Class Concentration 5

A small detail that is introduced in the movie is that Whoville is located on a snowflake, so I was inspired by that to design a unique snowflake. I also wanted to still incorporate Grinch and Martha somehow, so I broke them down into geometric shapes and incorporated them into the long spikes in the main snowflake. 

Home Concentration 7

I am typically not one to outline my figures with black ink before adding color. I'm usually more drawn to the more natural style of coloring right on top of the sketch instead of doing line work prior. So for this piece, I wanted to try doing line art again and try to get some more practice with my Micron pens since I haven't used them very much. 

I also just purchased a set of watercolor pencils, so I wanted to try those out and see how they compared to normal watercolors. I certainly think I need more practice with them because I did feel like I struggled a bit. I really like the splatter design I was able to create for the background. I was able to get a more pigmented splatter by rubbing the pencil on the tip of a wet brush before flicking the brush towards the paper. 

I was excited to do my take on this outfit as well because it doesn't actually appear in the movie. It was introduced about three years ago for Martha at Universal Studios in Hollywood. I think it's such a pretty outfit and it was great for me to practice how to create different textiles with the pens. 

Home Concentration 6

For this piece, I wanted to include a symbol that wasn't super obvious upon first glance. I chose to use the silhouette of the angel that Grinch makes for Martha when they are kids as the basis for the piece. During the flashback in the movie, the angel ends up being shattered to pieces, so I wanted to tie that in by fragmenting the silhouette. 

Because the broken angel serves as a symbol for Grinch's broken childhood, I wanted to counterbalance that with positive scenarios to show that Martha was the light in his life. 

I wanted to stick with the pastel color scheme of the sets, so that was my thought process behind the background colors. I really like the way the three colors I chose look together and I think they work with the toned background well. I also thought it would look interesting if I added a dark shadow under each of the fragments to further show that they are separated from each other. 

Concentration Critiques - Charlie and Josh

Charlie

Overall thoughts:

• I think your take on women is very interesting 
• I love that you're thinking about different generations of women and exploring different time periods throughout history
• I think a strong point in your concentration is your detail work - especially when it comes to your intricate flowers (I know those take a lot of time, but it's worth it!) 

Suggestions: 

• I'd like to see you continue with your unconventional frames and your flower cutouts
• It would be fun to see you use more unconventional materials  
• A possible piece about women's suffrage or women's rights
• Further exploration of the different generations 
• Further exploration of pattern and texture
• Continue to incorporate quotes  
• Try to use maybe one more different medium - I'd personally like to see you try colored pencils 
• I don't know if you are unhappy with the backgrounds of any of your pieces, but if you are, I'd suggest playing around with an editing app 

I think you have a great concentration with visually interesting pieces, so I look forward to seeing what you create moving forward!

Josh

Overall thoughts: 

• I like that you're taking a design stance
• I like that you're also incorporating photographs of your shoes
• I like that you incorporate fantasy into some pieces 
• Your love for shoes is evident in your pieces and I like that about them 

Suggestions: 

• I really like the message and the design of your first piece, so I think it would be interesting if you did something like that again 
• I like the way you are designing specific types of shoes with unique characteristics, so I'd like to see you continue that
• Along with that, I think you could benefit from adding actual pictures of fabric into the parts of your design to turn them into the physical design
• I'd like to see you incorporate more photographs of shoes you own or are drawn to into your digital work 
• I thought your boot illustration was really fun, so I'd like to see you try another traditional piece 
• Further exploration of the blueprint layout 
• Maybe design shoes to fit different physical needs 
• Continue to explore and incorporate texture

I think your concentration is very interesting, so I look forward to seeing more of it!