Thanks Yuko and James!

Saturday, February 23, 2008

The SCAD-Atlanta Arts Forum 2008 was an amazing success, and we can thank our wonderful guest artists (and former SVA roommates) Yuko Shimizu and James Jean for blowing us all away.

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Thursday night's event was a forum that began with a presentation of each artist's work: Eric Canete and Andrew Robinson represented the Comic Book/Sequential side, and Yuko and James spoke about their illustration work. Of course James has done a good bit of Comic cover work, particularly his ongoing Fables cover art. After the show-and-tell, they fielded questions about their lives and their work. The insights they revealed were often poignant, sometimes funny, and always valuable for students to hear. If you missed it, you missed a wonderful night of amazing work and thoughtful discourse about the life of a small group of successful artists who got to their lofty stations not by luck or sleight-of-hand, but by hard work and perseverance.
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Yuko Shimizu condensed a 7-week course on "Illustration as Business" into a two-hour Crash-Course on Portfolios, self-promotion, effective web site design, client relations and the good and bad aspects of hiring an agent. Yuko is not only an amazing illustrator, but she has a degree in marketing as well, so her word is gold when it comes to getting your name out there in the most effective and efficient ways possible.
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Yuko is an amazing communicator and teacher. She's only been in the illustration business for a few years but her insight into the world of illustration as an artform and a business is borne of her experience in the Public Relations and Marketing business in Tokyo.
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A good mix of students from Savannah and Atlanta were in Yuko's workshop, and happily pored over her portfolio and promotional materials as she spoke.

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Some admiring fans from Savannah visit with Yuko.

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James Jean passes the SKETCHTRAVEL torch to Yuko. It is being passed to prominant artists and illustrators around the world; they will each do a spread in the book and pass it on until the book is completed. It will eventually be auctioned off, and will also be reproduced as a limited edition art book...it's just getting started and it's already amazing. Save up; it will be worth every penny!

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During Yuko's Business workshop, James spent some quality time with students going over their portfolios. Here we see him ripping into Drew's work, and Drew's loving every minute of it!
James offered advice as to composition, color palette and drawing, and recommended other artists and illustrators to study for inspiration. His depth of knowledge as regards the masters of art and illustration is beyond remarkable. Clearly, he is as much a student of art and illustration as he is a practitioner.

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Erik knows he's on the chopping block next...he can't wait!

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James is praying that he doesn't totally bomb during his demo. No wonder, since he's being forced to use a Mac (which he hates) and a Cintiq (which he's never used) all while holding a microphone. Not an easy task.

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James scanned a beautiful little graphite drawing (48 bit RGB) and showed everyone how to adjust the image for optimum results.

He then went through several different colorizing and texturizing techniques to give the piece dimension, a cohesive and interesting color palette, and an organic feel with various layers, creative use of blending modes and colorization of the linework.

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James signing Rod Ben's Process Recess book. Jay, Julie, Erik and Yuko are looking at the new Illustrators Annual that features James's cover. Sweet!

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After James's demo, he raffled off 10 signed prints. Can you tell Goni was glad to get one?

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The Illustrators weren't the only folks doing incredible things; on Friday, Eric Canete had his audience entranced as one of his famous 90-minute drawings materialized right before our eyes.
On Saturday he held an amazing Story Telling workshop for which he produced an incredible handout that covered everything from blocking, framing, perspective, rhythm, you name it. It was like a full-blown course condensed into a 90-minute marathon. Yuko sat in on Eric's Saturday workshop and confessed that until this morning she knew very little about storytelling but came away with a clear understanding of it. Nice work, Eric!

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Andrew Robinson also did a terrific workshop on several of his painting techniques, keeping Doug, Heather and Shawn mesmerized. He had several pieces in process, using alcohol to lift acrylic layers to reveal lighter values below. He also did magazine transfers using gloss gel medium as a binding agent; magazine images or text elements are "glued" to the substrate with gloss gel medium and allowed to dry for 30 minutes. The back of the magazine paper is then sanded lightly to make it more receptive to water. Water is painted on the magazine prints to saturate the paper, which is slowly rubbed off until the ink of the image is all that remains embedded in the gel medium. It can then be further manipulated with traditional media such as oils or acrylics.

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Heather and Yuko: BFF!

Again, we can't thank James Jean, Yuko Shimizu, Eric Canete and Andrew Robinson enough for their generosity in sharing their talent, knowledge and insight with us this week. It was an incredible few days, and we will be forever grateful to them.

Best Wishes to you all,

The Faculty and Students of Scad- Atlanta

Art Forum 2008 is Here!!!

Monday, February 18, 2008

Thursday Evening at 6:30. Gallery SEE; 4-C Event Space. SCAD-Atlanta
Yuko Shimizu, James Jean, Eric Canete and Andrew Robinson will all be here for a fabulous few days of amazing artwork and priceless insight into the world of illustration, sequential art and comic book art and covers. Thursday's Forum will be a panel discussion about the business of communication art as it relates to Illustration and Sequential Art; how the disciplines are alike, how they differ, and how the two are increasingly intertwined. They will answer audience questions afterward.
This event is free and open to the public.

Friday and Saturday, there will be Workshops, Demos and Portfolio Reviews for current SCAD students. Sign-up sheets for James and Yuko are posted on room 381 (Rick and Julie's office door). They will do their thing on Friday only.
Sign-up sheets for Erik and Andrew's demos are on 346 (Shawn Crystal's office door). They will also be doing demos on Saturday, and Andrew's Saturday painting demo at 10am is of particular interest...he's AWESOME!

Carter's Field Trip

This past Friday the Materials & Techniques 1 class and a few other students went on a very informative and entertaining field trip to the headquarters of Carter's. Maker of all sorts of children's clothing. This is one of the many reason's that SCAD made the move to Atlanta. There are so many great companies here that SCAD alumni could actually work for or at the very least learn more about the many different possibilities of career's using your illustration degree. The idea came to go to Carter's was after talking with Brett Callero, Foundations Professor, at SCAD Atlanta. His ">fiancé Catherine works at Carters. So Brett and Catherine got me in touch with Alicia Moss, the Director of Recruitment, and we planned a company tour, pizza lunch and watched a video of the day in the life at Carters. Here are a few highlights. Click the photos to see them larger. Also, check out more photos of the tour here.

Top Creative Artists, Stewart Mills (SCAD Alumni), and Jason Oransky, showed us around the many different departments and explained the process of each.


Artist work spaces all run Macs not PC's. The main program they use is Adobe Illustrator.













This is a new room called "The Factory" where all the artist meet to discuss the looks a year in advance. Using "concept boards"
They represent the first take on what the upcoming season should feel like. Depending on the feedback from the “creative committee”. A lot of that art is then developed further and will show up in the lines for that season.












Here Stewart is in "The Crib" talking about the different sleepwear designs and how they get picked.












They have a internal database called “The Digital Resource Library” where they can do keyword searches of past designs, patterns and illustrations. Some of the images are prints bought at trade conventions they attend annually. From the 100's that they see at trade show like Surtex they buy only 10-15 prints for inspiration at about $500-600 each. They put these images into the library for artist to use, not copy, for inspiration of new designs.
See these and more pictures here.


Even though the field trip did not have much to do with Materials and Techniques I, it was valuable insight into a career option for the Sophomores-Seniors that are in the class. They can start now building a portfolio of illustrations that would be appropriate for a company like Carter's before they graduate. For those students that could not make it you really missed out. Talk to students that went and you will see what I mean.


For now, Carter's is looking for recent graduates for a paid 3-6 month internship as a technical artist or creative artist.
To find out more contact the SCAD Career Services. What they look for in a portfolio is diversity of style and most importantly is a few samples of illustrations that clearly has a Carter's look. They have to be done completely in Adobe Illustrator. Refer to the color handouts given to each of the students that went or with me.

Thanks,
Jay Montgomery
jmontgom@scad.edu


CATL ROOFTOP SKETCHING EXTRAVAGANZA

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Joel Ball coordinates the Concept ATL (CATL) group from the lofty heights of ConceptArt.org
Those of you who are interested in hardcore sketching as a means to become a world-class concept artist ought to hook up with Joel and the gang at CATL. Their next big event is...


SATURDAY 1 MARCH 2008 /// 5 PM


Copy gracioulsy provided and party hosted by Julian:

*******CATL ROOFTOP SKETCHING EXTRAVAGANZA*******

With homemade sushi/beer on draft provided by JcATLanta!

What: CATL rooftop sketching/sushi/dessert night
When: Saturday, March 1st @ 5pm
Where: Renaissance Lofts. 120 Ralph McGill Blvd. #508, ATL, Ga 30308

If people are down for sushi, I will roll for those who want. We also have Terrapin and Flying Dog IPA on draft. $7 gets you unlimited beer/sushi.

Bring whatever materials to paint/draw/sketch/sculpt as we sketch to the scenery of downtown Atlanta. We got a foosball table and a dartboard for those with ADD that can't stay still ( like myself). I got a ps2 and a gamecube. Oh and a classic Nintendo. If a couple of you all could bring a dessert tray that would help. Any ideas/comments/critiques are welcome.

Please post if you can attend as I will need to tally who all is coming and who is down for sushi/beer

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More information will be provided as necessary as the event draws nearer. Contact myself or Julian ("Julian Schieneman" ) if you have questions, or just post them on the discussion thread on conceptart dot org at this address.

Prof. Hung Strikes Again!

Friday, February 8, 2008

Many thanks to Chin-Ching Hung for humbling us all once again with another visit to the Illustration Department last week.

Chin-Ching Shadows
Prof. Hung blew everyone away yet again with his knowledge, skill, and sense of humor as he walked the ILLU311: The Portrait in Illustration class through his technique for pastel portraiture.
After adjusting the lighting for maximum definition of form, and posing the model for the best possible relationship of light, shadow, and personality, he began with a quick rough-in of shadow shapes using a deep maroon shade of NuPastels. By the way, Prof. Hung used six, count 'em, 6, different NuPastel sticks to complete this demo piece on sanded pastel board.

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The classroom was mesmerized by Chin-Ching's demo. Keep in mind that the actual drawing time was about one hour and 15 minutes from start to finish.

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Not only did Chin-Ching impress us with his artistic skills, he kept us entertained with his light-hearted delivery and sincere enthusiasm for his work.
After establishing the shadows, Chin-Ching used Burnt Sienna to add the halftone shades.
He roughed in a yellow ocher background tone to establish a warm, light color behind the model's head and to provide a lighter value with which to judge the values in the model's face.
Cream colors provided the lighter notes, and then a deep blue hue was brought in to cool the shadows.
This is a traditional painting approach whereby the darks go down first, and then the halftones, lights and highlights are added in sequence.

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This is the finished demo: "Bethany"
NuPastels on Unison brand sanded paper
Approx. 11X14"
To see a web gallery of Prof. Hung's demo, click here.

St. Patty's Poster Winners!

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Congratulations to the 2008 St. Patrick's Day Parade Poster Competition winners:

Ben St. Patty's
Rod Ben: First Place
The judges said that this image would translate the best as a poster and a T-shirt. They also felt it had the right blend of fun, family and parade.

parham St. Patty's
Chuck Parham: Honorable Mention
The judges loved the design of this piece and felt it had just the right reference to the African-American community in Atlanta as well as to Ireland and it's traditions.

Rivas St. Patty's
Renee Rivas: Honorable Mention
The judges were very impressed with the intricacy of the Celtic knotwork in this piece and the celebratory feel of the confetti.

The judges were very impressed with all of the work, and are very excited about maintaining a relationship with SCAD-Atlanta. Thanks to all the students who participated for all your excellent work!