The Secret Language of Comics: Visual Thinking and Writing

Category: Student Posts

Sketch 2

Student Posts

Saturday morning I woke up to “Dekalb County Boil Water Advisory” signs posted all around campus. As a drinker of “unhealthy amounts of water,” as described by my friends, I was finding it quite difficult to find enough water this weekend. The ESC was only giving out two bottles a day and the jugs at the DCT had an off taste. When the time came to work on this Sunday Sketch, I knew exactly what to sketch. I took a bottle of water, and made it angel-like by drawing wings and a halo. This was the perfect depiction of my feeling towards water at that moment.

Tag: sk2

Surfing The Web

Student Posts

The idea of sketching a picture for class was daunting and then adding the element of a 3-D object almost made me want to burst into tears. As I sat in my bed scrolling through my phone on Twitter I had a revelation. Even though I get on the internet every day, as mundane of a task it is, it is one of the biggest privileges I’ve been given. That’s why I decided to name my sketch “Surfing The Web” because the depth of information and knowledge the internet can provide is as vast as the ocean.

I started off my drawing by laying down the phone as a surfboard. Next came the difficult part, trying to draw a person as they ride the “Wave of Knowledge”. After I drew the man, I drew waves and the horizon line to add more depth to the picture.

Link Back to Prompt: https://eng181f19.davidmorgen.org/assignments/sketches/sketch-2-sunday-sketches/

VSCO Ballerina

Student Posts

This week’s Sunday Sketch was intimidating. I was traveling this weekend, and I wasn’t sure, after reading the prompt, that I would have creative capacity to conjure an idea for this assignment.  I needed a common object, one that would be accessible from both my house in Nashville and my dorm in Ashbury circle, lest I start workshopping an idea around an item at home only for it not to fit it in my backpack /one carry-on. Looking around my bedroom at the things I knew would come back to Atlanta with me, the idea for the VSCO ballerina came to me.

Like earrings or a choker necklace, scrunchies are accessories I am not often seen without. I knew I must use one if I did not yet know what for. The idea for making a tutu out of a scrunchie came naturally. Dance was a significant part of my life for most of my life. From ages 3 to 14, I trained in classical ballet in Nashville Ballet’s academy. I recently reacquainted myself with dance through taking a jazz class at Emory.

In drawing this week’s Sunday Sketch, I exercised my ballet muscle memory in a way that surprised me: I was able to illustrate a human form – ballet sculpted arms and legs – without reference or stencil. Demonstrating this ability on paper, I realized that my image of the human body contorted with ballet technique is still crystal clear in my mind, left over from hours a day spent in front of mirror-paneled walls wearing tights and a leotard. Drawing this figure – ambiguous and silhouetted – with such ease and assuredness, reminded me that the preteen dancer with dreams of principal roles from I am long distanced is still inside me.

VSCO Ballerina

Early Bird Catches the Worm

Student Posts

By Ja’Mya Yancey

Early Bird Catches the Worm
Image Credit: Ja’Mya Yancey

My Sunday sketch this week is of the encounter of a bird and a worm. The way I got this idea is because I always have my key holder on me, always playing with it 24/7. When I first saw that we had to use a 3D item, the first thing I thought of was my pineapple that I attach to my key holder but then I realized how difficult that would turn out for me. Not that this was any easier, as many birds as I went through. But the key holder reminded me of a worm and because most of my classes are early, whenever I get on snapchat the filter I see is one like this. The early bird catches the worm! I added the little commentary of the worm as well to signify how most of the time I wake up and expect a perfect day but little do I know something is about to ruin the day in 0.1 seconds. It’s always those early classes that sometimes hit me a little too hard. So it’s true, the early bird does catch the worm in this sketch.

BUFFOONERY AND INTIMIDATION PERSONIFIED

Student Posts

Funny and scary, intimidating yet goofy, clowns are something I hold mixed feelings about. I’ve always thought clowns to have a daunting vibe. Yes, they induce laughter, yes they personify buffoonery, but their large jumpsuits and big shoes make it hard for me to stay engaged in their performances. I only see big shoes and jumpsuits when I look at objects, particularly glasses. 

If I view my glasses vertically, the image of a clown with big boots always comes to mind. The lenses represent the boots and the sides represent a part of the jumpsuits. I darkly shaded the upper area around the lenses to make the boots distinct. I continued to make the lower part of the jumpsuit with the sides, deliberately making the legs longer and the upper body shorter to add a clumsy look (unnerving for me). A few stimulating shapes were added to the jumpsuit to not make it look bland. I purposely made the gloves with a mickey mouse style and decided to go with a Danny DeVito hairstyle, with an arrow stuck in his hair. A distinct face paint design was added that would make most people uncomfortable and possibly empathize with my opinions on clown appearances. The link to the assignment is here.

Tesla’s Thunderbirds

Student Posts
Batterybirds by Dean Criser

When replacing batteries earlier this morning, I had a spark of inspiration: electric jet planes. So after gathering up a few Duracells and one AmazonBasics, I sat down with some colored pencils and prepared to craft a masterpiece that fired on all cylinders.

Those cylinders, however, must have been feeling the groove of Marcia Griffiths, for they were electric sliding everywhere; I’d place one down with delicate precision, and then another would go for a party ride across the page! It took a long while, but when the stars and batteries aligned at last, I finally began to draw.

First came the flames of fiery yellows and reds, which were closely followed by the wings and cones of our soaring vessels. I know it doesn’t make sense that electric jets have exhaust, but since I myself was exhausted while drawing this, I’m going to chalk it up as a metaphorical discrepancy.

With the batteries in place on my pencil-scratched page, I took out my phone and lined up the shot, and to sum it up in two words, it’s electric!

Link to prompt: sk2

Sk 2: Kings of Neon

Student Posts

When choosing what object to use for my multi media piece I took the time to notice the everyday objects in my life and look for ones with interesting shapes that I could harness for my project. When I was getting ready one morning I noticed the unique silhouette of my hairbrush and its handle’s similarity to the neck of a guitar. I decided I would use the hairbrush for my image but make it less conspicuous by facing the plastic needles downward on the page, thus drawing more attention to the outline it created. Since the hairbrush is bright pink, I decided to stick with a neon color palette to tie the piece together better. Since part of the guitar was blocked by the horizontal plastic bars of the brush, I chose a neon yellow for the hole in my guitar in hopes that it would shine through better. I added some bold lightning jolts in order to help animate the piece and help the viewer envision its radiating sound. For my title, I did a play on the rock band “Kings of Leon”, which fit my piece both for its neon colors and its musical focus.

Find the Sk2 prompt here:

Sketch 2: Sunday Sketches

Sunday Sketch #2

Student Posts
Who knew fruit could be this much fun?

Although I love to draw and doodle, I know I’m not the best artist. However, this doesn’t stop me from letting my creative side from putting pencil to paper, or brush to canvas.

In this sketch, I decided to use a banana as a slide, and drew some stick figures around it to show how the slide worked. This idea came to me very unexpectedly, as I was trying to figure out what I was going to use as an object to draw around. I had been looking through the examples posted on the website for some inspiration, when all of a sudden I saw my banana across the room that I had saved from lunch. I remember thinking to myself that I really liked the idea of using something that has organic curves in it, as you can use those curves for so many different things.

Originally, I wanted to use the banana as a gun, and have a hand holding it. That idea faded when I remembered Banksy had already done that, and his version would definitely be better than mine. I then thought of using the banana as the smile for a face, but thought doing that was kind of the easy way out of this project. Eventually, I came back to the organic curves of the banana and the idea of the slide popped into my head!

Sawyer Steinmiller: Sunday Sketch #2

Student Posts

For my Sunday Sketch, I decided to combine my favorite game, bananagrams, with my favorite plant, the banana tree. Bananagrams has been my favorite game forever. My family and I would play it every night when I was a kid, and my friends and I would play it almost every night in high school. Normally, I don’t have the best vocabulary, but that all changes once I’m playing bananagrams. My mind goes into this competitive state where I truly feel happy and involved. I have played so many times that I know how many of each letter there are in the bag and the probability that each letter would come up. Not only do I love bananagrams, but I also love the banana tree. When my Grandma was alive, she taught me everything there is to know about the banana tree. She and my Grandpa lived in rural North Carolina where banana trees are not native, so it was extremely difficult to tend to. My Grandparents were not busy people, so they spent lots of time tending to their massive garden. Because of this, I learned the ins and outs of the banana tree. When I am retired, I am sure that I will have at least one banana tree in my garden.

One artistic choice that I placed in the piece was that I made some of the bananas ripe while others had yet to ripen. Each banana represents a piece of my independence, and the more ripe a banana is, the more independent I am in some aspect of my life. Although I have many ripe bananas stemming from my lived experiences in high school, I still have many bananas that have yet to ripen. These bananas will hopefully become ripe during college or beyond. I also incorporated a word coming out of the bananagrams bag. The word I chose was ‘security’ because the more independent I get, the less secure I feel. When I was in high school, I was inclined to take lots of risks because I knew that I could always fall back on my Dad once I failed. In college, taking risks is a lot more difficult because with the independence of living on my own, I also lose the security net that my Dad gave me.

Here is the link to the Sunday Sketch assignment.

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