Final class

Final Class

Please take all the pieces completed this semester, turn them into jpgs and deliver a pdf with all of the images to your drive and send a link to me at my Syr account. 

Monday we will finalize our Mirror images in class, compose the PDFs and at the end of class hand in our pdf folios. 

The images you need should include:

The first portrait

The color portraits

In class figure paint

In class background piece

Collage art 

mirror piece

The final piece will be a large part of your project grade(unless I’ve Discussed a different independent project with you)

See you Monday!

Final assignment for Digital Illustration Mirror,Mirror!

Frankenstein Project

The Frankenstien Project

Step 1: In photoshop taking reference from the internet and/or personal resources, using at least 10 separate photos, create a figure with human pieces combined with an animal or machine, or whatever to create a new creature doing an activity in a background. Create the background/setting using multiple images to place this creature inside a new place. Use textures and colors from other spaces to make the image truly unique.

Step 2:

Bring in your collage/concept next week. create a version in black and white. we will talk about them and go design concepts. work on color roughs in class

Step 3 Once you have gotten approval, Use this image as reference( or even lightbox a  print of the image and add your own twist with your drawing skills) to draw a new black and white image ( whatever medium is most comfortable) that tells a story. Scan the image at 600 DPI in RGB format. Have 600 dpi rgb file ready for class next week.

step 4
create a finished painting based on the drawing and the collage. You may want to bring in color or texture from the original collage or go completely off. create color thumbnails before completeing and bring to class ahead of time.)

Image Size: 7” by 10” tall, 600dpi ( pixel dimensions will be 4200 pixels by 6000 pixels and the scanned image should be about 72.1M

Image format 600 dpi RGB image ready for working at start of class on Monday

Objective: Explore different ways of using layers and finding textures and images. Push yourself to try to use as many different images as possible.

Tips: Make sure that the reference images you are using have a high enough dpi to look good at 600. unless you are planning on redrawing the image using the reference completely and not interested in using textures from that image in your final piece. Also, use your own reference and mash it up with other ref. Be creative with your use of imagery.

Assignment over Break

I apologize for not getting this to you last week. I had a surgery last week that threw me for a loop.

Here is the assignment for this Monday.

1. Finish up the portraits we had been working on for homework. Of the three different color versions find the one that works the best and react to the colors to create an even stronger piece.

2. Bring in photos of People, Animals and backgrounds. We are going to be creating a Frankenstein image/collage in class and you need to bring in a lot of different references. We can even share the references we’ve found with each other. Don’t worry too much about the quality of the images( not high resolution) because we will be collaging them and using them as inspiration for another piece of art.  Bring in at least 20 images scanned or photographed in to your machine ready to be cut up and pieced together.

Thanks,

Steve

Assignment 4

In class Monday, we took photos of each other with intense color fabric and lighting. The object of this was to create reference for a portrait with an intense color and value range. The assignment for this week is to create a portrait based on the photos you took in class. The process is as follows:
1. create a canvas with a midtone background.
2. begin painting with a warm dark brown similar to burnt umber. Block in shadow areas and begin to create shadow shapes for eyes nose mouth etc....don't focus on detail, keep it loose and only focusing on areas of shadow. This is your value under painting. You can get as dark as black in the darkest areas if you need to.
3. Begin painting in the lighter midtone color areas moving lighter as you get closer to the highlights.

4. bring in the reflective colors you can see in the photos. pay close attention to the intensity of color, don't be afraid use very saturated colors!

Look closely for variations of warm and cool color, note where edges are sharp and edges are smooth. Also pay close attention to warm colors vs cool colors. Which push back and which colors bring the subject closer.

I'm attaching some of the reference I took here as well as some inspiration for process. IF you were not in class, choose from the student photos below to paint( not the paintings)

Inspirational photos:

Class Photos

Assignment #2

Here are the images for you to work on reproducing digitally. these are all natural media paintings and should give you a challenge to not only replicate the design and structure of the images, but also the look and feel  of the material. We will have two weeks to work on these, so bring these in next week to class to work on.  Choose one that appeals to your sensibilities. I purposely chose these for the sensitivity to texture and paint and strong design on display as opposed to a "flat" look. Pay close attention to how the artist created texture using the paint, created brushstrokes and what material they used. Also watch how they make their marks, if the marks accent the volumes of the piece or flatten out an area. Lastly, pay attention to the contrasts and edges. Soft edges, hard edges and "lost edges."

Gary Kelley

Ian McQue

Gregory Manchess

NC Wyeth

NC Wyeth

James Jean

Dean Cornwell

Sam Weber

Donato

Assignment #1 part three revising or finishing the third portrait.

Hi for those of you who have finished the second part and are working on the third part of the portrait, here is a plan on how to approach your third piece.

When you moved onto the third piece, the instinct was to add some fun patterns or other unreferenced objects to the piece. This was fine, but missed the spirit of what I was originally going for ( my bad, I might not have been clear)

So for further definition, Here is how I want you to proceed on the third piece.


Most people approached their second piece using the "local color" of the image they painted. Meaning that the skin tones and colors matched the color in their original reference.  One or two brave people added a color filter to chan ge the colors, but didn't paint much new to the face or alter it.

The challenge I place before you here, is twofold.

One: Distort the image, don't necessarily add a background, but distort the face in some manner whether that be a slight distortion or a blown out caricature, make the piece your own. I don't just mean use a distortion filter, but use your own creativity to say something interesting using the features of the face you are painting. This could include distorting features, changing lightning conditions and colors.

Two: Use non- local colors. Instead of a typical fleshtone, what if the person were red or blue? how would that effect the face? If the background is bright green, how does that effect the reflected light on the face? If the light source moves warmer and the shadow side cooler, what would that do to the color scheme? Go back to the assignment sheet and look at how form and color are changed away from reality in those pieces.


Look at the following pictures. How does the choices of colors in the bar scene effect the characters? How does the yellow background effect the skin tones on Eddie Murphy's face? How does the green effect Mick Jagger? Note how much complementary colors appear in the shadows( yellow vs purple: Eddie) (red vs green: Jagger )







The colors in the George Lucas piece are pretty "naturalisic" and true to the reference,  but Look at how the Bill murray piece is influenced by the grey of the background.







This  third piece is the place to experiment and bring in something really interesting!

Assignment #1: reworking the middle ( color ) piece with value.

I wanted to cover lighting and form a little more in depth.

" The form principle is the analysis of nature in terms of geometrical solids which can be rendered according to laws of tonal contrast."- James Gurney Color and Light

Put simply everything we see, we see because light is hitting an object and reflecting back to our eyes. We see form in aspect of light and shadow and color.

That said, we understand our world through value.( color is important but we'll get there later.)
Every object be it a simple sphere, a head, a cube, every object we see and paint will be affected by light the same way( except translucent and transparent materials)

In the following example of a sphere, it is an object with a single strong directional lightsource, as we might see with the sun at certain times of day.
What you will notice on this sphere is a strong division between the "light side" and the "dark side"
On the light side, you have the Highlight, which is the point at which the direct light is hitting the object and "blowing out" all other value or color. On most materials this appears to be white or near white. note that it is not on the edge of the sphere but appears inside the form of the sphere showing us that the highlighted part is closer to us than the flat visual "edge" of the object.

As we move our eyes over the from away from the highlight the actual color of the object begins to appear. That is the Center Light which is the closest to the most unadulterated value or color of the sphere. In other words, its Local color or value.

The Halftone is where the form starts to move further away from the highlight and is getting darker but the light here is still stronger than the dark areas.

Next we hit the Terminator Line. The terminator( aka the shadow edge ) is the division between light and dark. It is the darkest area on this sphere and the darkest area involving the sphere after the occlusion shadow. This is where the "dark side" begins, after this, we begin to see more lighter dark values due to light reflecting from the rest of the world. The terminator line appears as a 90 degree line( which curves over the surface of the object) to the light source as you can see in the second example( the axis line.) At the terminator all surface texture seems  to disappear. Any textures on the surface, like skin texture, is difficult to see in any of the shadowed areas, but at the terminator line disappears completely possibly to return in the reflected light.

The core shadow is right behind the terminator line in darkness and only exists if the secondary or reflected light sources don't overlap with the main light. The core shadow is important to maintaining the illusion of form in your drawing even if you don't see it on your model/reference.

Reflected light every object exists in space and since every object is reflecting light, all these objects will reflect on each other. Since the direct light is strong, the reflections can only be seen in the shadow. So as we move further away from the strong light, the wold reflects back into the shadow creating a lighter area on the object.

The Occlusion Shadow is the point at which the sphere or object meets another object. No light can get in between the two and so therefore it is the darkest area in this image. It is quite literally an area without light...complete and total darkness.

The cast shadow is the shadow the object casts upon the surface it is upon or against.
. 

Can you see these light principles at work on the Lincoln bust? The light source is a 3/4 left light source like the sphere above.

The cubes below show how the same concepts apply. Note the grey cube and the white cube are more likely than the black cube to have reflected light areas and the terminator line defines the hard edge of the cube rather than the soft edge of the sphere or lincolns head.  Look for ares of Hard Edge and soft edge on the Lincoln portrait. 

This is an example of diffuse light on a sphere. Its the kind of light you might see on an overcast day. Note that there is no distinct light side, shadow side terminator or core. all of the upward facing planes are lighter because the light is coming from many angles rather than a direct light.


Its important as you work on your pieces to recognize where the light source is, and how you can best express that in your image.



Again with the lincoln portrait, look at places where like the cube, the planes shift direction like the temple, the cheekbone, the nose, the chin and even less dramatic ares like the lips and eyelids. There will be a harder defined edge here( like the cube) where as on the forhead, where the planes are only slightly different at angles( more like the sphere, you can see the highlight and a gradual shift to the center light and halftone. Approach your portraits with this in mind as you move forward.