michael

COOL SCHOOL CAMPAIGN

Here are some "COOL SCHOOL" final pages.  Please finish up these assignments so you can start the next assignment.

In class exercise:

The Obey logo is from the artist Shepard Fairey; Fairey is the artist who made a major contribution to the Obama campaign by designing the Hope posters.

Shepard Fairey has a keen understanding of advertising and propaganda.  He is strongly influenced by the artwork of Andy Warhol who also worked with the idea of repetition.  He understands that to change social structures or society through design, you must create a very simple message and repeat it over and over again.  Andy Warhol says "The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away and the better and emptier you feel."

Fairey took Warhol's philosophy and applied it to Politics.  Before the 2008 campaign, the concept of an African American president was literally a joke made by Dave Chappelle.

People actually laughed at the idea that the president could be anyone other than a white male of anglo-saxon background.  This is because people had been looking at white male anglo saxon presidents since the birth of the country.  It had no meaning.  It was a given.

During the 2008 election, Barack Obama began looking very intelligent, well spoken and likable.  But this wasn't going to be enough to get him elected.  The mere concept of an African American president  had to become "normalized".  This is where Fairey jumps in.

At the time, Shepard Fairey was a midlevel successful graffiti artist.  He had shown in galleries and on the streets, had a clothing line and had made a career through making art.  But he wanted more than just financial freedom.  He wanted to change the world.  He grew to like Obama's speeches and applied his artistic concepts to the politcs of the time; thus, the HOPE posters.

Replacing Andre the Giant's face for Barack Obama, and replacing the word "Obey" with "Hope", he helped Obama become the first African American president.  But, more importantly, through design he changed the minds of millions of Americans.

Today in class, we are going to continue with our theme of "cool school".  We are going to attempt to change our own personal attitudes ... about ourselves.

Before you can change the world around you, before you can develop any type of positive attitude, before you can respect or love anyone else, you have to have a respect and love yourself.  While this might sound cheesy at first, I wish to point out that the messages you see around you every day are fighting to make you feel lacking.

The whole point of most advertising is to make you feel like a have not.  If you buy the products shown in advertising, all of a sudden all of your problems will be solved, the heavens will open and you will live in a state of walmart bliss.  Advertising does this by tapping into your insecurities.

Observe the below image of David Beckham drinking pepsi.  Beckham sponsoring Pepsi is a subconscious way of pepsi saying "If you drink Pepsi, you'll be able to play like David Beckham."  This is beyond ridiculous.  Do you really think David Beckham chugs a 20 ounce bottle of Pepsi before playing for the LA Galaxy?  Of course not.  He'd probably dehydrate before half time from all the sugar in him.  But because Pepsi is everywhere, you don't bat an eye at this advertisement.

"Nevermind what's been selling, it's what you're buying." - Ian MacKaye


Today, we are going to make advertisements for ourselves.  Instead of living in a world where you constantly feel like a have not due to the silly images around you, start feeling cool by creating your own campaign.  Remember:  If Andy Warhol is correct "The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away and the better and emptier you feel."  What if you lived in a city where your face was everywhere and the association was you were "cool"?

Why not try and make this a reality?


Today, draw an iconic self portrait or what you think is cool within the cool logo.  When you are finished, your job will be to campaign the logo.  To campaign the logo is not a requirement.  It is an opportunity and a personal experiment.  Surround yourself with this simple, positive message.  See if it has an impact of your psyche.

http://www.coolschool-anime.blogspot.com/

Juan has gone DIY and has made his own blog.  Fantastic.

Drawings by Steven and Jian

Dice Rolling illustrations

From now until April break, we will be running exercises to polish our skills on story structure, perspective drawing, human proportions, developing personal anime styles and "remixing" our previous interests and influences.

In an attempt to increase our "visual vocabulary", today we will be play a dice rolling drawing game. If you are completing a previous animation, illustration or comic book, you may continue this project at this time.

Nouns:
20 sided dice
1. Pirate
2. Picachu
3. Chef
4. Egyptian God
5. Master chief
6. Barney the Dinosaur
7. Blake Griffin
8. mr. Turnbull
9. Viking
10. Godzilla
11. Zombie
12. Samurai
13. Motorcyle Dude
14. Annoying roommate
15. Wizard
16. Dwarf
17. Spaceman
18. Football Player
19. Octopus
20. Flying Monster

VERBS
12 sided dice
1. Running
2. Slicing
3. Learning
4. Crying
5. Laughing
6. Biting
7. Listening
8. Flying
9. Eating
10. Destroying
11. Creating
12. Vanishing

If you are not working on an independent project, please roll a 20 sided dice and a 12 sided dice and then ILLUSTRATE the following NOUN and VERB. If you finish, continue this until the end of class.

If you do not already have an independent project and have finished 3-5 illustrations with significant effort, please begin writing 1 PERSUASIVE paragraph as to what you'd like to do for a final project that we will start after the April break in two weeks. Your choices for a final project are:

* Developing a series of GIF animations of complexity and length
* Your own feature comic book
* A series of ILLUSTRATIONS
* A role playing game: you are the DUNGEON MASTER!

Please write what you'd like to focus on; story structure? Perspective drawing? Realistic drawing? Iconic drawing? The more information, the better!

GREAT work on the remix project! It went very well.

Kenneth Animation

Great job Kenneth on his animation. Notice how even slight movements in animation make a big difference.

Today in class I will project on the wall various figures and references from perspective. For the first half of the class I'd like us all to work on our figure drawing and perspective drawing. Do not feel the pressure of doing a "good" drawing. See this as a relaxing exercise similar to shooting free throws or doing jumping jacks. What this exercise is doing is getting your eyeballs and hands "warmed up" so you can take on personal projects. Make these drawings YOURS. Have them be something you enjoy. I will show a few examples.







After our figure drawing, you will have the option to further continue or drawing or finish an outstanding project. While this occuring, I will be showing an educational video about adaptation called "Everything is a Remix". We will watch this for the remaining time in class.

Thanks
Mr. Turnbull