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PIMP My drawing ’11 May 23, 2011

Posted by leskanturek in Drawing, Events, In class assignments, Pimp my drawing, Student work.
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The fifth annual (okay…maybe not exactly annual) “Pimp My Drawing” Spring 20011…

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Nothing Is Simple April 10, 2010

Posted by leskanturek in Art History, Drawing, Student Post.
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Post by Pratima Mani
One of the most pleasantly surprising gifts I received from my sister over winter was a collection of cartoons by the 1930’s born French cartoonist Jean-Jaques Sempé. She had informed me that Sempé’s work was highly stylized, and very simple: pure black contour on white background. For someone who has always preferred more realistic/detailed/ rendered illustration (Peter  de Seve, James Jean, Frank Miller), this wasn’t what I wanted to hear. 

(above) The cover of Sempé’s first published collection, “Rien N’est Simple” (Nothing is Simple) from  http://www.pbase.com/csw62/image/38206202
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Sempé is a cartoonist and so I (wrongly) expected work that was clever, and quippy…but not particularly touching.  I was completely blown away by how endearing he managed to make his illustrations. Most of them feature visual repetition of some form. Sempé often repeats a single object/person and then adds an odd one out who is doing something totally different. At times he creates a series of very similar illustrations the slowly change and tell a story over time. 

The result is that Sempé’s illustrations make you chuckle for their own pictorial quality; they do not overly rely on the text crutch to draw a response from readers. You laugh at the ‘black sheep’ of the image, or at how the characters expressions change from one frame to the next. The illustration speaks for itself, almost like those instances when you see some falling over in a ridiculous manner and it’s somehow funnier than the wittiest joke. 

Sempé’s linework itself is one of those shining examples of the warmth of hand-drawn art.  It is as clean as something pen-tooled but has a slight slant at times and a wavering line width. Seeing these traces of the hand-at-work, knowing that Sempé put in the effort to make all those repetitions for a single frame of illustration, is very special indeed.

(above) left  The cover of Sempé’s 1962 published collection, “Tout Se Complique” (Everything is Complicated)  right The cover of Sempé’s translated published collection, “Everything is Complicated”

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(above)  Sempé’s illustration on the 5/3/1961 issue of “Punch“.

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On a side note, and something I didn’t know until I looked up Sempé for this post- he has done many New Yorker covers! An example below:


(above) Sempé’s illustration on the cover  of “The New Yorker” (5/20/85 ) from  http://www.thejumpingfrog.com/si/1270952.html

The Foolish Corpse April 8, 2010

Posted by leskanturek in Drawing, Events, Student Post, Student work, Surreal.
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By Masuko Jo

Honestly, I have never been too fond of using tablets, nor been nice about admiring digital art, but I’ll have to admit, using a screen tablet was quite a joy. 
On April 1st, I took part in the Foolish Corpse event, which was held in the Aronson gallery at Parsons the New School for Design.

As stated on the thousands of flyers found taped all around the school walls, “Foolish Corpse is a collaboration between the Parsons Foundation and Illustration programs. It is a live drawing event with rotating team and three video projectors that create one scroll-like image…” No matter how many times I’ve read that, I didn’t have the slightest clue on what we were going to do, until I arrived at the gallery, and begun drawing on the Wacom Cintiq screen tablets! It was absolutely fascinating. What I had drawn on the screen, projected on the walls in front of us! (To someone who isn’t at all tech-savvy, this was like witnessing a Leprechaun place a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.) 

(above) Students drawing on the Wacom Cintiq Screen Tablets while being projected on to wall.
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There were three of these large screen tablets placed next to each other, and as we drew on the screen, we had to be aware of what the artists sitting around us were doing. We had to interact our image with theirs, like “the Surrealist parlor game, the Exquisite Corpse!” In addition to that, other students who brought their own laptops were able to use Wacom Cintiq Intuos tablets to draw and upload their work into a drop box to be used as “raw material” for the images projected on the screen. 

(above) Students using the Wacom Cintiq Intuos tablets
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This might have been the most multi-tasking position I have ever put myself in. On top of having to make sure that the image I was creating moved fluidly with the other two screens projected on the wall, and having to keep uploading small drawings others have uploaded on the drop box to incorporate into the piece, we had random words thrown at us to enhance our piece towards a new direction! This was absolutely insane, but insanely absolute! 

(above) Collaborative illustrations projected on wall

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It was a great opportunity for me to experience Wacom’s products, and really gave a new perspective of digital art (It’s a lot more difficult than you think!) The Foolish Corpse event was a fun event where I was able to collaborate with strangers in creating hilarious pieces, and I hope there will be a similar event soon to come again! ♡