finally the final

The last assignment for this class will be to illustrate a book cover. The topic will be "Goldilocks and the three _s" You will decide the who or what will be in the story with Goldilocks. The style will be of your own choosing but make it your very best work. You will need to put the copy including a title , the spine and a brief synopsis of your story on the back. 23 wide x 9.5 tall @200 dpi. Due date is the day of finals for this semester, I will post all of the artwork on the blog for everyone to see. Below is a template for you to follow.

black and white comic

The next assignment will be to do a comic book page with a minimum of 5 separate panels within the page. This will be black and white and should like classic inked comics with thick to thin lines. The subject matter will be a 1 word prompt from the illustration friday page for this week "Monkey." You can include text to tell your story or do it graphic novel style without any words. Below is a few examples of the look we are going for. Size is 11wide x 17 tall @300 high, the due date is April 18.

Mucha Playing Card

This week's assignment is to create a playing card in the style of Alphonse Mucha. You can choose from any of the face cards to work from. I would like to see solid, clean lines bordering the fully rendered subject matter. The size is 7x 10.875 at 300 dpi. Feel free to have fun with you character, you can make it someone famous, a creature, an animal or anything that tickles your fancy. You can flip the top to create the bottom or you can do two separate characters. Due April 9

Below are some examples of his work.

Mid tangential term

1 The hardest working muscle in the human body are the eyes.

2 The state fish of Hawaii is the humuhumunukunkuapu'a.

3 In 1845 President Andrew Jackson's parrot was removed from his funeral for swearing.

4 In Italy a man can be arrested for wearing a skirt.

5 Over 100 birds a year die from smashing into windows.

10 x 10  200 dpi horizontal portrait.

Assignment 6 Background Concept Art

The size for this assignment is 20 inches wide by 11 inches high @150 dpi minimum.

Elements for this assignment that must be included are as Follows (in color).

1. A long narrow and deep canyon that divides a desert from a lush forest.
2. Bridges that allow travel across the canyon.
3. Creatures that guard the entrance to the bridges.
4. Flying vessels that service the communities that live within the canyon walls.
5. Two moons.
6. Some sort of unique wildlife.

Due date will be Wednesday March 7

Use a lot of reference to inspire your world. One of my favorite concept artists is Ian Mcque... google him:)

character/night scene

The assignment for this week will be to put your character (Alice in Wonderland) into a night scene.

There are no size restrictions for this assignment. Keep with the theme of Alice in wonderland and your take on it. 

Below are some suggestions for painting night scenes.

1. The best nights to paint are brightly lit by a full moon (or close to it), providing artists with the contrasts of light and shadow (and reflecting lights bouncing around in the shadows!), which make for the most dynamic paintings.

2. Tone value range is more limited in moonlight than it is in sunlight. The brightest lights will always be a couple values down from white.

3. Moonlight is much cooler than sunlight, often lending a blue or silvery-green hue to everything in your scene (unless it's impacted by another artificial light source, such as light from a building, a campfire, or streetlights).

4. The more elusive silvery-green range can be found by mixing the same two colours – Pthalo Turquoise and Alizarin Crimson – with Cadmium Yellow Deep. Again, modify this mixture with white to get the right tone values. You will notice that these three colors are a triad on the colour wheel, representing Blue-Green, Red-Purple, and Yellow-Orange.

5. Look for opportunities to use your complements: For example, if the scene has a lot of Blue-Green in it, look for hints of Red-Orange (or places where you can use your artistic license to add in the appropriate complementary colours). These complements can be subtle: they don't need to necessarily be obvious, or shout. They can be elusive whispers, and still impact the eye of the viewer.

6. Red is probably the most under-used colour on many artists' palettes, and the most frequently overlooked, but once you start looking for it you'll find it's amazing how much red there is in almost everything (in both sunlight and moonlight). When we consider the three primary colours, Yellow is warm, Blue is cool, and Red is a modifier. Red will make warm colours cooler, and cool colours warmer. The trick is in using the right red at the right time. A good general rule is to use bright warm reds like Cadmium Reds in daytime scenes, and cooler reds like Alizarin and  Violet  in nighttime scenes, but as with all rules there will be times to break it!

7. Just as with daytime scenes, the general rule for nocturne's is that warm colors come forward, while cool colors recede. There are times when this rule is broken, so when in doubt trust what you see; not what you think.

8. To create the glow on the sky's horizon in a nocturne (as you might see shortly after the sun has set, or a little while before it rises again), mix some of the silvery-green the bottom of the sky.

9. The lightest whites will always be closest to you, and in a night scene will quickly recede down the tone value scale as they get further away. Light tone value elements in your painting (like snow, pale sand, or white buildings) will also be heavily influenced by the silvery-green color cast from the moonlight.

10.  Quite often a good daylight photograph can be painted as a nocturne by swapping the sunlight color scheme for that of moonlight.

Character design

Stay tuned....


https://characterdesignreferences.com/news/theme-of-the-month


Your character is due this coming Wednesday. Full color and nicely finished out. And remember we are putting your character into a night scene.

assignment #3 Movie Poster (Black and White to color)

The next assignment will be to make a movie poster from one of the classic horror/monster films below. These films are all black and white and your poster needs to be in color.  Your poster will need to have a unique title treatment and that you will create from scratch (don't just use your favorite font and drop it in). Do your own style and not the original poster (if there is one). You can view clips or most of these films on youtube. The size is 27x 41 (vertical) @72 dpi.  I would suggest picking colors from a fairly simple palette or other piece of art. This assignment will be due on Feb 7th.

Get some popcorn and research these movies!


King Kong 1933

Psycho  1960

Godzilla 1954

The Creature from the Black Lagoon 1954

Nosferatu 1922

Night of the Living Dead 1968

Village of the damned 1960

Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956

The Mad Doctor 1933 (Disney film but only if you are truly scared of the others)

assignment 2 animal rock concert

Attached are the guidelines  for this assignment. You don't need to paint this image @ 600 dpi (I would suggest 150 dpi) and the size is 16.5 x 11.5 horizontal.

The main focus of this assignment is to give animals human expressions and emotions. You should put at a minimum 3 animals in the band. You can add a lot of humanity to animals by adding eyebrows and manipulating the mouth and hands. The Liquify tool can help a lot when using photos of animals to make good characters. This assignment is due Monday Jan. 29

assignment #1

This will be a basic get your feet wet assignment. From the website www.illustrationfriday.com pick an archived topic from Dec 2017 and illustrate it. The format will be 8h x 11w @ 150 dpi. This assignment will be due in one week from today (Jan 15).

Digital Painting 2 Spring 2018 Syllabus

Digital Painting 2 Spring 2018 Syllabus

1. 12-14 paintings will be our goal for the semester (roughly one a week).

    a. We will work primarily in Photoshop. Feel free to to use tablets or laptops from home.
2. Paintings due on Monday BEFORE class.
3. Send finished assignments (Jpegs @72 dpi) to my personal email jimmadsenillu@gmail.com
4. Critiques will be on Mondays. You will be asked to help critique so be ready.
5. Grading will be based on attendance, participation in class and effort toward the assignments.
  a. 4 absences will be allowed however 5 will will earn an F.
  b. Every 2 late assignments will cost 1/3 letter grade (A to A-)  Every missing assignment will cost 6.        1/3 letter grade.

6. Mondays will be critiques and demos, Wednesdays will be one on one help with the current        

    assignment.