Art Blog Update

Hello all!

Thanks for taking the time to read through this little corner of the internet! If you want to see updates on what I'm doing in the program check out my tumblr! Here's a link!

The Art and Times of Emma Crossland

Or my inspiration blog:

Emmagination Central

Hands and Feet Portfolio

This is my hands and feet portfolio for the life drawing class at Sheridan! Man, hands and feet are HARD!!!

Portfolio Review Day

Portfolio Review Day is a gut-wrenching day in November where future applicants of Sheridan's art programs come to get their portfolios looked at by professors who actually work at Sheridan. In this post I will go through the experience that I had on review day.

Step 1:  Arrive at the school. The day is scheduled to start at 11:00 am but I would come about a half an hour earlier, especially if you want to get to more than one program. Don't worry if you don't know you're way around the school, just walk into the nearest building and someone working there will direct you where to go. Everyone is so nice!

Step 2:  Get a ticket for the program that you are applying for. I got my portfolio reviewed by both an Illustration professor and an Animation professor, as I applied for both. If you are doing the same thing, then I would suggest having someone wait for you at Animation while you wait in the Illustration line because it is much shorter.

Step 3:  Wait your turn and get your portfolio critiqued! Make sure you remember to breathe. This is a very stressful experience but the professors are very nice and will not crush your dreams, I promise. Since there are so many applicants for the Animation program you only get five minutes (seriously, they have timers) with the professor, so make sure that you have some questions prepared beforehand to ask them.

Step 4:  The reviewing ends at 2:00 pm but there are activities that go on afterwards. There are residence and general tours that you can go on, and some of the animation students do caricatures for free!

That pretty much sums up what happens.
Good luck!

Portfolio Presentation

So you have all of your drawings done and ready to go, but there is one last thing that you have to consider before you send them in, and that is how you are going to present it. Presentation is an entire section that you are marked on, so make sure that you give a lot of thought into how you present the portfolio that you have worked so hard on.

First, you will need a portfolio case, something to keep your drawings safe and also make them look nice and professional. I would suggest the Itoya Portfolios because they are very good quality. However, any other portfolio that displays your work well should be fine.

Then there is the matter of what size to get. My portfolio case was 11" x 14", but I have seen them as big as 18" x 24", the size of the average sheet of newsprint, or as small as 8.5" x 11". It really depends on your personal preference. I chose the size that I did because I wanted most of my drawings to be originals. In other words, I didn't want to have to scan them down to fit them into my case. Make sure that if you did scale your drawings down that you include them in a back pocket. The only things that did not fit were my life drawings, and I included the original panels for my storyboard. I put these drawings in a manilla envelope at the back labelled "originals". When I got my portfolio back I could tell that the drawings were looked at so make sure you include them.

A table of contents is also a good thing to include. It just gives your portfolio a really organized and polished look. I also included little page numbers in the corners of the pages so the people that were looking at it could navigate quickly through my portfolio. Before each section, I also included a divider/title page that said the section, my name and student ID number.

Before you put each drawing into the case, put your name and student ID number on the back, that way, none of the drawings can be misplaced. Also on the back of my drawings, I put a piece of double sided tape just to secure them in (especially the character drawings because they slip around a lot). Make sure that the drawings look level before you stick them.

On every page where there was a drawing, I printed out a mailing label that said the section, the drawing, and again, my student ID number. I even downloaded a font that I thought looked good and suited my personality. Seriously, I REALLY wanted to get in.

Lastly, I designed a kind of logo for myself, like a little self portrait (it's the header of this blog) that I put on the table of contents and the pages before each section. I have seen a lot of people do this and I think that it adds to the presentation, but it is definitely not required.

Good luck and happy drawing!

5 Personal Pieces

I'm not sure that there is much that I can write for this last element to the portfolio because it is very dependent on the individual applicant. For your personal artwork include what you enjoy doing, paintings, sculpture (photos of these), drawings, sketchbooks, anything is fair game. Try not to include anything more than a year old.

The personal artwork cannot exceed 16" x 20". If any pieces that you want to include are too large to fit into your portfolio case, take a picture or scan them to scale them down. Try to include the originals, but if they are to large/precious to fold in the back I think just the scanned versions are ok. The pieces that I included were a combination of work that I had done in other art classes in high school and work that I had done on my own.

In two cases the pieces that I submitted had two parts to them. This is not a problem, just label the works as Part A and Part B and they will be counted as one. Basically, just include five pieces of your best artwork that you think shows off your skill and represents you as an artist.

These are the five pieces that I submitted:

Part A

Part B

Part A (Sketchbook)

Part B (Finished Painting)

You made it! Good luck and happy drawing!

Room Drawings

The next part of the layout section also requires two drawings. One of a room, with a character drawn to scale (this just means that the character should look like it fits into the surroundings, not too big or small). Then a second drawing from the character's point of view.  Again, no rulers.

Before you begin on these drawings, brush up on your perspective. There are a ton of books and tutorials that you can use on the internet. Do some studies of a couple of rooms that you are considering drawing. Remember: it doesn't have to be complicated. Whatever you think that you pull off the best should be the one that you include in your portfolio.

I would suggest using two point perspective because it has more interest. I had no choice but to do one point perspective for my second drawing because my character was looking at a flat wall. To make sure that my character looked as if she was to scale I had my mom sit on the bed and I blocked in the pose so I knew that the dimensions would be right, then I added the features.

Do not shade in any of the layout drawings, the emphasis should be on the perspective, linework and structure. The same goes for the linework in these drawings. Close/in shadow = thicker and farther away/lighter = thinner

Good luck and happy drawing!

Object Drawings

The next section is layout. For the first part of this section, you have to do two drawings of objects found around your house that are similar to a sphere, cone, cube and cylinder. Then, do one drawing of the objects normally, and another with the same objects after some external force has acted upon them. What that means is there has to be apparent changes to the objects from the first drawing. They could become exposed to rain, snow, fire etc.

The materials that I used for these drawings were again, a blue col-erase pencil and 2B pencil for the linework. I also used a lightbox again to make sure that all of the objects looked the same.

For my drawings I chose to do a sort of sewing theme with my objects. I suppose you could say that the force that acted upon my objects was a person that was really bad at sewing. This part of the portfolio is a really great way to show off your creativity. Try to come up with a creative story to go along with the objects. What happened to make them the way they are in the second drawing? 

Another thing to keep in mind is the composition of the piece. Don't choose a bunch of tiny objects to make up your drawings, make sure you have variation in size. Assemble the objects in different ways and do thumbnail sketches of the different groupings, then pick the one that you feel is the most appealing. 

When it comes to the linework, variation is key. This adds overall interest to the drawings. The thicker/darker lines should be the ones that are closer to you or areas that are in shadow. Lines that are farther away should be lighter/thinner. Also, a little side note, do not use a ruler! You can use one to check if your lines are straight but in the layout section they are not allowed. Finally, I cannot stress enough: STRUCTURE, STRUCTURE, STRUCTURE! This is what the professors want to see, that you can understand how to break down objects into their most basic components. 

   

Keep it up and happy drawing!