Today my mentor Paul demonstrated a color rough and the use of Prismacolor pencils.
the color palette
June 1
Today I completed my tonal drawing of my illustration. My mentor Paul and I enlarged the liquid drop and put a horizontal line in the view. Then we started tracing on the illustration broad.
We also ran over drawing hands.
My assignments are: finish tracing on graphic paper and draw my own hand in different gestures five times.
May 25
Today, Paul and I went over my assignment of thumbnail sketches, which were all vertical, and then we came up five more horizontal sketches.
We chose the horizontal thumbnail sketch that contains the room of perspective and the landscape. Then we duplicated it to the tracing paper to increase the size from 10 inches to 20 inches.
I learned the technique of adding several layers of tracing paper in one piece to finish a working sketch of illustration.
Then I learned some detail structures of architecture and some tips about measuring the vanishing point of things on the different angle.
We also learned some knowledge about human figure in illustration.
Lastly, I got two new assignments. One of them is to finish the third layer of tracing paper, observe and learn how to draw the tree, the bushes, and the clouds. Another assignment is to sketch 20 figures based on Mucha’s works.
May 30
Today we looked the structure of trees and how the and roots go through the earth, how the branches show through the leaves, and how to simplify the leaves into globes. When the light is from one direction, you can use the shadow side of globes to describe the volume. Shadows of the leaves are cast on the branches. Consider the old trees. Their branches are twisted; none of their branches are straight.
We also learned to draw highlights on hair, just choosing 1 or 2 places to draw the main highlights rather than draw them all over.
Then we described a formula for drawing and painting clear liquid: the drop is the darkest close to the light; there is a reflective highlight away from the light source; and, because of the lens effect, there is a reverse gradation in the cast shadow.
We had a lesson about how to draw the ear, and we did a watercolor study for my illustration and started working on my final working drawing.
tree roots, branches, and leaves
May 23
My mentor Paul and I went over my tonal study of Mucha, which was my first assignment. The key concept of the assignment was to make the center of the drawing contrast in black and white tone in order to drawn the viewers attention.
I also learned that I should always sign and date my work and put my contact information in my sketchbook. We did perspective practice and the concept of eye level. Then we learned how to use measuring point in perspective, replicate the squares on the floor and series of arches back into space.
Last week I sent to my mentor, Paul Chadwick, three artists I like and told him why I like them. Paul wanted me to watch an interview of James Jean, who is my favorite artist, and answer his questions about what I have learned from that. Here is what I learned from the video:
For James Jean, I appreciate the bizarreness in his artworks, which is the style I want to approach the most. In this image there is some skillful balance of the primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. I like the contrast of dark and light from the relatively dark area of this image (the girl, wolves, and wings) to the bright light yellow background. For some of his works, you can’t tell what he means by drawing some specific things. I suppose there is some unconscious factors going on in his works. Personally, when I am doing my artworks, I will not think too much about why I want to draw this instead if that. The ideas just come up, and I prefer to analysis them by myself after I finish my pieces. Thus, I tend to interpret James’s work in the same way.
Yutong Du
My mentor, Paul Chadwick, is a comic book creator who currently lives on San Juan Island. He is best-known for his series Concrete. He graduated from the Art Center College of Design in 1979, majoring in illustration. He started his career creating storyboards for Disney, Warner Brothers, Lucasfilm, and other film studios.
I want to work with him because of his strong expertise in illustration, which will benefit me for my art career in terms of illustration.
I will meet Paul at least three days each week. During this time, I’m going to finish one or more artworks with suggestions from him. Additionally, I will be working on my own in the Spring Street International School Studio. Paul asked me to tell him three artists I like, so we can discover which kind of style I want to approach.
I hope to learn from my internship: art skill development, for example, perspective, which refers to a technique of depicting volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface; concepts related to art creation; and some tips about what I can do while I am gathering the ideas for art creation.
For further information about my mentor, see the link below:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Chadwick
Yutong Du