Jack & Jill…
Greetings!
For this assignment we were challenged to take the children’s nursery tale of Jack and Jill and create a piece of art that would represent it visually. Now initially I thought that this would be an independent project like the others had been, but Prof. Waldvogel apparently had other intentions. My group consisted of Aliyah Curry, Wilson Pena, & Marc Fleichmann. Together we formed a motley crew of designers! We were instructed that the story could take shape in any form it wished…to make it interesting and not basic. During our brain storming phase, we came up with two ideas.
1. Two friends going to a bar and then leaving drunk.
2. Two birds flying and then getting hit by a plane.
From these ideas, we concluded to create a piece based off the bird theme.
Our first conception of the Jack & Jill assignment I felt was a bit too literal. But when working in a group, one has to learn when to add and when to adjust for the groups needs. My original idea was the “Bar scene”, but two of my group members didn’t see how we could create such a piece using the materials we were giving (a sheet full of black icons and drawings). My thoughts about our concept was confirmed when we showed it to our professor. We were encouraged to not be so literal, and to really think about what we were trying to say. Another point that our professor brought up was how heavy some of our scenes looked. With this in mind we decide to divide the work based off our strengths. I chose to do the inking since I’m quite precise with that material. Another member would do all the tracing.
Our 1st conception of Jack & Jill assignment.
My group and I met up at the Student Center to start working on the concept that we had created. Luckily my group member Wilson had gone ahead and created templates for each scene via Adobe Illustrator. I’m so happy that he did. This made our process so much easier as now we had to do was discuss what we want to change within the composition. we are also able to now finally see the project as it would actually look like once competed.
The next time we worked the project was in class. Only 3 of us were present as one of our members (Marc) is a swimmer for SCAD and had to be away. We this in mind, we made sure that he’s opinions were considered that night at the student center. We decided that we would meet the Sunday before our project was due so that we could assemble everything together as a group. While in class, we printed the templates that we created the previous night at the Student Center.
Wilson working checking out our printed templates
Our templates look great printed out!
Once we had the template printed, we decided that our next step was to trace the templates onto a measured 8×8 bristol board so that we could begin the transfer process. Group member Alyiah was to streamline this part of the project while Wilson would cut our the 8×8 bristol board that we would use as our final projects.
Alyiah beginning the tracing process.
Wilson meticulously measuring our the bristol board.
When it came time to complete the project, we all met once again at the Student Center. With all the boards traced, we now began the process of coloring in the designs. We chose to use precision pins, india ink, and black markers in order to fill in all the icons and drawings within our design. Now I must say that I am quite ‘type A’ when it comes to using the india ink and tracing. I did have problems with the craftsmanship of my group members. I would rather take and hour to shade in a circle then ‘half-ass’ it in fifteen minutes and then have to go over it again later. Not that my group was “half-assing”, but I did have issues with their craftsmanship…especially since we all were to receive the same grade.
Alyiah finishing up our design
Marc & Wilson working on outlying.
Here is our final design. Can you follow the story?
“JACK & JILL”
“WENT UP THE HILL”
“TO FETCH A PAIL OF WATER”
“JACK FELL DOWN”
“AND LOST HIS CROWN”
“AND JILL CAME TUMBLING AFTER”
GROUP’S CRITIQUE:
The class seemed to think that we had a strong composition and that our story was creative
The craftsmanship also got high remarks compared to other groups.
Classmates also said that our balance was good. But they weren’t’ sure on our layout. We chose to have our pictures horizontally in a line oppose to having them stacked three on top on top of three like other groups. There was a comment about how the last three designs didn’t have any sense of exit within their frames like the first three did. Overall the our project was well received.
At end, I did not enjoy working in a group for this project. I found it to be quite stressful because I had to rely on others for my grade. I’m quite sure of my strengths and to trust other to be so as well was not becoming.