Scott McCloud Workshop - "We are story seeking animals"

Scott McCloud Workshop

I read Understanding Comics at the recommendation of Marshall Vandruff. I thought it was amazing that's why I signed up for Scott McCloud's workshop at LAAFA last weekend.

My notes:

"At Pixar for a movie first they create the world - then the character - and lastly the story. They say it is important to fail as soon as possible.

Comics are about choices:

1) Choice of Moment
2) Choice of Frame
3) Choice of Image
4) Choice of Word
5) Choice of Flow

A comic page is a landscape of time. There is something to see in the panels and something to see inbetween the panels.

You can take two disparate images and find a connection.
A reader want to find stories. We are story seeking animals. It's not what is in the panels but the context. Your medium is the knowledge and expectations of the viewers. When you read a comic you never see how many panels were edited out.


1) Moment to Moment
2) Action to Action
3) Subject to Subject
4) Aspectto Aspect (wandering camera)
5) Non sequitor

Choice of Frame
- zoom in sometimes
- zoom out and find out where we are
- we need to figure out scake
- You can establish by a few fragmentary shots
-superhero comics have an addiction to the close up. Don't be addicted to the close up. A sense of place is important. But people don't want to pull back because if you pull back you might have to draw stuff. There is a power of the close up next to an eastablishing shot.

Many European comics have a sense of world building. Comic frame has a sense of focus. A close up can stop the reader. Many American comics come out of a vauldeville tradition and feel like they are on stage. There is a power of change but you need non change to show change.

Choice of Image

Context helps us understand a drawing. Clarity is what it is all about. Clarity vs. Intensuty. How you present the work. We are human beings and we expect a protagonist.

This is a short comic I did at Scott McCloud's workshop. A comic based on the word zipper.

A 16 panel account of my life.

Comics -

Moment, Frame, Image, Word, Flow

Creating characters mean creating human being on the page

The knowledge and expectation of the reader helps tell the story. It takes very little to tell a story. There is a willingness in the audience to work with you. You can trigger recognition. Some recognition is learned and some recognition is hard wired. Cartooning is amplification through simplification. In cartooning there is a tremendous differences between character. We find joy in the differences.

One assignment at the Center for Cartoon Studies is to draw 100 characters.

Something that helps is to base characters on animals.

The Fantastic Four is based on elements of the chinese Zodiac.

Some characterics can be based on Joseph Campbells archetypes or Carl Jung - intuiution, thinking, feeling, sensation. The characters should feel like the have different hearts.

DESIRE

Desire is a vital substance of story.

Desire can be fufilled, transformed, denied. "All characters should want something even if it's a glass of water" - Vonnegut

Most stories don't go from birth to death but instead they are a gestation of desire.

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

semiotics of 6 emotions: anger disgust, sad, surprise, terror and joy (these are the emotional primaries)

Look at grimace-project.net

Emotional Primaries tend to be symmetrical.

Artists Guide to Complete Facial Expressions

Scott's recommendations:

Parrallelogram's Revenge

Scott Pilgrim

Save the Cat

Lone Wolf and Cub
Tin TIn

Brian Biggs

Mobius

Sean Tan - "Arrival"

Craig Russell

Flood

Theodor Clijsters

Erik Tiemens Workshop - Concept Design Academy

Erik Tiemens often paints on Hot Press paper. A lot of his work is dominated by blues and browns. He says you don't need a lot of color when you are doing a tonal comp. He lets his medium be loose. His materials of choice are gouache, ink and watercolor on tone paper.

He also uses blocks of watercolor papaer. He focuses on negative and positive shapes. He suggests that you shouldn't get bogged down in details. He says when he was younger he used to do very detailed line drawings. He also has done a lot of master copies. He like Zorn. He also liked to make color paintings from black and white photos as an exercise.

He has a warm up sketch technique were he explores different compositions rapidly.

He likes the California Regionalists - Emil Cosa. They capture vitality and regionalism.

He thinks painting from life helps build the artist.

He likes to paint in the afternoon because there is more contrast.

He suggests trying different formats.

He paints in his car. He pushes the brushstroke in his digital work. He uses the dimensional oil painting brush in painter. He also says he can build up a set in sketch up and then move it to painter or photoshop.

Oil Painting Influences are Constable and Turner. In those days you would do a series of paintings at once.

He mentioned Bill Perkins as an influence.

He says if you aren't painting in watercolor or gouache that limited palette sketches in markes is a great way to learn.

He plays with painting really soft because sometimes pencil drawings make you seize up. He likes to do paintings with Prussian Blue and Black. He mixes watercolor and gouache.

His art process can be very experimental - scubbling, rinsing brush and drying it off, pull highlights, build up darks.

He starts his paintings starts rough and moves to more solidified.

He likes Linsky Hair Brushes (6-8 fine tip) that he gets from Blick also Windsor Newton Series 7

He uses big brushes to block in and uses filberts to suggest people, animals and old boats.

Art History Influences

Albrecht Durer (he mixes very detailed with very loose)
The Dutch would sketch outside and draw outside and then oil paint in the studio.

Corot - tonal sketches with gouache and chalk

the Dutch Masters had a concept of the sublime in the landscape. They would travel to Italy and create a huge portfolio

Marshall Vandruff - Draftsmanship Seminar

I finally have some time to type up my draftsmanship notes. I took the class this year Thanskgiving Weekend and last year.


Here we go:

Perspective relates to everythign you draw. The magic of of drawing is to take a flat piece of paper and make it appear 3 dimensional.

Perspective should not be a bad word - it is nonsense to think you don't need perspective.

Raphael uses cross contour lines.

Nicolaides - "Natutal Way to Draw" has 750 hours of exercises - gesture drawing - cross contour, threads, adhesive, he doesn't take into position the camera angle.

There is an idea of dipping up or dipping down which puts a rubber band around an object depending on eye level.

Definition of Draftsmanship: Creating an illusion of a 3d world on a 2d surface.

Drawing is the foundation of realistic painting. Rush-Bliss-Fall inlove with Drawing.

Get out of your mind into the paper. Probem is how to get stuff out of your head onto paper.
Animators know how to do this. They trace over and add technique and style.

To get good at draftsmanship it takes 2 to 3 years of hard work to not be bound by reference.


How do artists invent?

- They make complex figures from simple forms
- Stanislav Szukalski was fanatic about not working from the model
- but you need to know something about anatomy (it has to be in the subconscious mind)
- This is not an argument against models
- In order to get to a high level you need to work on the right things
- Core shadow and reflected light is the halmark of inventing out of the imagination

Jon Gnagy (artists correspondence corse)
- you start with a stick figure based on anatomy
- you start with shapes and then go to the next level (forms)
1. Cones, cylinders, spheres
2. No core shadows or reflected light

Rib cage and pelvis are important to rendering

1. Start with Mannequin
2. Blocks and Cylinders
3. Add sophisticateed Anatomy
4. Plan rubber bands to know if we are looking up or down
5. Head is a coffee can with a rubber band around it
6. Head is both roundish and squarish


Secrets of Draftsmanship can be found in the old dover books by Bridgeman and Pyle
- Learn the simple forms (draw blocks and cones)
- Master the simple forms
a. Spins a box
b. Tilt a Cylinder
c. Assemble simple forms and then shade them

Image Systems
- every Shakespeare play has an image system

Learning to Spin a box is an exercise worth 2 months of work because everything is based on a box.

Problems you will run into
a. x,y,z will converge or be parrallel
b. fear of Foreshortening (draw boxes and dare to foreshorten)
c. Inconsistent Convergence


When you finish this learn to tilt a cylinder
a. remember ellipses have major and minor axises

Assembling simple forms
- cross contours are lines from simple forms


The body as architecture

Leonardo da Vinic and Durer understood form from three points of view, they worked on measuring the body
- you study form so we can tip them and treat the body as architecture.
- treat the head as if it has awnings and sills
- beautiful line
- break up planes
- control specular highlights, core shadows and cast shadows (some people's nature pushes them towards tone)

Next Stage - Self Consciousness/Inhibition
(try not to create anymore masterpieces)
- you will have to go through a period of discomfort and disatisfaction
- you may feel like you have lost your talent


Draw on the Left Side of the Brain

Sphere -
planets, molecules, eyeballs, dandelions
the sphere is also a transitional form

Spheres and Ovids (egg shapes) will solve all kinds of dilemmas

Classic draftsmanship on spheres is a test of mastery - they are not intuitive
Gary Fagin p. 237 "stripes on beach balls, rings on barrels . . . lips on a smile

An ellipse is a circle in perspective it is not an oval . . . it is also not a fish or a racetrack
It is symmetrical top to bottom and left to right

Draw freehand ellipses. Draw everything as if it is made of glass and has a (band?) around it

Accuracy vs. Control
- the worst way to start drawing is carefully
Nicolaides said we must work on the blood of art and feel the feeling as you move in empathy. Rehearse the guts of art.

Effortlessness
- start out loosely
- gradually refine
- acquire infallible technique
- open yourself to inspiration

Books
"Lessons from the Great Masters" (Hale)
"Natural Way to Draw" (Nicolaides)
"Master Class in Figure Drawing" (Hale)
"Creative Perspective" (Ernest Watson)
Scott Roberston Gnomon DVDs
Draw 123

Artists
Ken Hodges
Stanislav Szukalski 1893-1987
Heinrich Kley
Bernie Wrightson
NV Wyeth
Vance Kovacs
Durer
Bridgeman
Burne Hoagrth
Drew Struzan
Cambiaso
Charles Le Brun
Leonardo da Vinci
Linedecker
Mucha
Gary Fagin
Don Lagerbird
Windsor McCay
John Goodinsen
Paolo Uccello
Rubens
Alonso Cano
Tintoretto
Parmigiano
Arthur Ranleham
Rick Griffic

Amazon vs Barbarian Workshop - Karl Gnass

Karl Gnass said at his workshop on 2 Figure Composition that the most important thing in a drawing is the story. You can net it out like your paycheck.

Start a drawing out with long lines of action. Don't try to force one line - it's an artifical endeavor. You need a rhyth,oc relationship between lines that keep it as simple as possible.

UNITY - does not need to be harmonic - can be dissonate. Out of balance doesn't mean lack of unity.

HARMONY - too much harmony is stasis although it can represent the sublime - but it is not a good story. A story with absolute harmony means that there's not much happening. How compelling the struggle is. Homostasis. We don't care anymore until that moment there's an excitement of getting things back in balance.

HARMONY and BALANCE don't make it unfied. No unity - no picture.

Two figures need to be unified - need to find lines into the whole story.

POUSSIN may have a zillion figures in his paintings/drawings but they work as a whole - a physical unity - but there also may be an emotional element to it.

What you are drawing is an idea not just what you are seeing. This is what the CUBISTS were doing. They are depicting the physical - there's more than what you see with the eye.

Every point of view is a subjective point of view. Every choice you make is a choice. So then why not make an interesting choice. Don't use short cuts.

Remember long lines of action - remember the x,y and z axis.

Points attract us like bullseyes. Iconic work like Pre Renaiisance Art reflects the oriental aspect of art.

The Renaissance wants to get out of the square - thinks about golden section or the sweet spot. It is the difference between self reflection and taking a walk.

Don't change by exaggeration instead heighten the pose. Exaggeration for Karl Gnass is just style.

Think of

a. Lines (lines of action and direction)

b. Surface (surface has up and down, right and left, but it doesn't take us out)

c. Volume (unity, as well as, space)

Negative space has characterisitcs.

Michaelangelo's Last Judgement has Parralels on a different plane

TIMING

- think about if you had an artist set up the telephone poles in a city

- feel some things faster and some things slower

- figures on a stage with shifting movements

Giotto experimented with movemt

Look at greek and roman friezes and egyptian hieroglyphics

Start to feel movement not copying - use the figure as a point of departure

Be aware of the ground plane. We have an up side and then we have down and around.

- find movement and rhythm

- the more horizontal the figure is the more defeated the figure is

- work on an abstract level first

- have forward and back

- try not to have everything lined up on easy planees

- up and back on diagonal

Composition is more than design - it tells stories

Good design tells a story from a distance (simple, clear, grabs the eye)

Refine things in terms of their relationship to each other

Don't create tangents but instead tension relationships

Remember the relationship between the edge and another edge

Remember the sacred structure, sweet spot and the golden rectangle - Use them.

Tony Couch

I took a watercolor workshop with Tony Couch fall of 2008. I didn't really paint anything but I wanted to relook at the notes for composition ideas and self-encouragement.

8 Principles of Design
1. Contrast
2. Gradation
3. Harmony
4. Repetition
5. Alternation
6. Balance
7. Dominance
8. Unity

The bible is "The Art of Color and Design" M. Graves

Other people to look at:
1. Frank Webb
2. Ed Whitney for Composition
3. Tony Couch - Keys to Successful Painting

Tony Couch: "You can ignore the principles of design but they won't ignore you."

Contrast/Conflict/Opposition: it's arresting however it's disturbing but a little goes a long way.

Dominace: Is all about priorities. Something is more important than something else. It's a pecking order. Tells the viewer what's the most important.

Alternation: A form of repetition particular type of repetition. Used in design more than in painting.

Repetition with Variation (no Variety)

Repetition without Variation

Contrast: abrupt change from Alpha to Omega. Colors on the Opposite Side of the Color Wheel.

Harmony: A little bit of change

Unity: Not Change


7 Elements of a Design for Painting

1. Size
2. Shape
3. Line
4. Direction
5. Color
6. Value
7. Texture

If you have dominances in a painting it's probably a good painting

As artists we are "Shapemakers, symbol colllectors and entertainers"

How do you make something Dominant?
1. Make it bigger
2. Make it happen more often
3. Make it brighter
4. Make it have more contrast

What should a shape be?
1. Two different dimensions
2. Oblique (or atleast one side should be)
3. Incidents at the edges (be careful what you put there)
(Interlock is an incident)

Value: lightness/darkness
- the degree of luminosity or brightness of a color or gray

Hue: Color i.e. red, blue, yellow, green

Chroma: Brightness/Dullness
Has strength, intensity and saturation.
Color is bright or not bright
Color is grayed down

Nothing in nature is as bright as tube color except fall foliage and flowers. Everything else must be grayed down.

When painting vary color in all three dimensions. Value is more important than color.


How to gray down?
- add the complement
- add gray

Brown is orange with black in it

Put Ivory Black in your palette and add water

Rembrandt that black was the queen of colors

Black can be used as gray

Don't use black for black instead mix any blue and brown.


WARMS AND COOLS

Munsell Color Wheel

We associate warm colors with things that are hot and cool colors with things that are cool like the sky and large bodies of water

Greens/Reds/Purples are neutral

A complement is the color on the other side of the color wheel

Any warm is the complement of any cool (with a few execptions)

Every color has its own value scale



Value Patterns

1. Large dark shape and overall mid value
2. Small light in a Large Dark with an overall mid value
3. Large light in an overall mid value
4. Small dark in a large light


Line: curved, straight, angualr (one or the other should be dominant)

Direction: Horizontal, vertical or oblique

Texture: hard/smoothe, soft/rough



Art is not a Destination it's a Journey. Be Patient. Be Content with being wrong. Do a Bunch of wrong. You will go through much sweat and tears and disasters. It isn't fun but it is rewarding








Reading List

Coutsky: Books on Trees
Graves: Art of Color and Design

Drapery Workshop - Brea - Marshall Vandruff

Went to Brea this week to study drapery drawing with Marshall Vandruff.

These are my notes:

There are 7 basic folds. (Glenn Vilppu also talks about this).

1. Diaper Fold
- isn't a simple tube like a drop fold. Folding of pipes with overlap. The birds eye view would be a series of zig zags.
- a diaper fold is a fold that starts to twist or fold on itself.
- there is a crunching on the z axis.

2. Zig Zag Fold
- zig zags are everywhere in nature
- happens where the cloth bunches up
- Jack Hamm is a good reference to show eyelets and hooks
- Lorenzo di Credi another reference

3. Pipe Fold
- pipe folds can give a rhythm of verticals
- pipe folds can fork into another pipe fold
- pipe folds can split in 2

4. Spiral Fold
- encircles
- forms helixes
- Bernie Wrightson talks about how clothing must go around

5. Drop Fold
- a pipe fold that drops and goes back up but remains a tube
- it changes direction without getting too complicated

6. Half Lock Fold
- folds fold on to each other but not completely
- something that bends on itself
- can see folds on an acute angle
- bunches up on one side but not the other
- usually one fold overtakes the other

7. Inert Fold (I think Glenn Vilppu calls this the dead fold).
- random placement of folds
- fabric without form underneath

SOME BASIC TIPS

Folds and Wrinkles are not the same! Wrinkles are usually left out when drawing.

You need to consider the amount of cloth. Drawing a leotard is not the same as drawing baggie pants.

You need to consider the weight of the cloth. Drawing silk is not the same as drawing canvas.

You need to consider the forces acting on the cloth.

You need to edit the amount of folds you draw. Too many folds create visual chaos.

Folds are intrepretive. Folds effect the feeling of the drawing. Folds tell us about the figure.


In drapery we are not bound by what we see:

There are 3 Factors

1. Form (the body beneath the drapery)

- cross contours tell us what we are looking at. Look at Bellini as an example of an artist who has awareness around he form. He also mentioned Claire Windling (spelling?). Look at work of Benozzo Gozzoli.

- the body is an accordian - but there are hard parts.

- drapery is like an extra skin.

- consider Economy of Cloth vs. Excess of Cloth.

- Drapery has no form of it's own. It just conforms.

2. The Cloth Itself

- the cut of the cloth
- the amount of cloth
- the weight of the cloth

3. The Forces on the Cloth


There are lines that radiate from small stress points to large on a body. There are places of stress. Armpits and crouches are natural pinch points so are Elbows and Knees. The point to an area. Consider how they radiate. There is a difference between a baseball and a beach ball.

Consider Stretch vs. Squash.

Use metaphors when drawing cloth. Canvas can be likened to cardboard. Burlap can be likened to carpet. Find similes and metaphors find opposites. The main secret is have fun. Think of it as recess not homework!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1



Some References

- Muybridge
- Hogarth "Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery:
- Paret
- Gregory Bateson (philosopher)
- Lorenzo di Credi
- Bernie Wrightson
- Jack Hamm