The Illustration Academy: week 1

This summer, I was extremely lucky to be able to attend the Illustration Academy in Kansas City, Missouri. I spent 4 weeks there plus an extra week for the TAD workshop working amongst a group of amazing artists and leading professionals in the industry. Each week, new guest artists would arrive to give lectures and assign us a project which would then be critiqued the following week by the next guest artist.

 

Mark English, John English, Brent Watkinson and George Pratt introduced us to the program and started us off with our first assignment. It involved doing a lot of research of the area surrounding the studio. The place consisted of old run down brick buildings, many of which were condemned. From the 6th floor studio, you could see trains roaring down their tracks and hear them blare their horns. We were not allowed to use more than two values per object. The above illustration is the end result!