Society of Illustrators’ 49th Illustration West Competition SCAD reception

Paula Wallace, the Dean of SCAD, put together a little party for all the illustrators who got into Society of Illustrators’ 49th Illustration West Competition. It was a nice little get together and I brought my friend and photographer Megan Jones along. Everyone had very nice things to say and they told us that SCAD had the highest amount ever of students and work to get in from any one school, 9 times higher than the second highest school. This is an article written up on the occasion.

http://www.scad.edu/news/2011/illustration-students-021711.cfm

SCAD illustration students take competitions by storm

SCAD President Paula Wallace this month celebrated SCAD students' stellar showing in the Society of Illustrators’ 49th Illustration West Competition.

Article By: Travis Walters
Published: Feb 17, 2011

The Society of Illustrators' 49th Illustration West Competition is one of the largest in the nation. This year, out of 900 student entries, 150 works from SCAD students were lauded for their exceptional creativity, receiving certificates of merit and a gold and bronze medal. SCAD swept the competition with more student entries than any other institution. To celebrate their unprecedented success, SCAD President Paula Wallace congratulated the student winners with a reception in their honor in the SCAD Student Center on Friday, Feb. 11.

SCAD illustration professor Mohamed Danawi deemed the SCAD student's performance in the competition "an extraordinary accomplishment."

Allan Drummond, chair of the SCAD illustration department, agreed. "Winning these kinds of competitions is a tribute to the fact that we encourage our students to speak their individual creative voice. You can't win without originality," Drummond said. "On top of the professionalism that is required to win these competitions, you need to show an individual voice. That's what sets SCAD students apart."

Tran Nguyen (B.F.A., illustration, 2009) from Hephzibah, Georgia, won the Gold Award and a $1,000 scholarship; Adela Kang, B.F.A. illustration student from Port Moody, British Columbia, Canada, won the Bronze Award and a $500 scholarship. All the work is eligible for display on the SILA website, a valuable resource for potential employers.

On the heels of this celebration came news of another major coup for SCAD illustrators. Out of more than 7,000 submissions to the New York Society of Illustrators annual competition from 73 colleges and universities, 200 works were accepted. Of these, 18 pieces were accepted from 15 SCAD students, ranking SCAD in the top two illustration programs in the U.S.

"Illustration exists, really, to illuminate, entertain and inform and is looked to by the creative industries as a source for originality," Drummond said. "This is probably the biggest news the SCAD illustration department has had in its lifetime."

For more on SCAD's premier illustration program, visit scad.edu/illustration and view winning work at si-la.org/49/.

The Lion and The Unicorn- Poster

My friend Benjamin "Moose"  LaRiviere, who is a young film Director and Producer, asked me to make the art for a poster, for his senior film The Lion and The Unicorn. Its was a little different from the art I normally do but I was more that willing to help. He sent me some film stills and I went to work on some thumbnails (which I will put up later).

Here are some of the film stills to get an Idea what the film is like:

From these film still I made up some thumbnails. Drew Struzan's work was an influence for this piece.  When I showed Ben the the sketches, he informed me that the movie was not a horror/action film and had me take all the dead bodies I put in the trees out. The movie was more of a tale of the lion and the unicorns epic battle. I worked out some more thumbnails with him here and from those I arrived at this final sketch.

I run this sketch by Ben, we tweak it a bit and I move on the actual art. Here is the black and white from that.

 

I didn't have much time to begin with on this project so I decided to work digital when coloring the piece. (A technique I have begun to uses more and more as of late.) I pulled the color pallet from the film stills and then when about working on a Wacon Cintiq brushing in the colors and layered some textures on top to give it a air of hand made.

  

I handed the work over to Ben and he had a graphic designer lined up to do the Typography to finish off the poster. Unfortunately the graphic designer  fell through and Ben had do the type on his own. The final work is up in Hamilton hall as of right now. I swung by there today and took some pictures.

Project Editorial Quarter page

This a project I recently finished. I re-illustrated a quarter page piece in REAL SIMPLE magazine. The article was on 10 ways to divorceproof a marriage.

This is the original article:

 

These are my Thumbnail sketches for the new Illustration. 

 

These are some of my sketches further rendered. (I ended up choosing the couple throwing their phone behind them. One of the topics in the article talked about putting electronics aside and spending time with each other):

This is a scan of the piece before Photoshop editing:

I rendered the image in graphite first. Then I sprayed it with fixative and coated it with a thin layer of varnish (Varnish was too shiny and would have prefer to coat with Mat Medium instead.) Then worked with watercolors (had a bit of trouble with the watercolor on top of the varnish) and I then finished it up with a little white acrylic and color pencil. I am still working out the kinks in this process. 

After a little photoshop editing:

It was then suggested to me that I should continue the hair and vail behind the couple if it was going to be on the other side of the heart. So I went back to the original work and put them in.

This is the final mock-up of the article with my illustration in it. (Changed the color of the font so that it would flow better with the color scheme of the art. And I flipped the man and woman so that the rings were on the proper hands.):

Society of Illustrators Los Angeles- Illustration West 49 Exhibition

Hey! Last month I found out that I got into the SILA Illustration West 49 Exhibition. This is a great honor for me. The piece that got in was a poster I made for Professor Danawi's poster class for a stage performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I made the poster in a print making process with pronto plates.  My work in up on  the SILA website  if you want to check it out.
-http://www.si-la.org/49/
-http://si-la.org/49/student.html

This is the piece that got in:

These are some of the other print that I made for this project:

Illustrious 6

Last November I found out one of my pieces got into SCAD's Illustration Annual, Illustrious 6. This has been something I have wanted to be a part of since I found out about it. The work that got in was a piece I made in my computer illustration class with John Forester. It was my first computer painted piece done on a wacom cintiq.

My First Follower!!!!!

Congratulations godofallthingsgroovy for being my first follower!

I felt this was appropriate. 

Thanks a lot Peter! 

Lacoste Vernissage Gallery Show

Here are some photos from the Vernissage Exhibition we had at the end of Lacoste quarter. The photos also show Illustrator, Kristina Wright's work. (Kristina was one of my 6 roommate during the two months in Lacoste.) This is her website http://www.behance.net/kristinamariawirght.