Still Life with Monster

In class:
Take a good look at your googly monster. Get to know your googly monster. Tell the googly monster a little bit about yourself. Draw detailed studies of your googly monster in class. Do not eat your googly monster.

Take your googly monster home to meet your roommate, family or imaginary friends.

Out of class:
Using your monster, create a still life fitting one of the following titles:

1. Dances at a Gathering
2. Confessions of the Lovelorn
3. At the Mountains of Madness

Shoot at least 20 different photographs of your still life. Change the angle, lighting, and distance at which you take your shots (but do not change the still-life itself) to create different compositions. Use the Molly Bang Principles to guide your compositional decisions in order to capture a specific emotional effect appropriate to your images title. Pay attention to the play of light and shadow and how it reveals the volume of the forms in your photo references.

Keep in mind that the aspect ratio of the drawing is not proportionate to the aspect of a photograph (that is, your camera’s viewfinder is a different shape rectangle than your drawing will be). If you are shooting your pictures on film, be sure that you give yourself enough time to get the pictures developed, as you absolutely need to have your photos for reference the next time class meets.

Print out ten images for review in class.

Photographs are due 9/7.

Based on feedback from the class to your photographs, create a small, 8” x 10.9” compositional study with cut paper. You may use black, white, and up to two different grays in this study. Ignoring the specific detail of the images you are working with, play with the big graphic shapes, and see how they can be emphasized or pushed in order to enhance the emotional effect you want from your final image.

Compositional Study is due 9/12.

Using both your photograph and the compositional study, create an 11”x15” drawing with litho crayon on white paper. When drawing the images, pay more attention to the light and dark values of your forms than the specific contours. In other words, draw the light, not the outlines.

Litho drawing, mounted and flapped, is due 9/12.


Materials
Camera
Monster
A sheet of good drawing paper, at least 15”x19” with an 11”x15” drawing area measured out
Tracing paper
Pencils and erasers
Litho Crayons of various degrees of hardness (#00 being softest, #5 being hardest)
Colored paper: black, white, and up to two grays.
X-acto blades, scissors, or other cutting implement
Adhesive
Ruler

James Gurney's books for those interested.

I realize these are easy to find, but I figured I could post links to them, as they really are amazing resources to have in your collection of books.

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314726794&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Imaginative-Realism-Paint-Doesnt-Exist/dp/0740785508/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1314726794&sr=8-3

I have a physical copy of Color & Light that I can bring in if anyone's interested. It's probably my most valuable book as far as information goes that I have. I've been meaning to pick up a physical copy of Imaginative Realism as well; I have a digital copy, but it's not quite the same. These really are worth the money guys.

-Lee

Playing Card Part Two

In Class
Select three of the emotional states listed below:
anxious; embarrassed; exhausted; distracted; slovenly; sensual; aggressive; awed; maternal

Do not let anyone know which states you have chosen!

Using the suit signs and the number of signs from the three cards you were given, design a card for each of the emotional states you have selected. So, if one of your cards is the 3 of clubs, and one of your emotions is “embarrassed,” then you will use the forms of three clubs to create a composition that visually expresses the feeling of being embarrassed.

Draw at least 10 sketches for each card. There may be no other visual elements in these compositions. Like with your 50 thumbnails, worry less about depicting recognizable objects and more on the emotional impact of the composition itself. Consider what makes one emotional state different from another. When you find a good visual effect, try to push it as far as you can, and see if that heightens the intended emotion. Try contrasting one effect with an example of its exact opposite. Get rid of anything that is not helping communicate, even if it looks great. Refer often to the Molly Bang Principles to guide you.

Out of Class

Execute these three images in cut paper. You may use black, red, and white paper. Use the opportunity cut-paper provides to move your shapes around before gluing, and see if you can further refine your composition. The three images should each be 5”x7” (twice playing card size), and mounted together on a piece of black mat board. The 3 images should be mounted side by side with 1 inch between and 3.5 inches on the outside edges. There should be a 3.5 inch border on the top and bottom. The final size of your black mat board should be 24” wide by 14” high. FLAP IT!

These cards will be graded on clarity of communication (we should be able to immediately recognize what emotion you are depicting) and craft (no globs of glue, no stray pencil marks, and change your X-acto blades often for nice, clean cuts). Oh…and DON’T write the emotion beneath the card. Your classmates must be able to discern the emotional state by the visual communication alone.

This project is due next week, 8.29.

For next week, bring a digital camera; borrowing and sharing is fine. I will bring mine for anyone who does not have one.