I try and teach my students to think outside of the box. In this way We are prepared to accept the unimagined or unexpected. This YouTube clip however, brings the idea of graphic design print mediums to a whole new level. Printing on and through water, using the material itself as “fluid” sheet of “paper”  that composes itself and then decomposes itself in a never ending circle of recycled media.

Just watch it … way to hard to explain.

YouTube

I teach part time (2 sections of Illustration I & II) at the local community college. It is not exactly a philanthropic venture, and yet not really a money making deal either. I like teaching. I like the energy the students bring to class and the gig forces me to leave my cave at least once a day and interact with other humans. It is something that I do because I like it and because I can.

Most of my Fall semester students are fresh from high school and under the romantic delusion that illustration means; “Paint me a dog.” “OK. I painted you a dog” “Wonderful! here is money for painting me a dog.” Of course it rarely goes like this and having recently chronicled the creation of a simple cartoon for a web site, I thought of using this eloquent blow by blow serial as a real world teaching example. The thumbnail to the left has a large jpg you can view and if you feel so inclined, here is a pdf (the-process) for your off-line enjoyment.

As soon as it slipped from my teeth, it got busy again. One of the things (OK, the FUN one) that I have been working on is a new project in for a client who wants a new fresh direction for a direct marketing campaign. The concept I am pitching is “YES YOU CAN.” It is a benefit driven message that moves the existing message from “Here’s what we offer you.” (Which may or may not mean anything to the customer) to “Here’s what you can do!”

The client is a broadband service provider that uses microwave relays instead of cable/DSL/satellite connections. In rural areas, or city areas on the back side of a DSL trunk, or with areas with a ton of shared connections over the cable, broadband speed is a real issue. Most of these people feel there is no options and suffer with dial-up or very slow satellite connections.

The illustrative element switches out to reflect the multiple popular uses of the internet. There will be six to eight of these. Some of these will be used singularly on postcards and some will be grouped together on mini-posters all with the tag line “Yes You Can.”

I sketched them in Sketchbook pro, and inked and colored them in Illustrator using a pressure sensitive brush.

I pitched it last night. we will see where it goes.

The creation of a basic model sheet is an exercise in 3D visualization and rendering. Anybody can create a cartoon character. It takes style and experience to rotate this character so that he or she (it?) is still recognizable as a unique persona. Add to this the sometimes subtle variations of expression and we begin to nail down the character within the character. The third assignment for the semester is it create such a character (head and shoulders), and build a model sheet that includes three rotations or “turn arounds” and at least 6 emotional expressions.

If you Google “model sheets” you will find quite a few examples of different approaches and styles. One of these is of course Disney. Books have been written about the Disney approach to character creation, and having some first hand experience with this group I can tell you that they leave NO stone unturned in nailing down character traits through model sheets and then protecting that character through eight inch thick style books. the link below will give you a little view into thier world.

Lion King model sheets

This is the last assignment (yahoo). The students are to create a album/CD cover using any combination of techniques and media covered this semester. For example, I created this quick high contrast (assignment 1; faces) picture of Prince added some typographic elements (assignment 3; pen and ink) and rendered it in purple gouache (assignment 1; faces). I’ve included my visual class notes (albumsmall.pdf) here as well and started an introduction of how this high contrast piece of art can also be used as a mask in Photoshop and how that can be utilized to push the envelope a little giving us powerful digital design options on top of our relevant illustration skills.

The final part of project number 4 is to create a political or editorial cartoon using the students newly developed caricature skills. Of course there is more to it than just drawing. It is an amalgam and distillation of complex issues into a single and hopefully clearly communicated opinion. These opinions can be focused on political figures, public individuals, or issues surrounding one or the other of these people. By the use of cartoon and caricature we can create a scripted stage that exists outside of reality, that is possibly humorous, probably satirical and can be manipulated to communicate a unique perspective. Here are a few cartoons I have created over the years.

The first part of the caricature assignment was to create a caricature based on a photograph or series of photographs. The second part of the assignment is to take it one step further and morph the caricature into an animal (or object.) The trick of course is to keep asking yourself if you can stretch or distort it more and still look like the person on whom it is based.

This particular version of Mahmoud I think goes in the right direction, although … possibly more mouse-like and cute then sinister and rat-ish.

caricature-demo.pdf These are the visual class notes from my caricature lecture. It is a pdf file.