Back to October

OK, so I'm going to try and start from the beginning of my first quarter so that there's continuity for you, my readers, but also so I can look back when it's all done and see the (hopeful) progression of my mad design skillz. Make sense? Good.

So the induction to Portfolio Center starts with Sylvia's Design Aesthetics class. Sylvia is that incredible teacher that you've all had...the one you absolutely love but absolutely hate until all your work is done. The first week she gave us about 30 hours of work. I thought, at the time, that I had gotten myself in over my head. In the end, I learned more from Sylvia than just about any teacher I've had so far. We've all been begging for her to teach another higher level class but so far to no avail. She's the designated indoctrinator (if that's a word.) Surviving Sylvia's class is a rite of passage...and leaves you feeling like you can survive just about anything. Nothing seems scary after Sylvia.

So on the first day, we drew pieces of paper out of a cup to learn what animal we'd be working with. Then Syl had us count off by 4s and assigned each group a "civilization." My animal was an exotic sheep (fairly open ended as to which exotic sheep to choose) and my civilization was the Absaroke or Crow Indian Tribe of the Central Plains (primarily Montana).

The drill for the first week was to draw our animal (I think there were about 7 animals for 14 of us - some overlap) in black marker/ink 100 times – in 2"x3" thumbnails – in the style of our civilization. Here are my 100 (or so) thumbnails:







From those, we chose the 33 we liked best and drew rough roughs @4"x6". Here are a few of the better ones:



From those 33, we chose the 11 best and drew roughs @6"x9", and from those we drew 3 tight comps at 12"x18." Here are the three 12" x 18"s:



So if you're following along with the math, that's 100+33+11+3=147 illustrations. OY. Before even getting started on this, we had to make two lists: the first was 100 facts about our animal, the second, 100 facts about our civilization... so that we could actually draw our animal, in the style that our civilization might draw it.

That was week 1. I pulled my first all-nighter that week...even after vowing that I would never. Sylvia's wrath inspires fear.

Week 2 coming up...