Laurel Williams

Junior Studio II

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Completion of Jr. Studio II and Beginnings of Senior Thesis

Hi All!

So with Junior Studio II completed, these are all of the finished watercolors and titles:

“Little Miss Lu & Vanity: The Most Interesting Girl in the World (or so she thinks)”

“Little Miss Lu & Lust: The Holy Marvel Trinity”

“Little Miss Lu & Greed: The PillowPet Hoarder”

“Little Miss Lu & Envy: The Conundrum of the College Kid”

The next big thing will be Senior Studio and my Senior Thesis which I’m very excited for. My current working title is “Art & Atlantis: A Modern Mission, An Ancient Form of Communication and a Timeless Model to Strive For”. I would like this to be a mixed glass art and installation piece in which I will build the mythological or fantasy setting in which artistic conversations take place. Essentially my project will show what I believe art is: a discussion that transcends time, distances and cultures. It will also be a mission statement for my future in art and describe why I make art. In addition, it will provide my audience with an ideal mode of communication amongst people with vast differences while simultaneously commenting on ideals themselves: do they work or not? What is their purpose and are they necessary, and I believe that they are because they give us a challenge to work toward. We may never reach perfection but in the case of artistic discussion it’s the process that matters. Atlantis comes in because Plato used it as an allegory for utopia and destruction. Atlantis was a place of advancement but fell because of its pride. I would say that this is the same reason people have such trouble conversing with others of differing views today. The victor in Plato’s story is Athens, where philosophical discussion, debate and respect for differences and true analysis of opinions reigns supreme. Though Athens is the real idol, I will still model my glass art in an Atlantean theme to remind my viewers of what can happen if we disregard ideals, throw our hands up and resort to pride, anger and self-righteousness. Basically, we cause our own demise and prevent ourselves from strengthening our thoughts through debate with others of differing opinions. 

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Blog 4: Hi everybody! This is my progress so far. I'm finished with one painting (pride or vanity), in the middle of a second (lust) and I've done the drawing for (greed). I'm a little behind because I'd like to also do a fourth if I have time before next week (envy) but that may not happen. I got behind because I had some severe heat exhaustion this weekend/wasn't really prepared for the drastic change in the weather, but I will spend extra time on it this week and hopefully catch up. Thanks!

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Blog 3

Hello everyone! 

I ended up deciding that I really need to practice with digital painting/drawing in photoshop a bit more before I’d feel comfortable making some finalized cartoons, so instead I’ll be saving that part of my project for the summer and keep on practicing for now. In the meantime, I still needed to finish the Seven Deadly Sins watercolor/cartoon series part of the project so I decided to do that for this quarter instead (that way I don’t have to drag my supplies back to SoCal with me). So here are some thumbnail sketches for the final pieces...

Two for PRIDE that I decided not to go with:

Thumbnail version of PRIDE:

Thumbnail versions of LUST and GREED:

Thumbnail version of ENVY:

...and more recently, the underdrawings for the final versions of LUST and PRIDE:

I will be coloring these two in with paint this week and maybe even doing the drawings for the last two, but we shall see...

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Blog 2

Hey Ya’ll!

This past week I spent some time taking notes on an online tutorial/workshop from CartoonSmart.com called “How to Make Comic Strips” by Paris Christou. It’s a six hour series which I finished during the week. It basically outlines the general process of developing appealing characters, reusable digital character sheets, coming up with scripts/humor and how to produce and organize comics. 

I won’t bore you with all the details but some of the highlights from my notes include simplifying characters, stages for drawing characters quickly and in different poses/from different angles, integrating squash and stretch and placing high importance on line of action as shown below in these screen shots of a lesson: 

I also focussed on reading and working through my textbook on digital painting in photoshop this weekend. I set up my tablet, Photoshop preferences and played around with tools for a bit just to get used to it. I’ll begin re-developing my character/s, making character/model sheets, scripts, thumbnails and hopefully a comic strip or two by the end of this quarter (so probably I’ll just be working on character re-designs this coming week). 

That’s all for now. Tootles!

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Blog 1

Hello Everyone!

This week I spent preparing my project proposal, gathering inspiration for my project board and searching for a workshop or tutorial/s that suits my purposes for this quarter’s project and here’s how it went:

Proposal

My plan for this quarter is similar to that of winter’s, except not learning the techniques of pastels. Rather, I will be teaching myself to digital paint in photoshop (with the help and guidance of a book called Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop by 3D Total Publishing) and then use what I learn in the first few weeks of the quarter to re-develop a character I’ve created and turn it into a comic strip. My character is called Little Miss Lu (or Lu for short) and is a caricature of myself that I created in our watercolor class this past fall. My final “series” will be the groundwork for this comic which I will continue to develop over the summer and present in a public RAWartists show in San Francisco this coming fall. 

Inspiration

My inspiration for this comic is chiefly myself and my weird adventures/escapades/habits, my dog who is equally as sassy/quirky and will be my side-kick (Little Miss Jacquette), my watercolor paintings and Jacque character designs as concept inspiration, and the animated/regular comic strips of Mickey Mouse & Friends, Charlie Brown/Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes. Included are my own paintings and dog design:

Workshop/Tutorial

I also looked for a workshop that I could attend this quarter and was unable to find a physical, in-person workshop available for either digital painting or the making of comic strips. I did, however, find an online tutorial series that can be purchased for a small fee from CartoonSmart.com that goes into the basics of making digital comic strips. I think this will pair perfectly with my book that goes into digital painting in photoshop specifically. Therefore, my goal for this coming week is to set up my supplies/photoshop/tablet etc. and watch as many of these comic strip tutorials as possible and take notes before diving in to strictly digital painting techniques the next week. I think this will help me to start developing ideas for my final project while I am working on techniques for the following weeks.