Today’s creative challenge idea comes from AJ Power, the League’s illustration and comics instructor. This project combines a scribble-and-respond drawing with an aspect of the panel exercise from Day 2. AJ calls it a “Monkey Wrench” project, because it gets you out of your habits, and gives you something unexpected to work with.
The primary challenge is to respond to the creative prompts in these posts, and see what happens. The alternative challenge is to make a comic based on the year 2020. You choose what you’re up for today.
Scribble Panels
STEP 1: Take a piece of paper (8.5×11″ or larger)
STEP 2: Scribble randomly across that piece of paper, all the way to the edges. Feel free to use any media: pen, pencil, watercolor, charcoal, crayon, finger smudges, ink smears, anything. Do this quickly, without thoughts or edits.
STEP 3: Fold the paper into randomly sized rectangles. As you fold, don’t open the paper back up all the way until you’re done folding. Let folds go over folds. 3-4 folds is good. Do this quickly, without thoughts or edits.
STEP 4: Open up the paper and look at the combination of panels and scribbles. Depending on how you folded your paper, you might have around a dozen rectangles of various dimensions, with some scribble marks in them.
STEP 5: Choose 3 panels to use as little composition starters, and cut them out. Recycle the rest. Take pictures of your panels.
STEP 6: Use these panels as composition starters, and respond to the marks within the rectangles. The three panels can be a sequence that fits together, or they can stand as three separate little works. Responses can be abstract or representational. Since today is “Comics” day, you could make your compositions into a story sequence. Media is artist’s choice.
André Masson., Battle of Fishes. 1926. Sand, gesso, oil, pencil, and charcoal on canvas, 14 1/4 x 28 3/4″
This is day 3 of the 30SAL creative challenge! To learn more about this 30 day challenge, click here. Today, study and sketch the geometry of this tondo (circular) composition by Masaccio. Don’t worry about illustrating the figures and details, just focus on the relationships of the big shapes. Media is artist’s choice. Can be …
Our printmaking instructor Nikki Barber has been printing posters in her basement for protest rallies and marches. “I feel responsible to stand up for my friends who are Black and my friends who are Brown, since I white-pass so easily, but am not white.” Nikki has been active in the social, political, and art in …
Among his monotype and pastel works, Degas did a series featuring a young model bathing in private interior scenes, many with the light coming in from a window. The model appears to be caught midway into a movement, making triangles with her body. While the bathing models make a variety of shapes in various …
Yesterday I posted my sketches; some fun ideas we are exploring in “Abstracting the Image” on Thursdays. Each week we’re taking a masterwork and exploring it with approaches inspired by contemporary abstract painters. The purpose of this exercise is to be able to lean on, and learn from the composition of the masterwork, while exploring …
30SAL Challenge: Scribble Panels
Today’s creative challenge idea comes from AJ Power, the League’s illustration and comics instructor. This project combines a scribble-and-respond drawing with an aspect of the panel exercise from Day 2. AJ calls it a “Monkey Wrench” project, because it gets you out of your habits, and gives you something unexpected to work with.
The primary challenge is to respond to the creative prompts in these posts, and see what happens. The alternative challenge is to make a comic based on the year 2020. You choose what you’re up for today.
Scribble Panels
STEP 1: Take a piece of paper (8.5×11″ or larger)
STEP 2: Scribble randomly across that piece of paper, all the way to the edges. Feel free to use any media: pen, pencil, watercolor, charcoal, crayon, finger smudges, ink smears, anything. Do this quickly, without thoughts or edits.
STEP 3: Fold the paper into randomly sized rectangles. As you fold, don’t open the paper back up all the way until you’re done folding. Let folds go over folds. 3-4 folds is good. Do this quickly, without thoughts or edits.
STEP 4: Open up the paper and look at the combination of panels and scribbles. Depending on how you folded your paper, you might have around a dozen rectangles of various dimensions, with some scribble marks in them.
STEP 5: Choose 3 panels to use as little composition starters, and cut them out. Recycle the rest. Take pictures of your panels.
STEP 6: Use these panels as composition starters, and respond to the marks within the rectangles. The three panels can be a sequence that fits together, or they can stand as three separate little works. Responses can be abstract or representational. Since today is “Comics” day, you could make your compositions into a story sequence. Media is artist’s choice.
Sand, gesso, oil, pencil, and charcoal on canvas, 14 1/4 x 28 3/4″
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This is day 3 of the 30SAL creative challenge! To learn more about this 30 day challenge, click here. Today, study and sketch the geometry of this tondo (circular) composition by Masaccio. Don’t worry about illustrating the figures and details, just focus on the relationships of the big shapes. Media is artist’s choice. Can be …
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Our printmaking instructor Nikki Barber has been printing posters in her basement for protest rallies and marches. “I feel responsible to stand up for my friends who are Black and my friends who are Brown, since I white-pass so easily, but am not white.” Nikki has been active in the social, political, and art in …
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