WU 2023 Graduation

You put a bunch of proud parents and graduating seniors in a bowl-shaped coliseum and it gives you JOY SOUP! I love attending graduations! Even if they are bittersweet. I wish my seniors every happiness and success as they fly from our nest!

The professors had fun too! (If you got a picture with me after graduation - please forward it to me!)

WU Senior Show!

Graduation is always a bittersweet time. I'm thrilled to set my students into the world like birds flying from the nest, but it's always sad to see them go. Even so, the Senior Show is a moment to celebrate. Visual Communications students (Graphic Design and Illustration) set up a Show at Lenny Boy Brewing Company in Charlotte to display their accomplishments. It's a moment to show off what they've created, maybe sell a few things, but also for parents, alumni, and any potential employers to connect. It's not graduation but it is our moment as a department. This class is a special one to me, as well. We've been through some tough times together, and for me especially. These are the students who stepped up, showed up, and mean the world to me. I wish them so much joy and success in life; and I hope they stay in touch - even when they think they haven't accomplished enough to share - they are my kids and always will be!
     In all the excitement and hubub, I didn't get photos of everyone but I did get a few good ones. Here are Erin and Adam... Kaelen, Olivia, and Guye... Sarah and Maggie... Senteria (who was my student assistant for Drawing II this semester - thank you, Senteria!) and Israel... Shaunie... and James (he's holding one of the note cards I write to my seniors)... Not shown are Amanda, William, Ethan, Clay, Will, Hitomi, and David. If you read this and you have a photo to share - please forward it to me and I'll add it to this post!!
     Meanwhile, Kaelen was awarded our Senior of the Year Award. She led the student Society of Illustrators group and was all around an awesome student. They all were! I'll miss all of you so much! Go out into the world and BE AWESOME!!!

Drawing Attention to a Neglected Landmark

Sometimes the smallest things can lead to the biggest things. Remember my drawing class's field trip to the laundromat? While there, we ran into Dr. Ken Alston, retired professor, who works with the Legacy of African American Schools, and had recently moved back to Rock Hill. He had given a talk about Rock Hill history at the university a few weeks earlier. We got to talking and he asked if my class was, by chance, planning to draw any cemeteries.
     As a matter of fact, yes!
     Drawing gravestones is an excellent way to practice drawing one and two-point perspective. So I normally take my classes to a cemetery in walking distance to the University at some point during the semester. But Dr. Alston told me about an old neglected Black cemetery not much farther away. Some important people from Rock Hill history were buried there, but it had been left to fall apart after its last buriel in the 1950s (when another cemetery became the preferred destination). Dr. Alston has been working to repair the cemetery and help it receive an historical marker as the landmark it is.
     I love when school projects can gain legs and do good in the community, so I checked it out. There was some beautiful old statuary and it was evident that many of the families buries there were well off and represented important stories to the community.
     So we headed out to draw...      What I couldn't have figured is that the head of the Rock Hill Historical Society would join us (along with her son). They would like to use some of the student's drawings to help build a case for the historical marker.      Soon after, a reporter with Comporium also showed up to take photos and interview us about the project. (I'll share once the broadcast goes live.) We were literally drawing attention to an important community need.
     Meanwhile, students were able to spend a lovely time fine-tuning their craft and reflecting on stories of those buried in the cemetery.
     Here are some of their works-in-progress...


On the last day, it got so hot by the end of class, students were cooling off in the shade, not getting any work done anyhow; so I suggested we stop for ice cream on the way back to the university. All good!

UPDATE!!! Here is the news story from CN2!

Interview on AI in Education

You may recall I recently gave a talk about "AI-Assisted Illustration: This Changes Everything." Well, I was recently interviewed to talk about AI in education by Yili Fan. Yili is a documentary filmmaker, educator, and creator of Fill the Space: A Collective Intelligence Method. Kim Wilson, head of the Arts in Basic Curriculum, which is housed at Winthrop University, connected us, and I'm so glad she did!
     I'm often interviewed by students for class projects, so I have to admit, I was a bit surprised to walk into a seriously professional set up for the interview!      Yili asked me all kinds of interesting questions, which was fun. I have a lot to say about AI - the good and the bad. It's all very scary and exciting at the same time. While they were filming (her husband is the techie and cameraman), Yili kept giving me the thumbs up and smiling at my answers. Birds of a feather, I suppose!      I just hope I gave her some good material to use in her new documentary! I'm sure it will take time to put together; but I'll share as I learn more about it. Maybe it will end up with as many kudos as her first documentary, THE LITTLE PRINCE WITH A MASK by East Point Academy!

Mural Time!

This semester for my Illustration: Persuasion & Propaganda class, we made a mural! You may recall the last mural called "Get Out the Vote" right before the pandemic. Back then, we were addressing an upcoming election. This time, we're dealing with a lot of post-pandemic burn-out, so we decided to go with a Mental Wellness and Selfcare theme for the semester - hence, this year's design.
     There was a lot of prep work that went into this. Students had to decide on a theme (within our theme), a color palette, the image itself, representation, application, etc. That took almost a month to get sorted. Happily, our local paint shop PPG donated the paint and supplies. Once we settled on the design, I had the line art printed onto oversized paper at the UPS store. Then it was a matter of using transfer paper to trace the design onto the mural surface...


It was tight working conditions, but the students worked together brilliantly. In fact, I was surprised at how easily they reached consensus on all the choices they had to make during the planning stages. I suppose it was only natural that would carry over to the actual implementation.
     Painting the mural took several class times (studio classes run 2 hours and 45 minutes each), but the students were diligent.




And the outcome was SPECTACULAR! Check it out! (Click the mural to open it larger in a new window.)
     I was so proud of my students; but better yet, they were proud of themselves and learned a ton! What a lucky teacher I am!

Drawing Outside

I'm extremely behind on blogging about all the awesome things we've been up to at Winthrop this semester, so apologies for sharing them en masse. But share, I must!
     One of the classes I teach is a Beginning Drawing class to Freshmen. It consists of the basics of perspective, still life drawing, and landscape drawing. That's my favorite part because it means drawing outside in our beautiful Hardin Gardens. There's not much else to say other than, what a lovely way to spend a class time! Here are just a few of my students hard at work...

Talking About AI at Winthrop University

I recently spoke a the Movement(s) in a Dynamic World: Intersiciplinary Perspectives conference hosted at Winthrop University.
     I spoke on "AI-Assisted Illustration: This Changes Everything."
     I've been following the subject closely since Midjourney hit the scene last summer, putting together a slideshow on what I was learning. At the time, I had no idea where/when I was going to share my research; and then, happily, this conference opportunity arose.
     I was the program moderator for our panel with William Davis from UNC Charlotte and James Risk from the University of South Carolina. Will talked about a fascinating art project he'd been working on that involved film, photogrphy, illustrations, and music - all of which were excellent. James talked about the Fresnel lighthouse lens, which made an excellent bookend to my topic, showing how society's adoption of new technologies has changed over the last two hundred years.
     One of my students gave a talk on fantasy art in the panel after mine. I love supporting budding academics. And there was a vigorous discussion about fantasy and religion and mythology afterwards.
     The posters were also excellent.
     What a wonderful treat it is when top notch conferences take place in your own back yard!

Our Illustrated World - The 2023 Illustration Gallery Show

Thursday evening we celebrated the opening of our biannual WU Illustration Gallery Show. It's a chance to show off works by our amazingly talented students in our show called "Our Illustrated World."Works were from several (not all) illustration courses, such as Design Drawing II (a freshmen-level drawing course)...Comparative Anatomy: Creature Creation (this is Shaunie with her piece - she also shared world building pieces and an animation sizzle reel)... Illustrating Children's Books, here are book dummies and full spreads...Animation 1 (a collection of sizzle reels shared on a monitor), Creating Graphic Novels...Persuasion & Propaganda (these are posters around "Mental Wellness" and "Self care")...and World Building. Setting up the show was a great learning experience in itself; although, we couldn't have done it without the help of Gallery aide, Jenna, shown blowing up one of the many balloons! Here are Alyssa and Mia...Ave and Asher...Ethan, Sarah, Israel, and Guye...They did a great job getting everything on display - it was a lot of work - and it came together beautifully! Here was the primary signage.One entire wall was made up of works from World Building, from the maps...to large projections of the scenes (not shown), to landscape views, to street views, moving in to interior views, and prop design. A few students created maquettes (models) to use to make their drawings more accurate.Look at the model by Izzy Wallace...Then see how it translated to her artwork - pretty awesome! Everyone had a great time.They blew up balloons (here's Ave who got pretty good at making balloon dogs). Here are Maggie, Israel, and Asher.Folks loved watching the Animation Reels.Several alumni dropped by. Here are Lizzie, Hannah, and David. And me (feeling rather victorious) with Lizzie. We had mascots - Chair Jason with his pug...and Kaelen with Beans. The show is up in the Lewandowski Gallery through March 6th. I hope you can drop by!