Here and back again, and now arrived at my Senior year!! It gone way too fast, when leaping from little freshman year to the final stop of college. Just coming back has me freaking out, in a good way and bad, but I'm finally settled in officially. As in getting my spot in the studio space with amazing illustrators and my greatest friends. Back when I first toured at Montserrat, I was excited to see all the spaces that seniors got, making it personal and inspiring to work within. The feeling of accomplishment and having the responsibility to a cubical was just special to me, and maybe even other. Or maybe it's the relief to have a nicely, lit, spaced out room to work within.
So I haven't had all my classes yet, because courses started in the middle of the week. So far I gotta into Painting II and Illustration Thesis, and my liberal class, Addiction. Painting is going to be difficult to manage, not because to the projects but the materials we need to work with. Mainly it's about making our own custom canvases and panels to paint on. Also, we are working with oil paints, hopefully understanding the components of the paint and how they are used property.
Illustration Thesis is the class that I am looking forwards. The class consist of great illustrators to work with but to help throughout the semester. There is a lot to do, for example, our first assignment is to make up a calendar/ schedule what is going to get done. Pretty much, you have the responsibly or goals of the semester, knowing what needs to get done, when and how. And oh yes, no homework, expect for the homework you assist yourself. So its a lot of work that I want to focus on and strengthen when I leave. Although it does really feel like I do much expect for the painted letters. Right now, I crafted out some characters to continue the book as a narrative. Next is coming up with a few new letters that would make sense in the book.
Lastly, the class Addiction is a new liberal course that I was taking this semester. The course is a focus on the many types of addiction, as it is a behavioral habit for the individual. Think of it as a psychology course, but looking more on the reinforcements from their surroundings and an person's motivation. I'm a little unsure how it will go, as our first assignments was to make up a one page summary out of a 22 and 33 page article. And it took three day to read through them. I'm hoping after this first day, the teacher will get an impression of what this school is and will reduce the workload, but that depends on the teacher.
My apologizes for writing this late, I be back on my regular routine and hopefully have better updates. Happy Labor Day to you all!!
Sorry for the delay but the snow that we got was down pouring. To be honestly, based on the couple of days being warm, I was thinking it would turn into slush. Instead the snow we got was solid and packable to for lasting. So friday was this semesters first snow day and there are two more snow storms coming up this week for be prepared to shovel your car out. Or be like me, and use the time to do work and sleep in (that's always fun).
Also, the Illustration show happened and it became pretty big this year. I was even excited and surprised where I was place in the gallery. This year, a lot of interesting, creepy, experimental and icon work came out of this show and I'm excited for the next. I do say that I do miss the Shakespeare theme show, but what was different about this gallery was there was a lot more unique interpretation that never really copied each other. I believe I was only person that did a cross word concept, which is pretty cool to me. I got a lot of praise and support doing the illustration, and I thank you all for that.
Okay, so illustrations project we have are pretty fun this time. For Illustrating fiction, we have to create two- four illustration from the classical short story "Rikki Tikki Tavi" (the offspring to the Jungle Book). Mainly, designing two print plate illustration and two spot illustrations, which are small illustrations that are arranged around text space. Mainly it fun to down animals characters, elaborating or characterizing them based on the story text.
So the classes that I submitted myself for have gone over my head and a lot of advance time consumption to deal with. But overall, the classes are going along swimmingly well, even if they are all illustrations course.
The busiest time that I have are with Illustration IV and Illustrating Fiction. Both classes seem similar as an illustrator but with different approaches. In Illustration IV, we are tackling basic client/ business assignments that a typically illustrator will be presented with. Mainly we have done children book illustrations to edition cartoons. However, the instructor has an particular time lapse, as we have to present final sketches, color studies and then the final piece. It is very time consuming and strong contrast from my other illustration course.
In Illustrating fiction, it tackles the same issues but more on illustrating fictional literature. Here you are able to display our interpretation and appearing visuals based on the stories. But the stories aren't fairy tale, as the list of stories off old folklore, Swan Lake, Tarzan and so on. Our current project is to illustrate a book cover and two interior illustration prints. Here is a preview of what I got for the cover, with hand painted type and slowly built up illustration on the bottom left corner. More will come Sunday. Also, any finished illustration will be added to my website, so keep an eye on that. 
Then on my fridays, I have another life drawing class known as Perspective in Anatomy. The class is pretty much described in the title, we look at the human anatomy and know how the muscles and bones work and look correctly on the form. It is an requirement but also looks like an interesting course to be in. Not only do was have to draw the figure, but we are currently making a clay model that will show what the bones and muscles are. It is pretty much a hands on class that I hope will be good in the end.