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Please enjoy these candid snaps and sketchbook doodles collected at the Illustration Alumni Luncheon held in October, 2010.
Category Archives: Follow Up
Photographic Proof of Pictoplasma!
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This past Saturday from 3-10 PM, Pictoplasma came to Parsons from Berlin. Parsons Illustration provided some talent of its own, and we attracted some 400 attendees. We also attracted the New York Fire Department, when Craig Redman’s presentation was interrupted by a fire alarm and a building evacuation. Happily, all were safe and we proceeded with the program. Above are some snaps from the event.
Thank you to all who participated and attended this fantastic event! See you next time!
Invisible Men Materialize through Illustration
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You might have noticed some invisible men hanging around the eight floor recently. Inspired by our summer reading project, students have been illustrating their visions inspired The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. Check out the random collection of men we’ve documented so far above. Then, stop by and add your own some time!
Follow-Up: Gilles & Cecilie Workshop at Parsons Illustration
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The dynamic duo of Gilles & Cecilie recently visited Parsons Illustration Concepts III classes to hold a collaborative workshop with students. Below is their write-up about the experience and you can see pictures from the workshop above.
BRIEF:What is your uniqueness when all is unified?Are we going towards the same currencies/ unions of countries/ mega corporations/ mass productions/ same social networks/listening to the same music/ dress styles/ same level of educations/SCHEDULE:20 min brainstorm (messy and non-critical)15 min selecting ideas (critical and relevant)1hr10 min visualising ideas (quick, enjoyable, experimental)40 minutes presentation (6 min per group) (clear, concise, contextual)ORGANISATION:45 students divided in 5 groups. Each group had three tables and a selection of materials (papers/ tape/ rope/ pencils/ markers/ glue.) We asked all the students to take their chairs out of the room so that they could move and interact better during the process.THE IDEA PROCESS:challenging, frustrating, profound, exciting, hard work, collaborative, wild, questioning, curiousity, breaking borders, mind-blowing, intellectual, involving, intuitive, world changing!THE EXPERIENCE:During the process of the workshop we visited each group with help from Isabelle, Guy and Sean to motivate the students to interact with each other, be working together as a whole group, be curious, develop new ways of thinking and drawing.The students made different stories and answers to the brief and one group also involved volunteers in their presentation of an interactive puzzle on how to fit in.Group 1 were illustrating the female with animalistic characters; group 2 developed a new way of high five human reproduction, group three made a puzzle of creatures to represent: with some alterations we all fit in, group four illustrated each other within the group visualising how they see eachother as forexample a cartoon character or just a lot of beautiful hair (as this was one students way of recognising her friend in the street) and in the end group five where making a twist on the game exquisite corps by creating several unique people with elements from all the students within the group.As designers, we often use this speed workshop in our studio to get as many thoughts and ideas as possible about a brief from a client. In this way we often find themes or elements to continue the conceptual process.
Thanks to Gilles & Cecilie!
Alumni Update Week: Veronica Lawlor at Urban Sketchers Conference this past May
Parsons Illustration Alum and current Adjunct Faculty member Veronica Lawlor took part in the Urban Sketchers’ Conference this past May. The conference took place in Portland, OR and was comprised of lectures, sessions, and practical sessions that put drawing into action. Ronnie was an instructor/presenter at the symposium and is on the board of directors for Urban Sketchers. She was interviewed about her background and inspirations on the symposium blog. Here’s a snippet:
When I search for “reportage drawings”, your name appears everywhere on the results. What is reportage drawing and why do you think reportage drawing as an art genre is important?
The word reportage comes from the French, meaning ‘the act or process of reporting’. Reportage drawing can be journalistic or descriptive of place and can carry the artist’s opinion. Since it is painted or drawn and not photographed, reportage illustration can take liberties with ‘reality’ in order to be clearer in meaning. It is important to the art genre because it is a direct artistic response to a place or situation, right there on the spot, and it becomes very instinctive. In that it is different from the majority of artistic experience that involves the artist alone in a studio working.
Since there is a direct connection between the artist’s hand, eye and mind, it can be very emotional as well. Reportage is so rewarding for me because I love it as a way to interact with the world and contribute.
You are the author for several books and your works are exhibited in galleries and museums. Can you tell us more and what these achievements mean to you in your role as artist, illustrator and educator?
The gratifying thing about having my work published and in gallery or museum settings is that I am able to reach the public with it. To me, art is always about communication with people. When my drawings of September 11th were exhibited at the Fire Museum in New York City, I had firemen coming up to me with tears in their eyes telling me how emotionally affected they were by seeing them. That kind of emotional connection is such a big part of the reason why I started drawing in the first place. I can be a bit shy at times, but I’m really an extrovert at heart, and drawing allows me to reach out to people who I might otherwise never come in contact with.
You can read the rest of the interview here. You can also see more of Ronnie’s work at her website.
Parsons Illustration 2010 Grads selected for 3×3 Magazine
Youngsoo Kim: Sea Mine Gumballs with Tusks
Parsons Illustration is very pleased to announce that five of our recent graduates were accepted into 3×3 Magazine’s 7th Annual Student Competition. The works were all created for their Senior Thesis Projects. The talented students are as follows:
Youngsoo Kim
Sea Mine Gumballs with Tusks (seen above)
Stella Lee
Endless
Garrett Pruter
Asylum 2
Katie Turner
Boy with Glasses
Min You
Through Mind
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Pop-ups pop-up in Parsons Illustration!
Check out this fantastic video comprised of collection of photos and video footage of students’ pop-up projects from the Spring 2010 Sophomore Concepts classes.
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Thanks to Sophomore Concepts instructor Peter Hamlin for constructing the video! And congrats to all the students on their inspired work.
Follow-up: Katie Turner’s Illustrated Journal from Bologna
In March, Parsons Illustration Senior Katie Turner attended the Bologna Book Fair as a representative of the program. She was kind enough to share some of her wonderfully illustrated journal pages from the trip. Click on each picture and you will be taken to a full-size version so you can really see some of the neat details. Thanks for sharing, Katie!
Follow-up: Foolish Corpse Event
Check out these dreamy photos from the recent “Foolish Corpse” event on April 1, 2010. All these images were photographed by Parsons MFA student Conway Liao–be sure to check out his website here for more wonderful imagery.
Foolish Corpse was a collaboration between the Parsons Foundation and Illustration programs. It was a live drawing event with rotating teams and three video projectors that create one scroll-like image in the Aronson gallery. Participants worked on three Wacom Cintiq screen tablets and responded to each other as the images unfolded. This unpredictable event, loosely based on the Surrealist parlor game the Exquisite Corpse, was further unhinged by musical and word cues lobbed at the artists like bad April Fools jokes. An additional group of artists draw simultaneously on Wacom Cintiq Intuos tablets uploading their work to a drop box as raw material for the project.
Foolish Corpse was part of the Palimpsest exhibition.
Steven Guarnaccia interview for The Rumpus
Illustration Chair Steven Guarnaccia attended the First Annual Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival and was interviewed Katie Geha of therumpus.net Here’s an excerpt of Katie’s article:
Steven Guarnaccia, Chair of the Illustration Department at Parsons, is generous in talking with me about the contemporary comics scene. He explains that while illustrators once created images to respond to a text given by a client, say a magazine or a newspaper, now more and more artists are creating their own texts. “When I came to the program around six years ago,” Guarnaccia says. “It was very clear that the most exciting stories were being generated by the artists themselves.” These visual narratives have since translated to a larger cultural realm as artists move beyond the comic book, creating toys and t-shirts, and often exhibiting prints in art galleries.
The article also mentions Illustration Alum Leah Hayes, so make sure to check out the rest of the write-up here.