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

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!

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


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.


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.


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.


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!

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


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.


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.


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!

St. Patrick's Day Parade Posters

Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to create these terrific images for the Atlanta St. Patrick's Day Parade Poster competition. The initial judging will be Monday, January 28th. The final judging will be in early February.

All of the SCAD-Atlanta entries can be viewed here. They are in no particular order. The artist's name is the file name; hover your cursor over the image to see the artist's name.

Great job, everyone!

Professors Lovell, Mueller-Brown and Montgomery (aka Rick, Julie and Jay)

Steven Heller and Friends at UGA

Our good friends at UGA have scheduled a monster event that would make a monster field trip.
Mark your calendars for Thursday, March 6th and Friday, March 7th. We will be looking into transportation options for schlepping a bunch of SCAD folk to Athens and back, so be on the lookout for news about this terrific opportunity.

Thanks to Alex Murawski for setting this up!

Portfolio of SCAD-Atlanta Illustrations!

About a week ago I updated my select portfolio of student work from the classes that I teach. If you had me for a class in Fall 2007 your work might be in there. Check it out and post comments or questions here about any of the illustrations you see.

http://www.jaymontgomery.com/scad/

Bookmark it,

share it,

and be in awe of it!

Great work everyone!

Jay Montgomery