PROJECT 3 : EDITORIAL ILLUSTRATION

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PROJECT 3 : EDITORIAL ILLUSTRATION

Overall Project Description:

 

Create an Editorial Illustration for use to accompany an article in a magazine, printed or online. This project is broken into stages with peer critique and critical feedback given at each stage, spanning 4 weeks in total.

  • The final illustration must be created using a limited palate of black, white, and one other color
  • It should be made using a combination of traditional drawing / inking skills and digital coloring.
  • Final art should be made to fit the real magazine’s specs. (Approx 9” x12”)

Work will be judged on the clarity and cleverness of the overall concept, thoughtful utilization of composition, the use of value, and of course the skillfulness of overall technique.

 

GRADING BREAKDOWN:            

  1. 50 % project grade Submit a PDF PROCESS BOOK guiding us through the project from inception to conclusion. Carefully SCAN your process work. This should include : Your Source Material,  Brainstorm, Thumbnails, Concept Sketches, Value Roughs, Related Sketchbook Work, and Final Art. Carefully Label all of your work so that your thought process is CLEAR. Be sure all of it is presented well: facing the right way, no shadows in the picture, good contrast, etc.
  2. 50 % project grade Submit a publication ready 300 DPI JPEG of Final ART

 

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Focal Point Through Color: Direct Your Viewer with Contrast

 

We already know that great composition will guide our viewer, allowing us the illustrator to direct the overall read of the image. We’ve also looked at how strong value contrast establishes clear focal points. Contrast and intensity in color works exactly the same way.

Strong differences in color and highly saturated color will pull your viewers eye, every time. Remember you are making deliberate choices to tell the best story you can.  Using color to both tell the story by establishing mood and setting, and creating places of emphasis to guide your viewer is critical.

 

Color used for emphasis can be very dramatic.

 

 

But contrast can be used to guide the viewer subtly too.

Consider this image called Camouflage by James Gurney, creator of Dinotopia. Take a good look and be aware of where your eyes travel.

 

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Gurney conducted an experiment concerning focal points and how different people look at the same image. By adding together the eye movement data from a group of test subjects, he was able to observe where people look in a given picture.

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To create the image below, eye-tracking technology recorded the data of sixteen different subjects and compiled the information into a composite image, called a heatmap. The red and orange colors show where 80-100% of the subjects halted their gaze. The bluer or darker areas show where hardly anyone looked.

The heatmap for Camouflage shows that everyone noticed the dinosaur’s face. They also quickly spotted the hidden man and the small pink dinosaur.  According to data connected to timing, these three faces drew almost everyone’s attention within the first five seconds. The dinosaur’s face was statistically the first thing most people looked at, followed quickly by the hiding man.

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Why do we look the same way at this image? As humans we are drawn to faces. This is a given. However, though the contrast is subtle, the only pink things in all that foliage, (remember green’s complement is red) are the hidden man’s skin and the small pink dinosaur.

 

 

Color Theory Review: Concepts and Terminology

The Three Attributes of a Color

To accurately describe a color and differentiate it from another there are 3 attributes to measure.

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 HUE

When the average person says “color” they are actually mean hue. The hue of a color is its particular light wave energy frequency. Remember, light is waves of energy, and white light is contains all possible colors! Violet is the highest visible light frequency and red is the lowest, which we humans have receptors to see.

In this diagram, note how the blue becomes pink, but all of the colors in between are of equal intensity, as it as it moves from right to left.

SATURATION

Saturation (or chroma as it is sometimes called) means a color’s purity. When people are talking about a color’s intensity they mean its saturation or chroma.

In the diagram, note how the blue becomes less saturated as it as it moves from right to left.

VALUE

As we discussed earlier in the course, colors have values just as shades of gray do. A color’s brightness or darkness, and its nearness to white or black respectively, is the color’s value. Value is independent of hue or saturation and can be seen even in a black-and-white photo.

 

Tints, Shades, and Tones

 Value has is has its own color terminology.

Remember that the value of a color is how light or dark a color is, or how close it is to black.

Tints are when we add white to a pure hue:

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Shades are when we add black to a pure hue:

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Saturation also has its own color terminology.

We get different tones when we add gray to a pure hue:

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Another way to envision this is as the hue itself becomes less saturated, it appears more and more gray.

 

 

Munsell’s Color Tree

Talking about color can be very misleading! For example, when you go to a paint store, you can buy a can of Honorable Blue, Flyway, or Wondrous Blue! When we say Flesh Tone, what exactly does that mean? Whose Flesh Tone are we talking about?  It can be very confusing!

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Albert Munsell, an artist and professor the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, felt the same way. In 1905 he developed a “rational way to describe color” using numeric notation instead of names to describe color. To assign these numbers he used the three attributes we discussed above: huevalue, and chroma (saturation).

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In the diagram above, you can see the traditional color wheel as the center ring, and Munsell’s Color Tree, as it came to be known, growing from the center. The trunk of the tree represents zero to ten in value. The farther we move from its “trunk” represents an increase in chroma, until the hue—represented by the separate “branches”—is at full saturation, farthest away from the center.

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Munsell’s Color Tree

 

Now Lets Learn to work in a LIMITED PALATE.

And a MONO CHROMATIC PALATE

 

Working in Color: The Basics

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Color is one of the most powerful aspects of making art. Almost everyone who loves to create can remember the childhood excitement generated by a brand new box of crayons!

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Everyone has a favorite color, artists and non-artists alike.  Our relationship to color is one of the most powerful relationships we have as a species. It is intrinsically connected to how we relate to our world. And so of course it is one of the most powerful aspects to consider when making art.

 

 

Color Temperature

 Much of our relationship to color is based on instinct. For example, we see colors as warm or cool based on our physical response to them.

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Warm things are warm colors (such as fire, the sun, hot coals, and in this case hot food.)

 

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and cool things are cool colors (such as water and ice, which as blue or bluish).

 

 

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Interestingly warm and cool colors also create a sense of perspective and depth when we look at an image. Warm colors tend to advance towards us, whereas cool colors tend to recede away from us.

 

In these two images note how early 20th-century illustrator Edmund DuLac uses this trick. In the first image of The Princess and the Pea he creates a sense of incredible height, as the cold blue-purple recedes from the viewer, effectively raising the height of the bed canopy. And in the second one, A Palace of Wonder, a sense of depth is created between the warmth of the interior space and the cold dark outside.

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COLOR AND CULTURE

However, a great deal of our reactions to color are not innate, they are in fact cultural. For example Black and Death are associated in many Western cultures, in many Eastern cultures it is associated with white—its direct opposite.

Take a look at this info-graphic. Note how many color associations change, depending on where you are in the world. However also note how HOT and COLD or Color’s Relationship to Temperature do not.

It is however important to understand your target market and the culture that they come from, because culture has a strong influence on the development of cultural-color associations in childhood building the adults eventual perceptions of color.

It is however important to understand your target market and the culture that they come from, because culture has a strong influence on the development of cultural-color associations in childhood building the adults eventual perceptions of color.

 

 

Throughout this module and the next we will look at these basic reactions we all have to color and learn to compose in color effectively. We will build on what we have learned regarding composition, concept, point of view, and value and we will see how we can use these reactions to color to aid us in our ultimate goal, telling a great story through narrative illustration.

 

However, before we can do that lets be sure we have down the basics.

NEXT STOP: The Color Wheel

THE COLOR WHEEL

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YES, you painted one of these in Kindergarden. I know. However the usefulness and knowledge that can come from this tool is limitless. So please let go your preconceptions toward color, and using a color wheel and come into this with an open mind.

The color wheel is one of the most powerful tools artists and designers have to help us understand and use color effectively.  It is strongly recommended that as you examine the different color schemes thought this post and the following, you look at a color wheel and plot them out.

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FUN FACT! The first circular color wheel was created by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666. As if the laws of planetary motion and gravity weren’t enough!

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Foto: picture-alliance

 

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We begin with a three-part color wheel that shows only pure colors, meaning colors which no amount of mixing will result in. These three colors are of course our primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. All other colors are derived from these three hues.

 

 

 

 

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Next we move on to our secondary colors. These are the colors formed by mixing the primary colors with each other: green, orange, and purple.

 

 

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You can further break down the color wheel into tertiary colors. These are the colors formed by mixing a primary and secondary color: yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green, and yellow-green.

 

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And of course we divide that wheel based on Color Temperature, with warm color opposite cold.

 

To create a successful illustration, your color palette or scheme needs to support your big idea. It must work to further your narrative and or concept.  If you have already taken Color and Design, you will have worked with various color schemes.   In the next few posts, and in the remaining weeks of class, you’ll look review color theory in detail, and see how those color schemes can influence narrative. We will also look at how they are applied in both fine art and in contemporary illustration
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Drawing by Philippe Buchet, Color by Matt Hollingsworth

 

NOW lets get deeper into some real COLOR THEORY!

ALL GOOD ART IS POLITICAL exhibition

Hey Class!  You have the opportunity to see some pretty incredible art- go check it out! …

ALL GOOD ART IS POLITICAL
Käthe Kollwitz and Sue Coe
October 26, 2017, through February 10, 2018

GALERIE ST. ETIENNE
24 West 57th Street, New York

Join artist Sue Coe in celebrating the
150th anniversary of the birth of Käthe Kollwitz
Exhibition preview October 26, 6 to 8 PM

http://gseart.com/gse-pages/Current_Exhibition.php

Examples of Midterm Projects and Process Books

Hello Class-

Here are some successful examples of Final Inked Illustrations and their Accompanying Process Books.

 

Dana Moreno – DanaMoreno_Midterm_Processbook

brandy ortiz – Brandy’s process book

amir tamang – atamang_processbook

SUBMIT YOUR WORK: Midterm Project

MIDTERM PROJECT : INKED ILLUSTRATION

Overall Project Description:

For your Midterm Project you will be COMPLETING either Assignment 1 or Assignment 2 Ink, using a full range of value.  Consider this a finalized art piece, ready to hang in a gallery or submit to a client for publication.

Final work will be judged on the uniqueness, clarity and cleverness of overall the concept, utilization of composition, skillful use of media, and of course overall technique.

You will be graded on both your Work Process Presentation, and on Final Art.

 

GRADING BREAKDOWN:            

50 % project grade Submit a PDF PROCESS BOOK guiding us through the project from inception to conclusion.

  • Carefully SCAN your process work. This should include : Your Source Material,  Brainstorm, Thumbnails, Concept Sketches, Value Roughs, Related Sketchbook Work, and Final Art.
  • Carefully Label all of your work so that your thought process is CLEAR. Be sure all of it is presented well: facing the right way, no shadows in the picture, good contrast, etc.

50 % project grade Submit a publication ready 300 DPI JPEG of Final ART

 

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DUE OCTOBER 24th

SUMBIT YOUR WORK

 

 

 

 

IMPORTANT CLASS TIMELINE

Sep 26 | Week 4

DUE Project 1 part 3 final pencils, due with Peer critique.

Lecture: Intro to Value

NEW Project 2 Object Staging, part 1 – Brainstorm & Thumbs ( use sterling hundley Ideation method) & research (at first no thumbs but free sketch on subject matter in sketchbook – THEN 20 THUMBS)

Exercise 1: VALUE SCALE & Rendered Form in Value, & 3 VALUE STUDIES : begin work in class

Exercise 2 : Ink Objects (part 1: pencil sketches only no ink yet!)

 

 Oct 3 | Week 5

Lecture: Intro to Ink

Exercise 2 : Ink Objects part 2: INK Textures

Exercise 3: Ink Doodle Value Swatches:  begin work in class

NEW Project 2, part 2 – Concept sketches

DUE Project 2 part 1 research & 20 thumbnail due with Peer critique.

Introduce Midterm Project – inked Illustration

Exercise 4 : Ink Washes (TAKE HOME)

Exercise 3 : Ink Objects

 

Oct 10 | Week 6

FEILD TRIP to New York Society of Illustrators

DUE Project 2, part 2 – Concept sketches posted to OPEN LAB

EX 1, 2 , 3, 4 on posted on openlab

NEW Project 2, Part 3 FINAL Sketches due with Peer critique.

  

Oct 17 | Week 7

Due Project 2, Part 3 FINAL Sketches due with Peer critique.

Work in Class on MIDTERM PROJECT  *Students must bring to class the illustration they wish to use for the final and 3 value studies!

Oct 24 | Week 8 MIDTERM DUE

IN class Presentations of MIDTERM Project & Illustration PROCESS

NEW Project 3 Editorial Introduced

Oct 31 | Week 9

DUE: Project 3, part 1 – Research.

NEW: Project 3, part 2 – concept sketches DUE (Thumbnails uploaded for approval).

Nov 07 | Week 10

DUE: Project 3, part 2 – concept sketches.

Lecture / Work in Class:  Digital Coloring.

Exercises: digital-painting-101-the-complete-guide: 5 Lessons

NEW: Project 3 FINAL Pencil, Values, and Color Palate.  (Upload work in progress for approval.)

Nov 14 | Week 11

DUE: Project 3 FINAL Pencil, Values, and Color Palate.  (Upload work in progress for approval.)

Introduce Project 4- Narrative Illustration

NEW: Project 3 FINAL Art.

NEW:

NEW: Project 4 : Concept Art & Final Project Assigned.

Proposal  for Final Project: Narrative Illustration DUE Nov 28

 

Nov 21 NO CLASS Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Nov 28 | Week 12

DUE: Project 3 FINAL Art.

DUE: Narrative Illustration Proposal

NEW: Project 4- Narrative Illustration Character Design & Concept Art  Rough Sketches

 

Dec 5 | Week 13

DUE: Project 4 – Narrative Illustration Character Design & Concept Art  Rough Sketches

NEW : Thumbnails for Final Project Narrative Illustration (Get Openlab approval for MORE WORKING TIME!)

 

Dec 12 | Week 14

DUE: Project 4 – Narrative Illustration Character Design & Concept Art  Rough Sketches

DUE: Thumbnails for Final Project Narrative Illustration.

NEW: Concept Sketches and FINAL for Final Project.

 

 

Dec19 | Week 15

Final Project due. Peer Critique