SelfPortrait/ Esquire Spots

Self-portrait fit for a chosen market

Size: determined by artist

Think about the market exercise we did in class and determine one market or group of clients that you think your work is appropriate for (children’s, YA, game design, editorial, natural science illustration, etc). Create an interesting self portrait of yourself geared towards that market/ client. Feel free to take artistic license (for example, you may picture yourself as a parrot or a young child). Remember that you are “translating” your image into your illustration, so it does not have to be ultra-realistic or painfully obvious.


Final Due: Feb 2



Editorial: Esquire Spot Illustrations

Size: the image will reprint as a square spot illustration.
(Your image must be square but it can be made at any scale of your choosing. If you work way too small just because it would be reprinted at a small size I will ask you to redo it.)

Illustrate one of the two following short articles that appeared in Esquire, a men’s magazine targeting males ages about 20-40. Editorial Illustration is full of many styles and approaches, from modern, sleek styles to colorful and cartoony images . Create something that fits with the article as well as your artistic vision. Stay away from obvious solutions or clichés.

OPTION 1: “Breast Tattoos”
Nice tattoo. Of a bird. On your breast. It's a delicate species you've picked out. What is it? A sparrow, a starling, a kingfisher, a tree swift? It's life-size, right? And it's in mid-flight, which is hopeful. It looks happy, ecstatic, in the midst of a paroxysm. For a while, we thought the nonthreatening-animal tattoo was dying out, that the dolphin on the ankle would be the extent of it. Or the butterfly on the wrist. Then came the birds on the belly. They're landing on a remarkable place now. The cleavage. That sacred parcel. Anywhere else on the body, a tattoo is an adornment, but on the breasts, it's a badge. What it stands for, we have no idea. Why it's there, we can't begin to guess. How you think that area could possibly be improved is a total mystery. But it's one hell of a tattoo. Woodpecker?


OPTION 2: “How to Drink Alone”
• Don’t use it as a warm-up. It’s a prelude to nothing. Drinking alone must be an event unto itself. It’s never about getting sloppy, or lucky, or even happy. Beginning and end, make it a choice. A gift, not an escape. It’s about raising your awareness, not dulling it. Be neat, small of affect, businesslike.
• Start in the afternoon.
• 2:30 is universally a good time, since the bar will be empty, the bartender busy stocking the coolers, wiping down bottles.
• Forget bar chatter, since it’s about drifting, forgetting, passing time without noticing. Instead, quietly pay attention.
• Drink liquor — whiskey.
• Get a beer back, if you must. Gin is acceptable too, but don’t put anything sweet in it.
• Ignore the television.
• Listen a little. Enjoy the muffled aural measures of a bar waking up. Watch the door or the window instead. Draw connections to the world outside, even as it recedes slightly from perception. Notice the angles of light, the pulse of the traffic, even the evolution of customers who drift in as the day twists down to its nub.
• Read a paper, sure. A book is good too. Crack the spine and lay it flat on the bar. Read, don’t pretend to read.
• Don’t eat. Drinking alone is not about buffalo wings.
• Look up often.
• Jukeboxes are an acceptable diversion, though don’t ever select Cat Stevens when drinking alone.
• If a friend happens in, do not demur. Instead, take it as an irrefutable signal that the meditative event of drinking alone is over. You aren’t alone anymore. Buy him a drink and, after a reasonable juncture, leave. Give him what you came in for. A little solitude, with liquor. There’s no shame in it.

Sketches Due: Feb 2
Final Due: Feb 9