Once upon a time I walked into room 102 in Anderson Hall and, much to my surprise, all those big, big drafting tables were shoved together. Now… if all those law-bound years of school and sitting in a row prepared me for anything it was what it meant when desks were shoved together in clumps of four:
Group Project Time!
Now instantly my mind came up with a list of all the ways this little arrangement made my eye twitch. But, what was even more of a surprise, was that nothing on that list consisted of ‘I WORK ALONE’ like I was some more skilled, highly dignified silly snooty person who was over here dining with a duke while watching my classmates foolishly poke at their salads with a dessert fork. No. Really the only way to best illustrate this list would be to change each of the reasons into swears.
“Once upon a time” was at 8 in the morning; I was tired and I just didn’t wanna do it. Childish? You bet.
But I did it. And, quite frankly, I’m glad I did it. The interaction I had with my group was the most invigorating part. I thought it was going to take an eternity and a half to come up with ideas, but once the professor cut the umbilical I grew up in about 2.7 seconds. I had to in order to keep up with my group. Ideas were flying off of each other, as though our brains had strapped on rockets and began pin balling around the table. I might have been tempted to ask the lads at Webster’s Dictionary to take a picture of my group and print it next to the definition of ‘FUN’.
And in the midst of having a good ol’ time, laughing and pokin’ around like we each wanted to be clowns when we grew up, we got the whole project pretty much mapped out on the very first work day.
Here was what we had to work with:
Panel #1: Jack and Jill
Panel #2: Went up a hill
Panel #3: To fetch a pale of water
Panel #4: Jack fell down
Panel #5: And broke his crown
Panel #6: And Jill came tumbling after
All of that which had to be represented using only this:
I know, right? I can’t even come up with jokes that good. Anyway, there were a few rough-drafts created to try and figure out how we were best going to represent the storyline we had concocted for Jack and Jill.
In the end, I was responsible for panels #5 and #6. They looked something like this:
Note: The negative space did not play well with the rest of the design in Panel #6, so it had to be tweaked quite a bit in order to better fit the 8″x8″ board.
Final Product:
Final-Final Product:
So. Jack and Jill (Yin and Yang) had some serious car trouble and needed to fetch a pale of water. They traveled up far into the triangle hills until they come across a cuddly bear guarding a fire hydrant. Putting two and two together and getting four, Jack and Jill attempted to reach this fire hydrant. Unfortunately they were deceived by the not-so-cuddly bear’s initial gesture of kindness. The selfish bear kicked Jack and Jill, knocking Jack’s crown off his head, thus breaking it, and Jack and Jill were broken in half sent tumbling downward.
Critique:
Don’t stare at panel #4 for too long, audience, because if you do you’ll notice a boo-boo. Jack ended up flipped. Luckily, it doesn’t throw the rest of the panels off too much, so the eye still travels through the panels relatively well with minor confusion. Panel #1 was a tad on the cluttered side; it’s hard to see the crown. And in Panel #6 I, shame on me, should have thickened the line of the hill in the background and on Jill — that cartoon-y boldness lacks a little.
All in all, my group and I (as well as our classmates) were pleased with what had been created. Sure, some mistakes could have been corrected, but it feels like a solid piece. I trusted in my group’s abilities and I believe they, overall, made good decisions in designing their pieces of the puzzle. I enjoyed the combined effort, having to rely on one another, having to make up where one of us may have lacked. This project was definitely a good preparation for the future.
Without further ado, my group:
Panels #1 & 2: Alyssa Goldman
Panels #3 & 4: Lee Jasmin
Thank you both, for not only putting up with me but for also, well, just being amazing.