It begins! After only one easy travel day I was in Amherst, Massachusetts to attend the Illustration Master Class. To be completely honest, for the first several days I was acutely aware of every sneeze, cough, or uncomfortable feeling. Until halfway through the week I was still worried about falling ill and having a repeat of last year. In the end, I made it through the week and as far as I am aware, so did everyone else!
Day 1 is always the critique and review day. When you checked in the day before there was a sign up list for all the faculty groups. There were 4 groups this year (previous years had 3 groups) to help move things along and get people started on their assignments. By the time I signed up for my review I managed to get the last slot at the end of the day with the group I wanted, Rebecca Guay, Greg Manchess, and Mike Mignola. This meant I had a full day ahead of me to sit in on other reviews, drawing, catch up with folks, and get my work areas set up. I always over prepare and arrive with a fully worked up and prepared drawing for my project, so I was not redrawing or starting over in lead up to my review which seemed to be an all too common event this year.
My review didn't take place till late into the evening... after a full day of studio selection and set up, welcome and introduction lecture, rules and safety lecture, many other critiques, two meals, a lecture on lighting and shooting reference, and what feels like a dozen other things. I will cover my critique later, but it went well. After my critique there day was all but over. I did some work in the studio and called it a night since I knew I had long days and night ahead of me. Some worked on but I figured I would save my energy and play it smart and get some rest.
Here are some images from Day 1 of IMC...
The view out the front of the studio building. The majority of the week was wet and rainy which worked out well to keep folks inside and working.
Rebecca Guay, Greg Manchess, and Mike Mignola earlier in the day reviewing and critiquing another student.
Dan Dos Santos, Boris Vallejo, and Irene Gallo reviewed their groups.
Scott Fischer, Iain McCaig, and Scott Allie were set up in the lecture hall. Scott Fischer helps pose as Iain talks about students thumbnails.
Scott Fischer, Iain McCaig, and Scott Allie talk to Sean Murray about his Minotaur City piece.
Dan Dos Santos gives a lighting and photography lecture and demo with the help of Donato Giancola and Iain McCaig
WHEN ARTIST ATTACK!
Donato Giancola and Greg Manchess pose and act out a fight scene for the cameras.
Scott Fischer, Donato Giancola, and Greg Manchessde demonstrate the importance of posing people and having them act out actions to give believable body positions and behaviors... like carrying a body.
Scott Fischer takes flight with the help of Donato Giancola to show a quick and easy way to get cape reference.
Greg Manchess's Spock drawing demo done in the lecture hall as he talked about 'land marking' when drawing to get blocked out quickly so you can then drawing it up. Many call this 'tracing' and look down on it. It is in no way 'tracing'. As an artist you need to use the tools available to you and there is not some special prize at the end of the day if you spent 5 hours looking at a piece of reference and labored over transposing it to paper. A smarter and better use of your time is to spend a couple minutes with a projector to mark out edges and key details and then spend 20 minutes to draw the same image. He drew this VERY quickly and this is not a direct reproduction of the reference.
That is all for another exciting day on the blog, see you back here tomorrow for Day 2 coverage! Until then...
For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com
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