Dead Smurf
Art Speak
This was for my Massachusetts College of Art Spring semester sophomore illustration class. The assignment was to draw a cute animal. Our instructor, Mister Floyd Covert (MassArt), felt we were only drawing stuff we liked. His long-term plan was to have us show the cute stuff to potential clients in the summer, then have real-world stories to tell the next Fall.
I wasn't in a cute mood that semester. This probably had more to do with living in a Dostoevsky-like flophouse.
Part of the assignment was to use photo reference. This came from a then-current issue of Scientific Monthly, covering Rhino Rats. Naturally I chose the most disgusting photo in the story. The skin was pale and looked like intestines.
The drawing technique is mostly crosshatch pen-and-ink with technical pen, a very time-consuming way to cover a 20" x 30" illustration board. It must've looked like time-lapse photography to see a little bit more inking done to it every week. When the top third inked, I found out about the Smurfs Saturday morning cartoon. Trying to pass this off as a social statement, I quickly penciled the Smurf.
You'd think this was right up my teacher's alley, but he was surprisingly appalled. The exact word he used was "sophomoric". One of the biggest laughs I ever got was reminding him "this is a sophomore class. If I can't do this now, then when?" Eager to move the class along, he eventually relented (were any of his classes longer than 30 minutes?). He even suggested the Smurf blue and bloodstains.
The drawing earned an A-, and currently lives in Paris.
Tech Talk
Technical pen and graphite, colored pencil, gouache on illustration board
Freshness Dating
Repurposed. It was tough enough to get anything out this week.
Posted by Dave M! on Sunday, July 8, 2007 at 8:59 AM
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