Aaron Leighton

this week on drawn.ca. The post is about his work on an
iphone app for kids.

Click here to find out more:
http://drawn.ca/2009/12/21/tickle-tap-apps/

Here is a link about the game:
http://zincroe.com/

Nic Wassill

Nic is a third year VCD student, on his blog he has posted a just completed school project that involves combining photoshop illustration, sculpture/model building, and photography
to create a short comicbook.

To see more visit his blog here:
http://wazzysketch.blogspot.com/

Design Class

Janine Vangool has posted some pics of students and their work from her 4th year design course at ACAD.
To view go here:
http://www.uppercasegallery.ca/vscd410/2009/12/7/the-big-crit.html

Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

Jacqueline is an ACAD illustration grad now living in Scotland.
Her blog is here:
http://chubbybroccoli.com/

Jeffrey Gibson

http://www.calgaryherald.com/Workers+move+home+into+office/2249223/story.html
The above is a link to an interesting Calgary Herald article featuring ACAD design grad Jeffrey Gibson. He and several other freelancers have set up a "co-working" office called CoWorkYYC.

Here is a link to CoWorkYYC-
http://coworkyyc.com/

Zahra Al-harazi

In the lastest issue of Avenue magazine (November 2009) ACAD design dept alumni Zahra Al-harazi is listed as one of the Top 40 under 40 in the Calgary business community. The 39 year old creative director and founder of Foundry Creative mentions her key to success- "Success is going after what makes you happy." Al-harazi says, "I love what I do and hope that comes through."

Here is a link to the article-
http://www.avenuecalgary.com/top-40-under-40-2009

Doug Fraser - development process

Doug (ACAD Alumni) has a great post about the creation of this image for Absolut Vancouver.
Includes lots of process and development.

http://www.drawger.com/aircool/?section=articles&article_id=9173

Afterward - Sam Weber

Last Thursday, The Stanford Perrott Lecture Theatre at ACAD was near full of students, faculty, and alumni who were lucky enough to be given a glimpse of what is behind the work of illustrator Saw Weber.

I remember a quote by Norman Rockwell where he mentioned that the power of his work wasn't so much in his depiction of the picture, but rather the sentiment behind it. I would argue that this is the same for all successful illustrators, and in fact, is not limited to the art itself. The power of Sam Weber's work is not only on the surface, but in the heart and intellect of the artist that fuels it. Check out his work, and if you get a chance to hear him speak it is well worth it.
www.sampaint.com

The following are images from a 4th year illustration class.

Works in Process

The Annual Illustration and Character Design Show wrapped up this week. As the title, Works in Process, suggested the show displayed what visual communications is really about - PROCESS. Kudos to Tivadar Bote and Charles Bell for sacrificing the sore thumbs to put the reams of sketches, comps, roughs, and thumbnails that showcase what illustration and character design students do with their time.






Some of the artists shown here: Kara Eaton Love (2&3), Julia Tiller (4), Kim Smith (5)

Thursday November 5, 2009

It is exciting to have Illustrator and ACAD graduate Sam Weber visiting the Alberta College of Art and Design for a Public Lecture next week on Thursday November 5th at 7:00 pm in the Stanford Perrott Lecture Theatre. http://sampaints.com



Also that evening the Annual Student and Alumni Show in the Main Mall of ACAD will be having an opening, well actually a closing celebration for the show from 5-7 pm.

Vehicle Calgary Launch Party

As posted previously, Graduate Tyler Jenkins has started up a magazine featuring a whole whack of ACAD alumni.
They are having a launch party this Friday. A Five dollar cover includes a copy of the magazine.
Go here for more info:
http://www.vehicle-magazine.com/?p=355


Vehicle Magazine will be hosting its first Calgary event at Art Central on the 23rd of this month. There is lots o’ fun to be had, an art auction, drinks, eats, awesomeness, and an airplane race (please see invite for instructions). Please send us your e-mail or address to info@vehicle-magazine.com to get your extra special invite today!


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Vehicle Magazine Art Central Event

Calgary, Alberta - October 16, 2009 - Vehicle Magazine is proud to present the debut of the second issue of their publication. To celebrate, the creative team is throwing a release party on October 23rd, from 6-10pm at Art Central (205-100 7th Avenue SW) in downtown Calgary. Live music by Lindsay Clinton for ambiance and refreshments for your comfort. Bid on both original and print artwork in the silent auction and earn your title as Top Airplane Ace in the Paper Airplane Race extravaganza!

Vehicle Magazine is a locally produced publication advocating local and international talent in the world of modern narrative. In its short life, Vehicle has garnered critical acclaim and earned a Joe Shuster Award nomination for works included in the premiere release. Vehicle is soon to be distributed across North America and Europe in January, 2010.

Cam Christiansen

This week, Cam Christiansen, a designer/motion graphics artist/animator/inventor (in general, a superbly motived creative innovator) spent a day inspiring the students of Kevin Kurtnik's animation class.
Cam, a 1993 graduate of the ACAD painting department also gave a comprehensive overview of his career and experiences. Beyond enjoying the great work that Cam has done in the commercial and art field I really got the sense of how passion, creativity, dedication, and hard work leads to success as an artist.


If you missed it, Cam has generously included a link to the content he showed in the presentation here:
http://anlandastudio.ning.com/page/acad-presentation

Also visit Cam's Digital and Design sites, lot's of superb work film and graphic:
http://www.anlanda.com/

This image from his Sundance Film Festival Officially Selected short film I Have Seen the Future:
http://anlandastudio.ning.com/page/i-have-seen-the-future-4


Below is a post from Cam's blog offering insight on his trip to ACAD:

Spent the day with ACAD students and Kevin Kurytnik who invited me to sit in on critiques and present. It is always refreshing to hang out with students and I enjoyed seeing there motion graphic work. Many interesting projects and fun to see the thought processes behind the work.

I often feel reluctant to dive too far into critiques as have some scars from past experiences (beware of black turtlenecks) and not always convinced that the process was all that helpful. Generally I have always felt it is better to find like minded people who are passionate about what they do and just make stuff you are into and not worry about criticism. The idea being if you do not share similar values you can sometimes get derailed and or confused by the critique which is what I feel happened to me in the past. You can get scared to make things , self doubt takes hold and you start to hear other peoples voices in your head. Generally I think its better to develop a strong viewpoint and personal perspective. Punk hated Pop, Pop hated Rock, Rock hated Techno, Techno hated ? ?? etc.... Sometimes being opposed to things is a galvanizer but can yield strong perspectives. I realize this is an unusual view on education but looking back is what I think if honest.

Anyway that said I found this class critique had very productive tone and was impressed by the way it was set up all credit to Kevin Kurytnik. It was a good experience and made me feel less hard core and stubborn about the usefulness of critiques. Perhaps if I had more experiences like that I wouldn't be so cranky. It was a pleasant surprise and nice to be proven wrong.

Mark Gervais + Hallowindow

I've posted Mark's work previously, but it's the perfect time to look at some more. Here is a link to a brilliant idea of his:
www.hallowindow.com

Quoted from the Hallowindow site:
"My name is Mark Gervais and I’m an illustrator and animator living in Calgary, Canada. A few years ago I had the idea to try decorating our home on Halloween with some of my animated art work. Using a projector was the only way to make the animations large enough and with the snow that year I had to keep the projector inside. Hence, Hallowindow was born."


He had me at the word Zombie.

Another Tamaki (Lauren)

Student Profile: Lauren Tamaki

This illustration/typography done by Lauren Tamaki for Shoppers Drug Mart new beauty shop experience "Murale", is starting to show up in their advertising. An exciting experience for a student currently entering her 3rd year in the VCD program of ACAD.

Check out Lauren's website at:
http://www.laurentamaki.com/

It's also on the inside of their bag, fun!


http://www.murale.ca

Jillian Tamaki - Reject-O-sketch

Jillian has posted a gallery of rejected sketches on her drawger.com blog. Pretty interesting.

http://drawger.com/jilliantamaki/?section=gallery&gallery_id=814

Quoted from Jillian: It's a collection of Rejected Sketches. Perfectly acceptable, "actually pretty nice!" sketches that never see the light of day, unless I can shoehorn them into somewhere else (which sometimes works).

Mark Dulmadge and Factory 1969

Here is a link to a Herald article about Graphic Designer and ACAD alumni Mark Dulmadge.
Mark designs screen printed T-shirts inspired by his passion for hotrod graphics.
His family has a long history in the automotive industry and it's interesting to see how he has kept up the tradition through design.
Here is the link to the article:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Auto+obsession+hotrod+shirt+brand/2031757/story.html

Here is a link to his website:
www.factory1969.com

Geoff McFetridge and Where The Wild Things Are

Here is a link to an excellent article on Designer and ACAD graduate Geoff McFetridge. Talks about his collaboration with Spike Jonze for the movie Where The Wild Things Are.

http://flavorwire.com/39487/where-the-wild-things-are-in-designer-geoff-mcfetridges-studio-interview-typographics

And here is a link to a post about Geoff on the movies' blog.

http://weloveyouso.com/2009/09/geoff-mcfetridge-2/

Ed Kwong in Applied Arts Magazine

ACAD Alumni Ed Kwong is in the current issue of Applied Arts Magazine. In the 'Young Blood - New Talent Commanding our Attention' section. http://www.edkwong.com/


The same issue includes several of the 2009 grads,
as part of their Annual Student Awards issue.
Here is a link to the student award winners:
http://www.appliedartsmag.com/students_winners.php

The image below is from advertising grad Teresa Leung.

Owen Demers

Owen Demers graduated from ACAD in 1983, then called ACA. Currently he works as a visual effects artist in the film industry on films such as this summers G-Force as well as Watchmen, Monster House, and the Matrix sequels among others. He has also written the industry standard book "Digital Texturing and Painting".


I was introduced to Owen Demers work when a fellow classmate of his was visiting the art college. It was during one of those where are they now conversations. It's always fascinating where people end up after art school. In Owens case, initially it may not seem that far away, he is very much in the arts. But, when you start looking in more detail, he has travelled a long and fascinating journey in his impressive career.

Below is a portion of Owens biography taken from a show in 2008 titled "Visual Amalgam Show, A Film Industry Artist Gallery Event"
About Owen Demers:
I grew up in Calgary, Canada and attended the Alberta College of Art and Design. There I studied painting, printmaking, graphic design and illustration, obtaining a BFA. Since then I have explored a myriad of mediums and messages through theater, performance art, film, graphic design, freelance illustration, CD Rom games, writing and music…(see above note about distractions). I now find myself in the film industry as a senior painter working on projects such as the Matrix Sequels, Constantine, Monster House, Beowulf, Eagle Eye and presently, Watchmen, to name a few.
When I am not painting I am usually reading or drawing in my favorite cafe, playing guitar or fast asleep on my couch in a pile of candy while the TV flickers light across my head.


Beyond his impressive body of work, Owen Demers is highly regarded as an educator through his influential book "Digital Texture and Painting". Below is a description of the book from Amazon.


This book takes you outside the studio and walks you through the museum of life. This full color book combines traditional texture creation principles with digital texturing techniques to enhance your scenes and animations. In the first half of the book, you will learn about the history of textures in fine art and in the second half, how to apply these principles to your 2D and 3D digital scenes.

If you are involved in the world of 3D in any way—or even if you're simply a student of art and design theory—please take a look at this book. It's an amazing piece of work, exploring the theory and practice of applying texturing maps and paint effects to models and scenes. Yet somehow that doesn't do the book justice, possibly because author Owen Demers grounds his discussion in such solid fundamental ground that the book comes off as equal parts museum catalog, art school text, and industry profile. Face it, most 3D students and professionals have limited skill sets in art theory; yet these people are expected to turn out ever-higher quality work to keep up with audience expectations. We're beyond the days of dancing gasoline pumps... the release of Final Fantasy signals a new benchmark for mass-audience expectations of realistic quality in 3D. Want to know how to do this stuff right? Check out [digital] Texturing & Painting. Each edition of the New Riders [digital] series addresses a distinct discipline: Character Animation; Lighting & Rendering; and now Texturing & Painting (editions on modeling, compositing, and more are in development). What makes Owen Demers such an expert? He's the guy behind the incredible surface texturing in Bingo, the proof-of-concept digital short made with Alias|Wavefront's Maya when it first released. I still remember people walking out of the theatre at SIGGRAPH shaking their heads in disbelief after seeing the hair, the pores on the skin of the characters... "How did they DO that?" Owen teaches you what you need to know before you fire up your software.

This is a link to an excerpt from his book found on the IT University of Copenhagen website:
Philosophy of Color

Here is his Owens full film credits at IMBD:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1366772/

This is the Amazon page for his book:
Digital Painting and Texture by Owen Demers

View the entire biography and his artist statement at the website for the Visual Amalgam show here:
http://visualamalgam.com/?page_id=188

And last but not least, here is a link to his website:
http://odemers.com/

Back to School!

The new school year begins next week, and I am keen on getting the After Art College Blog going again. Looking forward to finding out what everyone is up, both students and professionals.

I thought I would start off with a pretty neat publication titled:
VEHICLE - An Anthology of Contemporary Narrative.
It's a magazine published by ACAD illustration graduate
Tyler Jenkins.
I got a chance to preview the newest issue (#2) and it looks good. It includes work by a ton of ACAD graduates including the cover by Chelsea Cardinal.

Head over to the magazines website for more info:
http://www.vehicle-magazine.com/

Curtis Sorensen

Curtis (ACAD VCD grad) has a cool exhibit titled 'Good To Be Here' now showing at The Gallery - Street Life and Styles located at 113-1013 17th Avenue SW.

Joy Ang - Spectrum Show at Society of Illustrators

I dropped by the Society of Illustrators website and noticed something familiar!
The above image advertising an upcoming show featuring work from Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art
happening September 1 - October 17, 2009.

The image is one created by graduate Joy Ang (currently working at Bioware - I believe).
Joy created this wondrous illustration while still at ACAD.

Here is a link- societyofillustrators.org

Julie McLaughlin

Julie and several other ACAD graduates will be featured in an exhibit this week (opening tomorrow) to go along with Sled Island.

Check out her fabulous posters here: http://www.gigposters.com/designer/72359_Julie_Mclaughlin.html


3rd Annual Sled Island Poster Show
Opening reception: Tuesday, June 23th, 6pm
Dates: June 23rd-June 27th, 2009
Venue: Artlife Gallery (1314 1 Street SW)

More info here: http://www.sledisland.com/3rd-annual-sled-island-poster-show.html
(The image shown is from last years show)

Interesting Article

This is an interesting discussion for illustrators.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/business/media/15illo.html?_r=3&ref=business

Student Award News

Recent graduate Rob Milton was the student video award winner at the 2009 Big Rock Eddies Awards. Congrats Rob!
The video is cropped in the embedded version below, to see the proper video visit here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WwhDhiy4uI


Rob's website: http://www.robmiltoncreations.com/

....................................................................
(Note: The following images may not be the award winning pieces)

Fellow graduate Sander Henriksen has been chosen for inclusion in this years Creative & Quarterly 16.
He has recently launched his portfolio website check it out here: http://www.sandersketch.com/


Julia Tiller (now entering her 4th year at ACAD) was also selected.
Check out her sketch blog for some inspired sketching:
http://mega-tigre.blogspot.com/


....................................................................
Several Character Design students have been selected for this years 2009 Applied Arts Student Awards Annual. (I will update the design student winners as soon as I get more info.)

Anna Shulyakovskaya
website: http://www.annasillustration.com/


and Douglas Nhung .
blog: http://www.easydugit.com/

Karen Klassen Sketchbook

Head over to Book by it's Cover to see to get a glimpse of ACAD graduate Karen Klassen's sketckbooks, great stuff!

http://www.book-by-its-cover.com/sketchbooks/sketchbook-series-karen-klassen

4 Scotts

Some works of the recently graduated. All illustrators and all with Scott in their name.

Kyle Scott
blog: http://kjscott.wordpress.com/

Scott Kowalchuk
blog: http://scottkowalchuk.com/

Scott Carmichael
blog: http://scottdraws.wordpress.com/
Photography by Nick Wong

Justin Scott
blog: http://justinscottcreative.blogspot.com/