Get Some MAD CASH, NOW! UConn "IDEA" Grants

Hey! There's $4,000 out there with your NAME on it! Apply for this grant with your idea for a creative/artistic product and you could be sittin' pretty really soon!

UConn IDEA Grant Information

Applications due by April 1st, 2013!

International Children's Digital Library

The BEST resource for looking at children's picture books on the web. Period. Great search features and you can view entire books. Many of them are international. So, get out of your bad mock Japanese anime rut and take in some new ideas!

International Children's Digital Library

Click on that link (above) and then click on "Read Books" in the upper left. Search!

Image ® Marcus Nada

Polish Posters- Have a Look!

More quick, but amazing, research! Here's a nifty little visual survey of Polish posters. Want to break out of your standard conceptual and/or layout thinking? Take a look at some of these:

Nifty Little Visual Survey of Polish Posters

Featured here:

GRIDO, 1962

En las tinieblas_1977

Metanoia 2009

In the spirit of providing even more interesting links for ART 3210's (ongoing) research on our current project, Posters for Metanoia 2009, here is a link you should check out. While you're there you can also follow links to other resources that would spark your brain cells. You can't go overboard on information at this stage!

Metanoia site

And To Look At Some Current Practicing Illustrators...

Try these sites:

Folioplanet

Illustration Mundo

The i-Spot

PictureBook

The Best of The Best

Dr. Carl Sagan said: “You have to know the past to understand the present.”
This is very true of the visual arts. The following web sites are a treasure trove of classic illustration.
Look at the art to understand how to handle composition, render textures, use color, and learn who are the rock stars in illustration!

American Illustrators Gallery - Features image gallery of artists from the "Golden Age of Illustration".
http://www.americanillustrators.com/

Women Children's Book Illustrators- Women illustrators from the Victorian period up to World War II
http://www.ortakales.com/Illustrators/

A smattering of some of the most famous illustrators of the last 125 years
http://www.bpib.com/illustra.htm

SurLaLune Fairy Tale Illustration Gallery - Classic fairy tale illustrations
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/illustrations/index.html

Vintage Advertising Art:
http://grapefruitmoongallery.com/gallery/illustrationandcoverart.shtml

A vast selection of old adverts, nostalgic illustrations, classic posters and vintage magazines:
http://www.advertisingarchives.co.uk/gallery_indexpage.php

This Week- Big BIRD Doin's! And Who is Ustad Mansur?

Ok, campers, bring to class this week the following items, 'cause we're working up a STORM of visual BIRDNESS on the heels of our total immersion in "Ornithology" last week! Here goes:

Those markers we talked about last week (set of cold or warm grays, not mixed, and a black sharpie).

Bring your regular art kit with stuff to make color (pencils, paints, markers, and/or pastels, etc.), cut things (scissors, or X-acto knife), adhere things (masking tape, glue stick, or acrylic medium) and your notes from last week's activities.

Your genius text (you're writing this, remember? 1-2 paragraphs of intelligence, wit and/or profound musings on birds, birding, or another bird-related avenue you've been led down through your research).

For more inspiration, click here: CLICK HERE, or HERE, or HERE , or HERE, and so on. I mean, stretch your (bird)brain!

Class This Week...

Bring your sketchbooks and stuff to work in them with (pens, pencils, markers, etc.). You'll have to be "portable."

Also, preview the show in the Contemporary Art Gallery, "Ornithology." Click here for a show preview.

Don't forget to think about the work as you look at it. We are going to have this in our memory banks so that when we go to the screening of Michael Gitlin's "The Birdpeople"and "Ornithology" panel discussion at the Dodd Center during our class time we will have context:

Click here to learn about Michael Gitlin and "The Birdpeople."

The Only Thing Better Than Making Art Is...

... Looking at other really tasty work! To that end we have on today's menu a selection of main courses that are so appealing, so fulfilling, so beautifully presented that you will want to stay forever and never go hungry again!

Ok, all I'm really hoping for is that you've read this far and you'll click on the following links and educate yourselves:

The super-great Vivienne Flesher (that's her piece on this post)

The equally fabulous Gary Kelley

The never-to-be-outdone Mary GrandPre

So, that mess you made with pastels? Guess what- it doesn't have to be a mess! These folks don't make a mess and there's no reason you should either!

Remember Cathie Bleck? Scratchboard Wonder Woman? She's HERE!!

You saw her work when you couldn't get enough of it at her own website! Now see her LIVE and IN PERSON at the New Britain Museum of Art:   Sunday, February 24th, 3-5 pm.

It's a great opportunity for you to see a show of this quality without lots of travel time. Who could ask for more? You'll be back on Sunday in plenty of time to ignore what you need to do for Monday. I'm planning the same!

Really. Go. After struggling through your own recent scratchboard pieces you'll have a new appreciation for the work of this woman who tames the clayboard like no other!

Get directions to the museum here:   Go HERE, then click on "General Information"

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, by Peter Sis

Another great illustrated book you should know about and desire to possess! The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, by Peter Sis, is an outstanding autobiographical effort. Plus he mentions the Beatles. More than once. Since we were groovin' to a "reasonable facsimile" of the Beatles last week in studio (the "Across the Universe" soundtrack, courtesy of Kat H.) you might dig this image? Click the link on the right to check out the book.

Last Minute Scratchboard Slump? Check Out Cathie Bleck's Work!

Oh, Art 271-2ers! I see you have all been working feverishly day and night, night and day, then night again, on your bookplate designs, stopping only occasionally for beer and cigarettes, unable to divert your focus to anything else, it's bookplates, bookplates, bookplates,... and then I woke up!

But seriously, here is some more work by an accomplished illustrator that is right up our Ex Libris Alley in the "materials" sense as well as the "strong compositions in black and white" sense. Check out Cathie Bleck's scratchboard and printmaking work here (along with some drawings, and so on): work I'd better look at before Thursday!

Mark Summers, Scratchboard GOD!

Hi Folks. Those of you working in scratchboard will be knocked out by Mark Summers' awesome skills. Click on the title above to be magically transported to the site of his rep, Richard Solomon, and see his work. And if that's not enough, here's another link. Most of his original work is very small size stuff. If you'd like to try this type of work do it now, while your youthful eyes can still see things at that size!

Joe Sacco: You'll Like His Work. And It's Important Work, Too!

Hi All, here's a general-purpose-we-love-graphic-storytelling link to check out. Joe Sacco's book, Palestine, was ground-breaking fifteen years ago. As time goes by it is still a powerful work and, as he notes in this interview, still sadly relevant.

This interview is a quick read, and previews a new anniversary release of Palestine that will include some of his process work, amongst other things.

ART 271, Your Lives Just Got Even BETTER!

Hey You'all,

Here is a link sent by bookplate fan Lewis Jaffe. He maintains a site that you'll find interesting and informative. Trust a bookplate fan!

Be sure to scroll down and find the genesis of this featured bookplate.

ART 271, Ex Libris: Just Another Name For a Super-Exciting Project!

Ex Libris

You will be designing a bookplate. What is a bookplate? Why are they important? What is interesting about them historically? What do you notice is done with them in contemporary times?

Also look up “Ex Libris” in Google, under “Images” and take note of the great variety that is included in terms of style and approach in this art form. Pay attention to what you see- what do these images say? What do they reflect?

Your image will be reproduced no larger than 3” x 3” in the end. You may work larger but you will all be scanning in your line art (the black and white art you are creating for this project) in order to make a sheet of stickers. You can add a single color to the bookplate digitally, but just one!

You will work either in linocut (linoleum, rubber or plastic block cut) or scratchboard. This is your choice. Materials for either can be purchased at the Lily Pad, Utrecht, Pearl Paint, Dick Blick, Jerry’s Artarama, etc.

Your theme is: “Who I am.” How does that relate to what you’ve already seen and learned about bookplates or “Ex Libris” so far?


You will:

Draw 20-30 thumbnail images documenting your early thoughts and ideas. These are very small (about 1” x 1”) and do not have to be detailed. In fact, if you are going right to the details of ANYTHING you are cutting off your brain and focusing on one thing too soon. Fight the urge to jump into developing details. You want to generate ideas, one after another, first. A good way to do thumbnails is with a pen or marker on copier paper, tracing paper, or in a sketchbook. These are not precious but they ARE very, very important.

Choose three thumbnails that you think have possibilities- rough them up larger (again, using only black). We will pin these up to look at them. These can be to size. NOW you can think in a more detailed fashion and draw accordingly- these are still not “finished” drawings but are close. These are called “comps” which is short for “comprehensive.”

After these three comps, you will choose one to refine and take forward. You'll go into your linocut or scratchboard piece during studio time this coming Thursday, the 31st.