To The Drawing Board!
Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Alissa Clarke-Gaar, and I am an animation graduate student at the University of Texas, Dallas. This blog is dedicated to journaling my process and growth as I work toward three specific semester goals. This project aims to enhance my portfolio and improve my visual storytelling skills. Ultimately, my career goal is to enter the animation industry as a story artist. However, this blog, in particular, will document these three milestones:
Complete one storyboard/animatic from a non-personal story.
Complete one storyboard/animatic sequence from a personal story.
Complete three background designs for my thesis animatic.
Progress from this week:
This week, I continued watching and participating in a Learn Squared course called “Draw Everything.” I also did many drawing exercises and began creating thumbnails for my first storyboard goal.
My daily sketches varied from photo studies to concept sketches. I used personal photos on my phone to sketch people I am familiar with, trying to capture the emotion of the moment. I also used online resources for figure drawing and anatomy practice. Some photos are included below.
The thumbnails for my storyboard gradually moved away from staging/framing and towards expressive doodles. I think that’s okay. Next week, the focus will be on making full top-down drawings and actually staging these doodles.
Challenges: I found myself very frustrated during the Learn Squared course. Although I value the course, I found myself comparing my work to the instructor’s. I have been practicing perspective drawing with environments, buildings, and landscapes. These are not my strengths. Watching the instructor easily freehand complicated scenes, while I struggled to draw my thoughts on paper, made me feel inadequate. In previous weeks, I haven’t been hyperfocused on the gap between my imagination and what comes out on the paper. But this week was challenging.
Moving Forward: In the aftermath of my frustration, I have decided to pause freehand sketching. While I was using references for vague ideas, I think it would be more helpful to study some environments and landscapes in person. I will still follow along with the Learn Squared course, but it may be better for me to draw from reality for the next week, instead of imagination.
I will also start doing some of my exercises and sketches in pen. I believe I am too reliant on the ability to erase.
Thumbnail sketches in Here There Be Tygers excerpt.
The first three images were some freehand sketches I did this week. While I did have some images for inspiration, they were drawn from imagination.
The last two images are drawings from earlier in the Learn Squared course. They more closely resemble reference material, hence why they are more dynamic. I had an easier time imagining the details and environments of these last two. The quality difference between the two sets of drawings is frustrating to me, but part of growth is understanding your shortcomings.
For the next batch of environment drawings, I will return to relying more heavily on references.
A few notebook sketches and drawing exercises
