Tuesday, September 21, 2010

A small SCAD update!

I apologize for going silent everywhere. I owe so many people emails, and I swear I'll try to get to them all soon. Why have I gone silent? Simple. SCAD IS KICKING MY BUTT! I'm in Sequential Art boot camp - "intensive" courses meant to bring us outsider grads up to speed - and they aren't kidding around.

Everything I'm doing is stuff I've never really done before, and it's all vital to learn. It's good that I'm getting it, but bad that I'm not *getting* it as fast as I want to. Since this is basically an entire undergrad degree crammed into two months, one little hiccup means I start falling behind. I've let a lot of things fall away while I fight to get back on pace with things.

I meant to use this blog to post coursework and whatnot, to keep updates coming, but the workload has been so overwhelming I keep forgetting to share. Well, I'll share now!

The in-progress piece here - click it to see if full-sized - is project one for the drawing strategies class, and I've completely botched it. The concept is simple enough: An indoor composition with four or more figures. The subtext is where it gets you. This is the introduction piece; the one that defines you. It's mean to show understanding of interiors, lighting, black and white handling, composition, perspective and basic drawing skill. Yeah, I'm WAY out of practice with ALL OF THAT. I'm letting my worries get to me and it's been mental block city.

I've had multiple false starts, and now I'm at the point where I have to run with what I have. What do I have? A composition telling the story of me botching the project. We have cartoon Chrispys representing my various mental states hovering around a pathetically unfurnished room reacting to my failure to hit one of the ballpark with the first assignment. I'm going down with this one, but at least I'll do it with metahumor.

Oh well, this is why I'm boot camp, after all. I *don't* know everything yet, and this composition will give an accurate view into my state of development. I'm not pleased with starting out so low, but that's where I begin. It's only one project, and I'll have the rest of the quarter to right my wrongs.

2 comments:

Anise Shaw said...

Stay loose and observe. Many of these techniques are going to take some time to develop anyways. It sucks that you're put under the added pressure of learning them in a short period of time.

Any fine arts grad program worth its weight is going to focus on concept, so allow your skills to flow with your concept. I think a great example of this is to understand what your weaknesses are and make them work for you.

I know that I can't draw "weird". I've tried it and it fails, but I can draw cute. So I try to mold my concepts to highlight that, either by making a counterpoint (disturbingly cute) or emphasis (creating emotional depth through cuteness).

Good luck and stay off the internet! It's a time suck.

Anonymous said...

Looks like you're getting settled in there. Grad school kicks tail, regardless of what the subject is. You make it through undergrad and then go on to the next level.

BTW, I still need a mailing address from you when you get a moment.