overall tone.

Make sure you plan plenty of space in your design for the Title and Author's name as these are the most important aspects of the book cover!

Watch this excellent video by cover designer Chip Kidd: 

Chip Kidd TED talk

Lolita book cover contest and links: http://invertedblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/evolution-of-illustrator.html

Linear perspective for buildings

Ink Drawings

Modeling utilizing mark-making techniques: stippling, hatching, and cross hatching

Warning Signs

Danger, corrosive, and poison 

The challenge is to communicate boldly and clearly, thus quickly important warning ideas in a universal image, not reliant upon words.




For an great example look at Ron Cobb's concept design for  the movie Alien:

Student examples:

Drawing II Perceptual/Conceptual project

What is our IDEA of a color, versus what the color actually is:

Practice not Talent!

A great article I encourage you all to read:

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/06/01/479335421/practice-makes-possible-what-we-learn-by-studying-amazing-kids?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160601

Visual definitions

timid, aggressive, & balance

Roman column

http://gemmacorrell.tumblr.com/post/136869223153

Examples of the gridded self portrait project

           

               

Design 1 Gray Scale Paper Cutting

American Artist/Illustrator Suggestions

Georgia O'Keeffe
Edward Hopper
Ivey Hayes
Alexander Calder
Patrick Nagel
Keith Haring

Drawing II "white" objects

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I TEACH ABOUT LEARNING TO DRAW:

Why Are Some People Better at Drawing than Others?

LiveScience article:

http://www.livescience.com/19878-drawing-ability.html

Color perception

Here is a great blog entry written by the Dinotopia artist about what happens to yellow when light and shadow are introduced:

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2012/11/yellow.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FNVaYV+%28Gurney+Journey%29


Also, here's a fun little test that shows how well you can distinguish between colors. Also pay attention as you move a block, how it appears to "change color" in relation to its neighboring colors. For example as you slide the block to a new position it may appear warmer or cooler. We will talk about color temperature in class and this is a great way to see how relative color temperature is!


http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77&Lang=en

Drawing II Illustration project

Example Illustrators:

Arthus Rackham

Gustave Dore

Sulamith Wulfing

Beatrix Potter

Elenore Abbott

Kay Nielsen

Maurice Sendak

Anita Kunz

Richard Sala

Graeme Baese

Lane Smith

Story resources:

Thumbelina

http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_tiny.html

Jack and the Beanstock

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0328jack.html

Bonus:

http://blog.ryan-a.com/tagged/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E6%98%94%E8%A9%B1

More Illustrators to inspire: 

Goni Montes
Frank Stockton
Bertha Lum
Tomer Hanuka
Adrian Tomine
Kazu Kibuishi



Student Examples: 

      

Transformation Project examples

                                

This could have been an "A" drawing, but in this piece while the beetle, idea, and transformations are all very good, it isn't a finished work as there is no consideration for the negative space/ back ground.
































While the giraffe drawing above is very good, see how much more dynamic the giraffes on the right are. The orientation of the page accentuates the length of the necks. Also, because the animals are not perfectly lined up, it creates better overlapping and a more interesting composition.