Thanks

Hello Sensualists.

So thanks again for all your hard work. It was really great getting a chance to see what you are up to. You're a talented group, and I really had a wonderful time. For those of you who are interested in the Photo Shop transparent line trick:

1: Scan you artwork in. If you didn't scan it in as greyscale, convert it to greyscale.
2: Adjust the levels and contrast as you see fit. Remember, that you can see the pure whites and blacks in Levels, by holding down the option key while clicking on the white or black triangle/slider respectively.
3: Use the burn and doge tools if you want to adjust the lightness or darkness of the image in particular place. Great if you want to lighten or darken delicate, precise areas.
4:Got into the Channels palette. If you are in greyscale, which you should be, you should see one channel, label "Grey."
5: Load the channel, by either "apple" clicking the channel, or clicking on the small circle of dots at the bottom of the Channels palette.
6: Go back into the layers palette, and make a new layer. We'll call this layer "Line" for now.
7: Invert the selection. You can do this by pressing Apple+Shift+I OR by going up to "Select" in the menu and choosing "Inverse."
8: Make sure you're on the "Line"layer. Fill the layer with black.
9: Delete the layer underneath "Line" which is probably called "background".
10: Deselect the selection by going into "Select" and clicking on "Deselect." OR by pressing Apple+D.
11: You should now have transparent greyscale artwork on a transparent background.
12: Turn the colour mode to RGB or CMYK if you will be working on the picture in colour.
13: You can "lock transparency" by clicking on the small checkerboard button to the right of the word "Lock:" on the layers palette, which will allow you to colour the line by either filling the entire layer with colour, or by using a brush over top of it.


I'm going to keep checking out the blog, and am looking forward to seeing what you do for Kris. I want to see her getting all frustrated because everyone is drawing too big! If anyone has any questions, feel free to E-mail me. Good luck, and stay in touch.

-S

fixing up shakespeare

ahh... i also fixed up my shakespeare peice after the crit we had last wed... took out the text and made everything look a bit smoother...

you can see the revision here.

electronica

these girls above, wearing those articles below. colored somewhat retr0-y in a limited 3 to 4 color palette like the 60's vinyl records used to have.

Relaxing classical music

This is what i have so far. i decided to do relaxing classical music since i can never go wrong with classical music and i thought about the nice weather and relaxing in pretty green fields with flowers and stuff... hehe

i liked the way this dress flowed so i used it as inspiration.

Sassy Ladies

So the name of my cd would be "Sassy Ladies." It would include such divas as Gwen Stefani, The Pussycat Dolls, Lil' Kim, Mandy Moore, Christina Aguilera, etc. It's kind of a fresh take on feminism :) lol. Here are some referances...

Lyse's Sketches

Here's my sketch for the cd cover. I ended up going with my favorite genre, so I'll be doing Electronica/Ambient (bands like Múm and Massive Attack). After drawing the girl and cityscape, I went hunting on style.com for an outfit I thought adequately matched the mood and sound of the music (as well as my image) and decided on the dress above.

As for the two versions; I initially colored the gray/green one, but wasn't sure if everyone might think it was too dull, so I color balanced a blue as well. I personally enjoy the gray/green more since it's what I initially had in mind (plus I think it might fit better with the genre) but I'm interested to see what you guys think. Thank you in advance! =)

sorry i did not make it to class today i was not feeling well. Here is my final piece for macbeth

Revised Compositions

Just posting this to let you know I revised the composition for my final and added an element (the scissors - I may or may not put the text in them for the final, it depends on if I think I can do it well or not.) It's basically still the same thing, I just fiddled with it to make it work better.

I'm doing the one on the top right.

Obviously I have a long way to go on this, but I'd love some feed back on this bit that I have so far.

Revised Sketches

Thanks for all your work, some of these are starting to look pretty good. I'm going to avoid commenting on anything specificly for now, as I think it will be more useful to save what I have to say for class. Please bring along all your sketches, including small thumbnails you may not have posted to the blog. As well, it would be very helpful for me if everyone could bring along a few finished pieces; things they have completed for this or other classes. The more the better, as I would really like to have a sense of where the sketches are going when I talk about them tomorrow.

On a more general note, in regards to what has been posted so far, the type and lettering is for the most part really painful. If you are going to include it in your image, and I think it's great if you are planning to do so, you really need to give it as much consideration as you would the image and concept. If anyone is inclined to spend some more time on this before tomorrow, I would encourage you to think about the type and lettering a little more seriously. As it stands right now, with a few exceptions, it's all looking a little too much like grade 4 science fair lettering.

S

12th night

sorry these are sooooo late... the worst part is that i've had these done since before 9pm LAST friday...i forgot to blog them because i've gotten in the bad habit of usually not doing so (& spring break was like a time vortex.) i have another sketch idea i'm bringing to class--diamond ring w/ the title in the line edges/cut

I was looking at some Alexander McQueen pieces for this.

Taming of the Shrew

So I made it more "10 Things I Hate About You"....early 90's. Tell me if this direction is working?

Twelfth Night

First off, sorry these weren't up last week - I was away for break and didn't realize (stupid, technologically dependant me) that my grandmother wouldn't have a scanner. But I'm back now! So here's the sketches.

Othello

this is one of the sketches I've been working on for Othello.

macbeth 2nd round

still trying to figure out what to do with the background and her costume. Im trying to make it look almost like night but not sure how to do it

more ideas for Iago and Othello

I'm having trouble with my concepts. I liked Gant's idea about the mask on the back of Iago's head and it sort of lead to an asian brush-work feel, but I'm still stuck trying not to make this generic with the two-face thing. Also I'm unsure about colors. I don't know, just having problems. Any further suggestions from anyone would be really really appreciated!

Messy edit of macbeth

So i played around with the idea of japanese horror movies and japanese prints.

I dont know how i could do the text do it doesnt look awkward.
nor am i sure how i would want to color these.im also not sure if the figure is placed in an ok place on the page

Ambiguous...

I spent most of my time trying to redesign the Ariel character this week. I'm going for this hipster/David Bowie from Labyrinth/80's glam/Classical Greek and Roman antiquity sort of feel. This is the only page that turned out coherent enough to show. Point of interest; I'm left handed, so the first one I drew is the farthest one to the right.

This is my first revamped poster idea. I want to make it clear that those are not the fonts that I would actually go with; I'd do all the text by hand in the final, this is just a placeholder for the sketch

I'm still not quite happy with the way these are turning out; I'll probably have more sketches to show some time before class. Androgyny just isn't what I'm used to drawing.
~Joe

taming of the shrew

here are my revised sketches. I pretty much scrapped all my ideas and went a few different directions. the type next to the image is the kind of type i would use on the finished piece.

Macbeth

Some thoughts so far

There are some nice sketches here. You are a talented group with a lot of great drawing ability. I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone refines their images and concepts.

I was a little disappointed to see so many robes, capes, cloaks, and dresses, for those of you that gave some thought to costume and setting at all. Although I'm by no means suggesting that you should stear away from this type of reference material, I wish I would have seen something a little more varied. Why not King Leare as an aging Chinese Emporor, Iago in an Armani suit, or Hermia and Lysander in Italian Fascist uniforms? I'm not trying to pick on anyone in particular or suggest where things should go, and I know that some plays lend themselves better than others to being re-contextualized, but it would be nice to see you guys break away from the stereotypes a little more. As you continue to develop your work, the type of visual references you are interested in drawing will become an integral part of your own visual vocabulary. I guess I'd like to see some of this stuff feel a little more personal and less like Shakespeare imagery I've seen before.

Also, I think you could all benefit from trying some weirder, less literal ideas. It's important to make sense and be clear, but I'd love to see you at least think about approaching things from a slightly less straightforward angle. You could hire Allen Cober to draw a power drill, write the word "Hamlet" above it, and have a really great, intriguing poster. Interesting things happen when you put words next to pictures, and although I'm by no means trying to suggest that this relieves you of your responsibility towards the text, on a project like this you should really feel free to try anything. Why not draw animals instead of people, set the whole scene underwater, draw someone on fire, dress someone entirely in fruit, put weird masks on everyone, draw the whole cast as puppets/dolls, use characters from 8-bit nintendo games, draw the scene in a morgue, or in space?? I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, and some of these thoughts would probably make awful posters. My point is that if you can do anything, why not at least try something out of the ordinary? Something that amuses you or that you've been dieing to draw.

I think for the most part everyone has drawn images that are very naturalistic. Playing with scale and distortion could possibly make a lot of your ideas more interesting. I understand the desire to create a picture that "makes sense," but keep in mind that there is no reason you have obey perspective, anatomy, or lighting if breaking those rules makes a more interesting image.

I know you guys are on break now, but don't feel married to these ideas. Scrap everything if you aren't happy with it, and feel free to try something else if you feel inspired, as I certainly won't hold anyone to what has already been shown.

Anyhow, thanks for all your hard work. Let's see even more sketches next time around. If you have any questions, you can post them here, or E-mail me: sam[at]sampaints.com

-Sam

The Tempest

I'm doing The Tempest. Not much to say really: a guy who lives on an island and creates storms with magic in order to enact the revenge he's peen plotting for twelve years.

I'm not quite pleased with the clothes I settled on for this second one, but I ran out of time and just had to upload them. I would have had these up sooner but I had a hell of a time deciding what kind of clothes an ambiguously gendered spirit would wear.

(I went with velvet)

Admittedly not a lot of actual fashion in my sketches this week...I got more into the mindset of representing the play than reinventing it. We have an extra week though, so I'll do more of those over break.


~Joe

Romeo and Juliet

these are pretty rough right now, i'll hopefully clean them up a bit soon

and this is kinda unrelated but i did this the other day and was wondering what people though in terms of combining fashiony stuff with the way i normally work

much ado about nothing

hey so here are my rough sketch ideas for a "much ado about nothing" poster. the first idea is benedick and beatrice doing a kind of dance/duel thing with masks - circling each other with wit and words, hiding identities, pretending to be who they're not... all those themes. the second idea is beatrice and benedick 'overhearing' the other characters talking about the other's secret love for him or her - the title/words are big and between them... separating them from each other the way they use put downs to distance themselves from each other and yet words/eavesdropping bring them together... i'm thinking of drawing the text to look like lettered topiary or like holes cut into a tall hedge... the third idea was to make the text in a hedge maze pattern - like the maze like twists and turns in the play (and from the movie, the eavesdropping and celebration that takes place in the garden/hedges) - making the text and pattern central and maybe putting small figures in there somewhere? the fourth idea is something about a tree hung with masks... there's a scene in the movie/play where a masked ball is thrown and people pretend to be others as well as generally hiding their identities... in the movie there's a fountain/urn/planter with a bare vine/shrub in it hung with lots of masks, too... where i got the idea.