Reflection on Spring 2021 Illustration

Apprentices Shaundi Stephenson, Kya Smith, and Ayana Hall reflect on skills they developed, projects they enjoyed, and the new ways they look at their own artwork thanks to the Spring 2021 Illustration class. 

Shaundi Stephenson: We have learned different skills and techniques on how to sketch, do line art and color better. I like being able to create and draw what I am comfortable with. I also enjoy having the freedom to create any type of character and going through the process of sketching, inking, then coloring it. This class has made me want to illustrate more. I like the idea of being able to draw any kind of character you want and making the character look any kind of way you want. I draw a-lot of already like-designed characters from animes and I would like to be able to create my own specific characters and put them in different scenes which this class is teaching me.

Kya Smith: Illustration has taught me the different techniques about sketching out a drawing, inking a drawing, and coloring the drawing with watercolors. My favorite project so far has to be the character scene drawing. Drawing my character in a scene was fun because it allowed me to be creative. I want to learn more about the watercolors. The projects that we are working on are so incredible. They open up a space for us to be creative and to dig deep in our minds for wild and fun ideas. This class helped so much with the type of art that I'm currently making. I now include inking and watercolors to my art. This class was educational and super fun.

Ayana Hall: I have learned how to design and create a new character. I also learned a bit about color and how to use intense colored pencils. We combined these skills together to create a character sheet and a scene with the same character. My favorite project was initially designing my character. I also really enjoyed coloring in my drawings. I am interested in learning more about how to use the intense pencils. I like that we were not greatly limited on what we wanted to create. I also liked the experimentation for the different parts of the project. This class has inspired me to create more works based on the character I made, as well as working more with color and color mixing. This is a really interesting class so far and it really just inspired me to create more works in general.