End of the Quarter Updates-Sketchbook

So the end of this quarter has been a bit crazy, but I'll make up for it with plenty of photos that I'm going to update now. Pictures from the Vernissage will come later this week( I need to grab them from friends since I was silly enough not to take pictures)...anyways, end of quarter art...Here's my sketchbook pages from travel that are the best from that sketchbook...

Finals Week Update

So finals are upon us early for those lucky SCAD students in Lacoste, leaving us the last week to pack, get ready for the Vernissage and have rooms inspected. First of all, a few tips for art students stressed about finals...1. Make yourself a calendar of the week and schedule deadlines for yourself for each day. This helps in relieving stress and gives you a few things to think about at a time. Also, make those deadlines earlier so if you run late on them, you have a few days to recover. 2. Build up a food fortress in your room. But don't be gross about it, cover your food. Just be sure to have snacks and drinks ready so you don't have to be running around. 3. SHOWER!!!!!!!!! Hygiene is STILL important. Many people forget this...PLEASE dont. 4. Get sleep. You will work much faster with sleep than without. So with that, good luck everyone!
As a side note, I've been working on pencils and watercolors this quarter. My watercolors still are a bit jarring since I'm coming from an acrylics background, but I'm working on it. Here is the pencil version of my piece of Notre Dame Cathedral:

And here's the watercolor on top of that:

And a helpful tip for those of you trying watercolor (I found this out AFTER this project) is to not clean your brush. Crazy, right? You start with the lightest color and keep building and as the colors build on your piece, they also do in your brush and they create a unified palette. Atleast...in theory...I have yet to try this out. But once I do, I'll let you guys know. Have a safe and sane week!

Second Time, Lacoste Newspaper

So our Angoulem collaboration was a new thing our school has been doing and it was a huge success. There were kids workshops, adult workshops, caricatures, etc.  A lot of the people who we interviewed came as well along with journalists/ photographers for the local newspaper. So guess who got interviewed and made it in the newspaper...Me.lol. Weird, right? Anyways, here's me and Bruno Pitot, from the oldest family here, posing cheesily for the pic. It was fun and we were goofing around but here's the page.:P

Oh, and also, one of the Angoulem students, Wei, and I did a collab page during the workshop day. Here's the doodle page.

And here's us doodling this page.lol. We were too tired...

Here is the poster we all doodled on...

Angoulem and SCAD students at the kids workshop...

And Professor Tom Lyle being all professional-like and drawing Spiderman for someone.:)

Anyways, that's all for now!:)
-Sarah

Time Management

So I just thought I'd take a few minutes to talk about time management. This is something I wish I had listened to and used when I first started SCAD, but I have finally been forced to confront it through sickness: Time Management. First of all, SLEEP. We all need it. But college students many times have it in their heads that we can magically rise above it and we are freakin' indestructable. Pretty much...NOT TRUE. Sleep is important and your health and life depend on it. I have somehow managed to make it through one of the most hectic quarters of my life without staying up past 3 am doing hw. Establishing a bedtime (and yes, I said it) of midnight to 1 am and getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep is perfect. Then the morning is left to do homework thats left over and then there are classes and then homework after. When doing homework, set aside 15 minutes each hour to procrastinate and then the rest is homework time. It can be done. If you have 8 am classes, go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. Oh, and might I add, naps are a college student's best friend? I think so. 15 minutes normally. But be warned, once you pass 20, you wake up groggy and worse than before. But I swear by the method of 7-8 hours of sleep a night... it leads to both a healthier and happier artist.:) Good luck all!

Angoulem

So this week has been completely hectic and wonderful at the same time. Some students from the Angoulem, France school, EESI, came who are getting their masters in Bande Dessinee (Sequential Art).

We were all paired up, I of course got another Sarah (lol.), and we all had fun interviewing people around Lacoste. Our guy, Bruno Pitot worked in the clocktower so we got a VIP tour and did our story on it. We also made the Lacoste newspaper and met the mayor and her committee. Bruno mentioned the names on the wall, which went back to 1880, and my story focuses on it. In this story, which we executed in two days in time for our exhibition and workshops today, he's working and sees the names. When he touches them, they illuminate and the ghosts of the people who past worked there appear. After a minute, they get sucked into the wall and before he knows it, he sees his name illuminate as well. This is when he gets sucked in and becomes a part of the clock and its history.

Enjoy!:)

Arles

We went to Arles last Friday so I decided to do my Travel Portfolio project there. I sat and drew for 5 hours then came back and worked from the pictures on the color. Going from Acrylics to Watercolors has been a bit jarring, but I'm working on it. Enjoy!:)

Advice on Clean Work

So I learned a little lesson the other day that was hammered into my mind...ALWAYS clean your ruler. I was really tired and cranking out a comic page and after penciling it, I looked down and gasped in horror...there were ink marks ALLLLLL over my paper. But I didn't have enough time to go back and clean it up so come critique time, my professor asked me if I dropped it or played hockey with it. Haha. As a comics/animation artist, stills and comic pages sell usually pretty well...unless they're dirty and have ink marks everywhere. So this is a lesson to me and I thought I'd save others the trouble by dropping this piece of advice into the interwebs. Sure, its common sense, but common sense isn't always that obvious...so to all you artists out there, clean your rulers and supplies and learn from my mistake.:)