Illustration Electives, spring 2018

Illustration Electives, spring 2018

Drawing New York City Taught by Veronica Lawlor CRN: 3625

More than simply recording what our eyes see, reportage illustration, or visual journalism, tells a story about place through the hand and mind of the artist. In this course, students will visit various NYC locations to draw, journal, and document the environment they observe around them. Graphic reportage can depict everyday life and people in the city from a journalistic point of view, recording moments in history, and with a political intent, revealing social structures through visual observation. The drawings can capture the visual world in time through multiple images and/or palimpsests. Examples of reportage illustration from the past to the present will be discussed during informal weekly lectures on site. Through drawing, writing, and investigating, students will document the neighborhoods and street life of NYC, creating a story of the city that is uniquely theirs to tell.

Illustration Electives, spring 2018

Illustration in Performance

Taught by Matthew Thurber CRN: 6041 In this course, students will explore the worldwide traditions of illustration and comics in performance: picture-recitation, cantastoria, kamishibai, and others. Projects will include narrated slideshows, narrated panoramic drawings, toy theater construction and performance, and shadow puppet theater. Through a series of exercises, students will develop the technical and narrative skills needed to combine handmade images with the human voice in a theatrical performance.

Illustration Electives, spring 2018

Reading Graphic Novels Taught by Bill Kartalopoulos

CRN: 2391 The focus of this seminar course will be on close-reading of a select group of graphic novels, looking at the plot, formal quality, cultural and aesthetic contexts, and the history embedded in each work.

The graphic novels will be chosen for their historical significance, thematic richness, and formal innovation, and complemented by secondary sources and criticism. There will also be a small group of discussions with the authors discussed in attendance.

Illustration Electives, spring 2018

Children’s Book Illustration Taught by GUY BILLOUT CRN: 3627

Students will develop an original picture book for children. They are introduced to all phases of this process from initial conceptualization, writing, editing, paging, illustrating and creating the final dummy.

Students conduct independent research using their own books and learn how to present them to potential publishers.

Illustration Electives, spring 2018

Observational Painting Taught by Carol Peligian CRN: 4598

This six-hour course is devoted to building your skills in observational painting from life. Working directly from models and still-life arrangements, emphasis will be placed on recording firsthand visual experience using a range of opaque and transparent paint media. Projects will focus on the problems of seeing and describing fully realized forms situated in space as revealed through set lighting. The techniques of representational painting developed in this course can be applied to the full-range of text-image storytelling forms studied across the Illustration program.

Illustration Electives, spring 2018

Anatomy & Perspective FOR VISUAL STORYTELLERS Taught by Nathan Bond CRN: 4589

In this course students will build upon their drawing skills in object and spatial description. Special attention will be given to surface anatomy of the human figure with an overview of historical techniques for inventing figures and using them to dramatize stories. The course will also deal with systems of perspective used to create the spatial drama central to visual storytelling. Exercises will be structured around narrative problems using the human figure, animals and inanimate objects in fully imagined environments.

Illustration Electives, spring 2018

CG 2

Taught by Nino Mendolia CRN: 2330

This course studies the creation of complex models/environments and characters with Maya software. Designing topology of the model so that it deform properly during animation; how to optimize polygon characters for gaming environments; basic character rigging techniques in Motion Builder; texturing strategies for complex organic models; constructing UV maps for polygon models using Maya’s Texture Editor as well as working with normal and displacement maps using Autodesk’s Mudbox software. CG 1 or a proven understanding of the Maya interface is a required pre-requisite. The course also focuses on the creation of well-acted and believable character motion in 3D virtual space. Acting, timing, spacing, classic principles of physicality and motion are applied to the character as a required set of scenes. A final scene with an animated character in a scene plus an animated game cycle will culminates the semester.

Illustration Electives, spring 2018

Introduction to Animation Taught by Ana Mouyis

CRN: 3482 This introductory course in Animation for non-Illustration majors will cover key conceptual elements of time-based media, such as short-range apparent motion, dramatic staging, mis-en-scene, line of action, characterization and narrative arc. Projects will explore animation with hand-drawn images on paper, 2D images in a digital environment and stop-motion animation using physical objects.

Screenings and discussion will include animated works in proto-cinema as well as experimental and commercial animation in film and digital video.

Illustration Electives, spring 2018

Pictozine Taught by Steven Guarnaccia CRN: 6042

In this class, students will make small edition, self-published visual books, illustrated pamphlets, pictorial chapbooks, artist’s books, comics and image-based zines. The class will be taught simultaneously, via skype, with a class at Parsons Paris. In addition to creating their own work, students will collaborate on projects with students at Parsons Paris in real time, sending files via e-mail. The class will collaborate on a long-distance project with students at the Accademia di Belli Art in Bologna. There will be a class trip to the Bologna Book Fair, during Spring Break, during which Parsons students will be hosted by students from Bologna. In addition to visiting the book fair, there will be opportunities for the students to meet and work together with students from Bologna, Paris and Hamburg. Students can take Pictozine without going on the Bologna trip. The class will also produce zines that will be presented and sold at the MoCCA (Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) Festival in April.

Illustration Electives, spring 2018

Toy Concept, Development & Design Taught by Vlad Dragusin CRN: 4599

Illustration is broadening its definition and toys are an exciting new frontier; a dynamic nexus incorporating character design, product design, sculpture and narrative. A successful designer toy is serious fun, resonating with the artist’s personal inner vision while presenting consumers with a fresh visual language. Toys have always had universal appeal. A designer toy takes it further, bridging the divide between high art and low, sleek and edgy, crisscrossing cultures with ease.This course is uniquely designed to expose students to this new frontier by working closely with a guest instructor who is at the forefront of the market. From vinyl to plush, our guest will encourage inventive toy solutions, while discussing practical issues like technical drawing, manufacturing and marketing. Through involvement in various supportive conceptual exercises and research, students will work toward a final completion of a three-dimensional model of their toy, which will be presented at the end of the course.

Illustration Electives, spring 2018

Sketchbook Warehouse

Taught by George Bates CRN: 3626 This class will explore and examine the commercial viability of the work of sketchbooks. The sketchbook will be understood as a repository for ideas, experimentation, and wide-ranging explorations, which will ultimately inform a personal vision. In turn this vision can be used as a presentable, comprehensive, finished, work of art: a warehouse with commercial potential.